As my heart came near to explosion in my chest, the air around us shifted from desperately tense to a dark longing ache, mirroring the glaze over Heaven's eyes. She paid no mind to the tears on her face, nor did I, for I was far too enthralled with the rapture that had taken over her expression, and my entire body. Before I could fall from the precipice of anticipation, her stillness broke and from her trembling lips poured a reaction I had not at all been expecting.
"You're not the one who needs forgiveness," she contended with a sad, fractured voice. "I do..."
My body drifted beyond my control until it stood right next to hers, and I was looking deeply, searchingly into her eyes as my breath caught in my throat with a silent sob. "There is nothing to forgive." My whisper was hoarsely trying to comfort her, take away whatever unfounded guilt she so generously had taken upon herself.
"I... I don't know why I ever believed you when you told me you never loved me. I knew all along that you did," she said softly, "and always will. I was such a fool..."
A shiver shot throughout me as her voice trailed off. She'd known all along I'd been lying? I prayed it was so, prayed the pain of thinking my love was false had never touched her. Oh, please, give me this one bit of good fortune to ease my broken heart! To cleanse my guilt for hurting her so, for ruining the lingering bit of love we'd always hold onto!
"Yes," I replied, the affection in that small word almost choking me. "I always have loved you and always will. God help me, but I always will. Please believe me, Heaven... please, please tell me you too love me still."
Her hands reached out to take mine. The warm silk of her skin enveloped me and created screeching lightning bolts inside my very veins. Slowly she upturned my palms and gazed worriedly at the scars that treaded along my wrists, the everlasting reminder of my weakness, my surrender to the years of suffering I was doomed to live. I nearly swooned as she brought my wrists to her lips to kiss the shiny white scars, tenderly, lovingly, so softly I wanted to meet those lips with my own and kiss away the invisible wounds I'd left on her heart.
"I can never stop loving you Troy," she replied passionately. "If I do that... I'll be killing part of me."
Oh, god, the desperate agony in those words nearly did kill me. A knife sliced right through my chest to think of all the tears she must have shed through the years we had been apart. And a bomb shattered my insides to know that those tears were futile, for never could we be together as we once were. Never could we return to that beautiful winter when she cured the ache inside me, though not completely killed it, so that it could be resurrected and reclaim me with a vengeance, once fate had ravaged our love and made it forbidden and unavailable. And yet, as if to spite the dark cloud hovering over me since birth, I loved her still, I loved her always, and so she would love me.
"No matter who I am with or where I go, part of my heart will always belong to you," she went on, as if reading my mind. "I know you're going to tell me that it's wrong of me to feel the way I do, but I can't let go... neither can you."
"Letting go of you would be letting go of the log keeping me afloat in an ocean that would swallow me whole and steal the breath from my lungs." I inhaled deeply, the breath shuddering past my lips that trembled with desire. "Loving you kills me, Heaven... yet loving you keeps me alive. You saved me when you came to my cottage that fateful stormy night."
"When we found each other all those years ago," she said, the memory of that night coursing through her mind as surely as it was through mine, "it was as if we'd been asleep most of our lives, waiting for the right person to come along and awaken the people we really were. That is who you are to me, Troy."
Her silky ebony hair was a magnet pulling me towards it until my face pressed into it's softness, and I breathed in her scent, her warmth, knowing I shouldn't be touching her even in this small way, but not being able to stop. "If that's so," I murmured distantly, distracted by the urge I felt to wrap my arms around her and the resistance I held, "I'm glad to have awoken your true self lying dormant inside, kept hidden from the world until then. For the woman you truly have become, Heaven, is beautiful in every way possible."
"No other man has been able to make me feel more like a woman than you can..."
I sighed into her hair, gripping the back of her head now tenderly with my right palm. How was it that we always ended up in this position, wanting each other, drawing towards each other, even though we knew it was wrong? Pull away from her now, Troy, before it's too late...
And even as I thought that, my left arm lifted to circle around her waist and pull her closer to me, against my chest, so I could feel hers rise and fall as she breathed heavily.
"Heaven," I choked out painfully, finding some reason in my clouded head, "I should leave now before we do something we might regret."
But she would not let go anymore than I would. "Please don't leave me Troy," she pleaded desperately. "When you leave... I'm always so afraid that this time I won't be able to find you again." She paused in silent hesitation before continuing with a melancholy fear. "When I thought you were going to die... I felt like part of me would die with you."
"A part of me already is dead. The part that cannot live without your love steadily by my side. All that's left now is the hollow shell of a man drifting through time and space, through the long, cold, lonely nights when the only one he loves is asleep beside the husband she is able to freely love."
