“You make me want what I have been running from my whole life,” I hear him confess, but I am so lost in the clear blues of his eyes it doesn’t even register for a few seconds. “No matter how hard I try to fight it, I’m lost to you, Wendy. I always have been. I always will be.”

I search his eyes, trying to see if he’s lying. I believe he’s telling the truth, but my heart is still worried. Still vulnerable. Still so young, trying to understand what this all means.

“Promise me, Peter,” I quickly say before I lose my nerve. “Promise me, you’ll touch me again.” His eyes darken. “The way I want you to touch me.” His nostrils flare. “Next time, when I ask you to. Please? And I promise, I will never let anyone else touch me the way I let you for as long as I live.”

I can tell he is warring with himself as he takes a step back. He looks to the floor. He shakes his head. His eyes close. I swear I hear him talking to himself. I swear he’s going to say no.

Side stepping around him, I hurry out of the room and stop only when I hear him call my name. Turning once I’ve reached the bed, I hold my towel up tight against me, a shield of sorts and search his eyes as he walks into the room.

I find no darkness in his blue eyes. No barriers. Just my Peter.

When he reaches my side, his hand raises, and he cups my cheek. “Wendy,” he breathes. “I promise.”

My smile matches his own and continues to widen as the shadows of night start to fall. But in the far back of his eyes, somewhere that looks like his soul, I see something start to change.

“There is nothing I couldn't or wouldn’t promise you,” he continues, and I swear, right then and there, I fall in love.

I’ve never been in love. But if I had been, I would swear this was the way it felt.

“But not tonight,” he says, and this time when he does, I’m oddly ok with it. “Like I said, let me take care of you.” His head nods in the direction of the bed. “Let me hold you,” he whispers. “All night, just to know that you’re all right.”

His eyes flash with the same dark look I saw in them when he entered that room and saw what the lost boys had done to me. It scares me a little, but the tenderness he just showed me is still evident. Still stronger. So, I hold onto that.

“That’s all I want.”

I nod, knowing that after what I just went through, after what he just walked in on, we both need that more than the touch both our bodies yearn for.