Because I can and because I need her.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Teagan
Present
Kissing him like this is everything. It’s coming up for air. It’s drowning. It’s feeling as though I have everything I want, but not really knowing if it’s real. Derek’s hands cup my cheek, his thumbs brushing against the skin in soft caresses, and I melt.
I give myself permission to just feel and catalog the senses. I inhale the sea air, allowing the slight sting of the salt to flow through me. My fingers run though his soft hair, the strands feeling as though they were meant for this exact moment.
He licks against my lips and I open to him. I’m his right now. I am taking and giving because resisting him is the last thing I want to do.
“Teagan.” His deep voice rasps over my name, and I vow never to forget the way he sounds. How full of need his words are.
Derek’s fingers drift down my arms and then snake around my back, pulling me tighter against his chest as the kiss goes on.
Time seems to stop or maybe it disappears completely because this moment is perfection.
Every time that I imagined this, I was so far off. I couldn’t have known that it would feel this good. There’s not anyone who would have been able to articulate how one kiss could make my world flip upside down, but that’s what he’s always been for me.
A game changer.
“Tell me you feel this,” he says against my lips.
“I feel it all.”
Derek pulls back, the moonlight behind him, which should make it impossible to see him, and yet it’s as though the sun is around us both. I can see the desire in his eyes. I can taste the want that pulses between us and the apprehension that we’re both trying to make sense of.
I want him, but God, if it doesn’t terrify me.
Giving in to this has a potential for disaster.
“If I had known…”
I touch his face. “You would’ve what?”
“I would’ve come for you. I would’ve not been such a fucking pussy and told you everything. I would’ve been at your door each day until you let me in and forgave me.”
“You wouldn’t have had to work that hard. I don’t know that I could’ve resisted you,” I confess.
He smiles with a soft shake of his head. “I think we both know you wouldn’t have been that forgiving.”
“Maybe not,” I admit as I rub the beginning of his five o’clock shadow. “I might have made it difficult for you, but I think we would’ve been right here after a few days.”
“You have no idea what I’m feeling.”
“Tell me.”
Derek takes my hands in his, our fingers intertwining, and he steps back. “First, there’s regret for the fact that we didn’t have this sooner. All this time that we’ve wasted. Years of anger that has built up. I have fear because I don’t know if you’ll ever truly forgive me, just as I’m not sure I forgive myself.” I start to open my mouth to say something but he continues. “More than anything, I want you, Teagan. I always have. I want to lay you down on this blanket and make up for all the time we’ve lost. I want to worship you, claim you, make you remember nothing else but me. I feel a need for you that is unparallel to anything I’ve ever felt before.”
As though neither of us could take another second, we both crash together. Our hands are on each other, holding the other closer. My chest is so tight to his there’s no space. I want to absorb myself in him and become one.
His words ignite a part of me that I thought might be lost forever—to be wanted.
I’ve longed for someone to see me as more, and he does.
Derek sees the woman I could be. I worry that if I allow the part of myself I keep locked away to come to the surface, the vulnerability will be too much.
His fingers tangle in my hair, gripping the strands and guiding my head the way he wants me. I let him lead, needing for him to keep kissing me.
I slide my hands up his chest, loving the low, deep, filled-with-lust sound that emanates from his throat.
God, this is going to end with us naked if we don’t stop it.
“Derek.” I breathe his name, not sure if I’m asking for more or warning him it’s too much.
And that’s the thing. It’s both.
He must take it as the second, though, because he gives me two soft kisses and then rests his chin on top of my head, struggling to catch his breath.
We stand here, with the sea at his back as I cling to him, unsure whether if I let him go, this will all disappear.
Derek seems to mirror my thoughts because he looks down at me and shakes his head. “Is this real?”
“I really hope so.”
“I do too, Tea.”
The thing is, I don’t know what any of it means. “I feel as though we’re moving too fast, but at the same time we’ve been waiting for this forever.”
He smirks. “You’ve dreamed of this?”
Oh, please. Like I’m going to admit that. “And you haven’t?”
“I most definitely have.” Derek’s warm hands glide up my arms, sending a delicious shiver down my spine.
All of this is too fast. There is a lot to consider and things that we need to talk about before I go any further. Even though there’s nothing I’d like more than to strip him down and see if the rest of my fantasies are even close.
“Derek, this is…this is a lot.” I take a step back. Maybe a little space will help us.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. It’s all so…much. I’ve been waiting so long for this.” I pause, trying to find the right words. “Chance. This possibility of us, and I don’t want to dive into something that neither of us are really ready for.”
“What makes you think