"I try so hard to love Logan," Heaven replied, but weakly, "and I do love him." It sounded as if she was trying to convince herself more than me. "But something's always been missing," she went on sadly, "and I've always been able to find it with you..."
She lowered her head to my shoulder then, and when I felt her weight against me, my entire form shivered with the deliciousness of it.
"Forbidden fruit is always the sweetest on the tree, is it not?" Again I sighed, fighting with myself to resist the temptation that brewed inside of me. "I don't want to deny you, Heaven, but I don't want to ignore the voice within me that's screaming now to remember what happened to Adam and Even when they tasted the one apple they shouldn't have. It was the greatest mistake of their lives. We cannot make the same wrong turn..."
The blaze in the fireplace snapped loudly then to draw my focus away from the sensation of Heaven's breath on my neck. Distractedly I wondered why there was a fire roaring in the middle of a warm summer's day. Ah, but how ironic, for isn't our love the same? Hot, bright, intense, yet so out of place, so wrong... always snuffed out until it was nothing but smoke floating aimlessly in the atmosphere, suffocating me, suffocating her.
And like the embers that glowed, my skin was set on fire by her touch. The flame of our desire was being fanned with each passing moment we stood holding each other, feeling each other's heartbeat, drinking each other in. Slowly I eased back away from her, only so I could stare deep into her eyes and look for the answers I knew did not even exist. So easily I could lose myself in the blue sky of her eyes... lose my head in the clouds of them so I forgot what was reality and what was simply a dream. Perhaps this was a dream, for it was all unfolding so beautifully that it could not possibly be real. Yes, let this be a dream... and never let me wake up...
Even as my lips drifted towards Heaven's, I knew what was about to come was inevitable and nothing either of us could do would stop the fate that was already in motion. We were but a tragic nocturne in a symphony that had been written long ago, and destiny would bring us to a crashing crescendo, not letting us ever cover our ears to block out the sound that seduced and hypnotized us both.
My mouth met hers with an electric quake and the world around us disappeared. All that existed now was Heaven and her softly urgent kiss, the smooth curve of her neck that fit perfectly in my palm, the racing furor of our hearts that pounded against each other's chest. I knew as I relished the taste of her that never would we be able to resist this, this delicious ecstasy, this magnetic pull that would never weaken. No sense in trying to escape the love that would always flourish even outside the Garden of Eden we had been banished from long ago.
I surrendered any last lingering resistance and wondered if Heaven, too, was as willing as I was, wrong or right, to give in to the burning love, the intense passion we could no longer deny...
"You're not the one who needs forgiveness," she contended with a sad, fractured voice. "I do..."
My body drifted beyond my control until it stood right next to hers, and I was looking deeply, searchingly into her eyes as my breath caught in my throat with a silent sob. "There is nothing to forgive." My whisper was hoarsely trying to comfort her, take away whatever unfounded guilt she so generously had taken upon herself.
"I... I don't know why I ever believed you when you told me you never loved me. I knew all along that you did," she said softly, "and always will. I was such a fool..."
A shiver shot throughout me as her voice trailed off. She'd known all along I'd been lying? I prayed it was so, prayed the pain of thinking my love was false had never touched her. Oh, please, give me this one bit of good fortune to ease my broken heart! To cleanse my guilt for hurting her so, for ruining the lingering bit of love we'd always hold onto!
"Yes," I replied, the affection in that small word almost choking me. "I always have loved you and always will. God help me, but I always will. Please believe me, Heaven... please, please tell me you too love me still."
Her hands reached out to take mine. The warm silk of her skin enveloped me and created screeching lightning bolts inside my very veins. Slowly she upturned my palms and gazed worriedly at the scars that treaded along my wrists, the everlasting reminder of my weakness, my surrender to the years of suffering I was doomed to live. I nearly swooned as she brought my wrists to her lips to kiss the shiny white scars, tenderly, lovingly, so softly I wanted to meet those lips with my own and kiss away the invisible wounds I'd left on her heart.
"I can never stop loving you Troy," she replied passionately. "If I do that... I'll be killing part of me."
Oh, god, the desperate agony in those words nearly did kill me. A knife sliced right through my chest to think of all the tears she must have shed through the years we had been apart. And a bomb shattered my insides to know that those tears were futile, for never could we be together as we once were. Never could we return to that beautiful winter when she cured the ache inside me, though not completely killed it, so that it could be resurrected and reclaim me with a vengeance, once fate had ravaged our love and made it forbidden and unavailable. And yet, as if to spite the dark cloud hovering over me since birth, I loved her still, I loved her always, and so she would love me.
