Instead, she’d asked him what was for dinner.

They had just kept on ignoring the fact that there was no reason for him to linger.

Except maybe Christmas.

Which neither of them had ever really celebrated.

But they were now.

They were now.

And he took his jeans off, his underwear and everything else. And she kissed his chest, that featherlight touch more impacting than a gunshot ever could be.

And it would leave a scar even deeper. One that no one else would be able to see. But that he would always feel.

And he knew that this was it for him. That this was the only taste of love he would ever have in his whole life.

This few weeks away from reality with her.

Clayton wasn’t a man who had ever believed in miracles. Not once before in his whole life. But she made him believe in destiny, divinity and hope all rolled into one. She kissed his stomach, then went around and kissed that scar. And he drew in a breath so sharp it hurt. So sharp that it cut him. Then she sank down to her knees in front of him, wrapping her hand around the hardened length of him.

She looked up at him, her eyes meeting his, then she stroked her tongue over his body. Over and over again. Giving him gifts he didn’t deserve, gifts he wasn’t strong enough to say no to.

Because he wanted it. He wanted everything in this moment.

Wanted to be baptized in this need and made a new creation.

But it was impossible. For men like him.

It was impossible.

She took him in deep, and he let his head fall back, a prayer on his lips.

Tala.

And it felt unfair. To know that all this time love had been sitting out here in the middle of the woods, but he hadn’t known where to find it.

Knowing that she was real and true and wonderful and... Could never really be his.

But she was his now. The sweet, soft suction of her lips drawing him closer and closer to a heaven he could not stay in.

A heaven he could never inherit. Because in the end, he was damned, and he’d heard there was Grace so amazing out there, but none of it was left over for him.

She teased him, tortured him until he reached the end of himself. Until he laid her down on the floor beneath the tree, looking at the lights in the colorful glow they cast over her bare skin. Until he pinned her hands up over her head and positioned himself between her legs, thrusting home.

Home.

Home was inside her. With her. Home was her. And always would be.

His thoughts fractured as he thrust inside of her, as he lost himself in the rhythm of knowing her. The hot flush of intimacy that he had never experienced anywhere else. That he hadn’t believed existed until her.