The silence stretched, thin and fragile, holding the weight of his unspoken answer and her desperate question. The air he exhaled warmed her face, a ghost of the intimacy they'd once shared. He didn't speak. Instead, he moved.
It wasn't sudden. It was a slow, inexorable closing of the space between them, each step a silent apology, a plea. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic drumbeat of panic and aching want. She could have stepped back. Her legs refused to obey.
His hands came up, palms rough and warm against the delicate skin of her cheeks, cradling her face as if she were something precious, something breakable. A sob caught in her throat. His thumbs, calloused from a life she'd never fully known, stroked gentle arcs just beneath her eyes, smudging the moisture gathering there.
Then his forehead pressed against hers. The contact was electric; a current of pure feeling that short-circuited every defense she'd spent five long years building. His eyes, those hypnotic dark pools she'd drowned in so long ago, were only inches from her own, filled with a pain so deep it mirrored her own.
Her world narrowed to this single point of contact. The sterile office, the distant hum of LA traffic, the framed degrees on the wall—all of it dissolved into a meaningless blur. There was only the scent of him, clean soap and something uniquely, painfully Zane. The feel of his beard grazing her skin. The thunderous, shared rhythm of their breathing.
"Brianna," he whispered, her name a prayer on his lips, so soft it was almost inaudible.
The sound unlocked something inside her, a dam of emotion she'd reinforced with therapy and time and sheer force of will. It shattered. The words came out on a broken breath, a secret she'd carried for an eternity, confessed into the sacred space between their mouths.
"I still love you..."
Her voice was a thread of sound, barely there. She felt him go utterly still, his breath catching.
His fingers tightened almost imperceptibly on her cheeks.
"...in this eternity and would still in any others."
A low, ragged sound tore from his chest, a groan of pure, unadulterated agony. His eyes squeezed shut, and for a terrifying second, she thought she'd ruined everything, that her vulnerability had shattered this fragile moment. But he didn't pull away. He leaned harder into her, his forehead a solid, comforting weight.
"God, Bri," he breathed out, his voice thick with emotion. "Don't. Don't say that if you don't mean it. I couldn't survive hearing that from you again only to lose it."
"I mean it." The words were stronger this time, laced with a conviction that surprised her. All the therapy, all the healing—it hadn't killed this love. It had just buried it alive. And he had dug it up with a single touch. "It never went away. It just... hurt too much to look at."
His thumb traced the line of her cheekbone; a touch so tender it made her want to weep. "I broke you. I see it now. I was so buried in my own shit, in the desert and the noise and the fucking darkness in my own head... I thought I was protecting you by letting you go. I thought you'd be better off without my mess."
"You made the choice for me," she whispered, the old hurt surfacing, sharp and acidic. "You didn't fight for me. You just... disappeared. Your messages got shorter. Your calls stopped. You made me feel like I was nothing. Like I was a chore." A fresh tear escaped, tracing a hot path over his thumb.
He flinched as if she'd struck him. "I know. And I will spend every damn day of the rest of my life trying to make you understand that it was never you. It was me. I was hollowed out. I had nothing left to give, not even to the one person who mattered most. I wasn't strong enough for you then."
He opened his eyes, and the raw, unfiltered regret in them stole the air from her lungs. "But I'm stronger now. I've spent years getting my head straight, working through the baggage. It's not an excuse. It's just... the truth."
His gaze dropped to her lips again, and this time the heat was a slow, smoldering burn. The air between them changed, thickening with a tension that was as much about the past as it was about the terrifying, exhilarating possibility of a future. Her own eyes flickered to his mouth, to the lips she remembered with a clarity that was downright cruel. The memory of his kiss was a phantom pressure, a haunting promise.
His voice dropped to a husky murmur that vibrated through her very bones. "What do I want?" he repeated her earlier question, his breath mingling with hers. "I want five minutes of your time to not be the man I was. I want to prove that I can be the man you deserved all along."
He shifted his head, just a fraction. His nose brushed against hers. A simple, intimate gesture that felt more profound than any kiss they'd ever shared. Her pulse raced, a wild, frantic rhythm against the press of his thumbs. The air crackled with unsaid things; with the ghost of every touch they'd ever shared and the blazing promise of every one they might yet.
She could feel the solid wall of his chest mere inches from her own, a magnetic pull she was fighting with every fraying ounce of her willpower. The space between their lips was a chasm and a sanctuary. One move. One tiny, inevitable lean forward...
His gaze, dark and intense, held hers captive. "Can I?" he murmured, the question hanging in the charged air between them, a request for so much more than a kiss.
Hello, as you see this is part 3... I might write one or two more parts so stay tuned!