"No matter who I am with or where I go, part of my heart will always belong to you," she went on, as if reading my mind. "I know you're going to tell me that it's wrong of me to feel the way I do, but I can't let go... neither can you."
"Letting go of you would be letting go of the log keeping me afloat in an ocean that would swallow me whole and steal the breath from my lungs." I inhaled deeply, the breath shuddering past my lips that trembled with desire. "Loving you kills me, Heaven... yet loving you keeps me alive. You saved me when you came to my cottage that fateful stormy night."
"When we found each other all those years ago," she said, the memory of that night coursing through her mind as surely as it was through mine, "it was as if we'd been asleep most of our lives, waiting for the right person to come along and awaken the people we really were. That is who you are to me, Troy."
Her silky ebony hair was a magnet pulling me towards it until my face pressed into it's softness, and I breathed in her scent, her warmth, knowing I shouldn't be touching her even in this small way, but not being able to stop. "If that's so," I murmured distantly, distracted by the urge I felt to wrap my arms around her and the resistance I held, "I'm glad to have awoken your true self lying dormant inside, kept hidden from the world until then. For the woman you truly have become, Heaven, is beautiful in every way possible."
"No other man has been able to make me feel more like a woman than you can..."
I sighed into her hair, gripping the back of her head now tenderly with my right palm. How was it that we always ended up in this position, wanting each other, drawing towards each other, even though we knew it was wrong? Pull away from her now, Troy, before it's too late...
And even as I thought that, my left arm lifted to circle around her waist and pull her closer to me, against my chest, so I could feel hers rise and fall as she breathed heavily.
"Heaven," I choked out painfully, finding some reason in my clouded head, "I should leave now before we do something we might regret."
But she would not let go anymore than I would. "Please don't leave me Troy," she pleaded desperately. "When you leave... I'm always so afraid that this time I won't be able to find you again." She paused in silent hesitation before continuing with a melancholy fear. "When I thought you were going to die... I felt like part of me would die with you."
"A part of me already is dead. The part that cannot live without your love steadily by my side. All that's left now is the hollow shell of a man drifting through time and space, through the long, cold, lonely nights when the only one he loves is asleep beside the husband she is able to freely love."
"I try so hard to love Logan," Heaven replied, but weakly, "and I do love him." It sounded as if she was trying to convince herself more than me. "But something's always been missing," she went on sadly, "and I've always been able to find it with you..."
She lowered her head to my shoulder then, and when I felt her weight against me, my entire form shivered with the deliciousness of it.
"Forbidden fruit is always the sweetest on the tree, is it not?" Again I sighed, fighting with myself to resist the temptation that brewed inside of me. "I don't want to deny you, Heaven, but I don't want to ignore the voice within me that's screaming now to remember what happened to Adam and Even when they tasted the one apple they shouldn't have. It was the greatest mistake of their lives. We cannot make the same wrong turn..."
The blaze in the fireplace snapped loudly then to draw my focus away from the sensation of Heaven's breath on my neck. Distractedly I wondered why there was a fire roaring in the middle of a warm summer's day. Ah, but how ironic, for isn't our love the same? Hot, bright, intense, yet so out of place, so wrong... always snuffed out until it was nothing but smoke floating aimlessly in the atmosphere, suffocating me, suffocating her.
And like the embers that glowed, my skin was set on fire by her touch. The flame of our desire was being fanned with each passing moment we stood holding each other, feeling each other's heartbeat, drinking each other in. Slowly I eased back away from her, only so I could stare deep into her eyes and look for the answers I knew did not even exist. So easily I could lose myself in the blue sky of her eyes... lose my head in the clouds of them so I forgot what was reality and what was simply a dream. Perhaps this was a dream, for it was all unfolding so beautifully that it could not possibly be real. Yes, let this be a dream... and never let me wake up...
Even as my lips drifted towards Heaven's, I knew what was about to come was inevitable and nothing either of us could do would stop the fate that was already in motion. We were but a tragic nocturne in a symphony that had been written long ago, and destiny would bring us to a crashing crescendo, not letting us ever cover our ears to block out the sound that seduced and hypnotized us both.
My mouth met hers with an electric quake and the world around us disappeared. All that existed now was Heaven and her softly urgent kiss, the smooth curve of her neck that fit perfectly in my palm, the racing furor of our hearts that pounded against each other's chest. I knew as I relished the taste of her that never would we be able to resist this, this delicious ecstasy, this magnetic pull that would never weaken. No sense in trying to escape the love that would always flourish even outside the Garden of Eden we had been banished from long ago.
I surrendered any last lingering resistance and wondered if Heaven, too, was as willing as I was, wrong or right, to give in to the burning love, the intense passion we could no longer deny...