Picking up my hand, he laced our fingers and laid the back of it on his thigh. With a finger and thumb, he pulled my chin to him so I could see directly into his eyes.

“Blessed and blissful are two very different ideas. Things don’t make you happy. Inner peace and bolstered self-worth do.”

Understanding and acceptance swirled and swelled in the expression of his face, and the very same well-rounded nature that’d made me feel comfortable before made me snap.

I just couldn’t wrap my mind around how he managed his thoughts and accepted my own as completely plausible no matter if they agreed with his or not. He didn’t have to feel it himself to get it, and I envied the ability.

“How in the fuck are you so well-adjusted with two dead parents, and I’m fucked up while mine are very much alive?”

He cringed slightly, and my own reaction didn’t take long to follow.

“Jesus.” I dropped my head into the cover of my one free hand, lifting it and meeting his eyes again a few seconds later to apologize. “That was a terrible thing to say. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He shrugged. “And it just is what it is. Internal battles aren’t always dependent on the external. If that was the case, all kids from broken homes would lead broken lives, and every nurtured child would flourish.” He shook his head. “That’s not how it works.”

“But a broken past makes it more understandable.”

“Nah,” he denied with a smile. “Just predictable and boring.”

“I just feel like I’m sucked up in a tornado, spinning and spinning and hoping with all that I am that I’m gonna land somewhere soft.”

He shrugged again, studying the rips of my hands and pulling them even tighter into his body.

“I know you feel mixed up and abused. I know you can’t tell what direction is what, let alone which of them is right. But I think it’s just because you need to slow down and take everything one step at a time.”

He smiled. “Love is like over splits. You can’t expect to give into it all in one sitting. But if you work at it, warm the muscles gradually, your body will eventually accept it as normal.” The bulk of his shoulder nudged my much smaller one lightly. “It might even feel good.”

Love?

The muscles in my throat seized and closed it off, shutting my mouth in a way that rarely happened anymore. I couldn’t form a response. Racing and racing, the words and sentences fluttered through my mind without making sense and with a flat-out refusal to slow down so I could make an attempt to figure it out.

And as the moments passed, silence eerie and unavoidable, everything that was us came to a halt.

All of Nik’s carefully placed and meaningful words—straight into the void.

It was cowardly and immature and indirect in a way that was so unlike the two of us. When we disagreed, we did it, telling one another, schooling one another, or in my case, emphasizing the point with a slap or a shove. But I couldn’t bring myself to confront this talking point. I couldn't look at it, couldn’t listen to it, or accidentally touch it with a ten foot pole.

I was leaving for training camp tomorrow.

It wasn’t like I was off to war or anything, but it was a destination of isolation and distance. And it required a plentiful amount of focus that I couldn’t afford to sacrifice to thoughts and wonderings about him.

He must have sensed my panic—it was hard to miss—and moved on without reproach or penalty.

The more time I spent with him, the more I started to wonder if he had been to some kind of saint training.

His patience seemed endless, the depths of its pool stretching all the way to the center of the earth.

Wanting to give him something in return, some confirmation that he meant something to me even if I couldn’t find a way to say it, I leaned over slowly and settled my lips onto his.

A breath left his lungs almost immediately, a mixture of relief and happiness and satisfaction.

As much as we fought each other and as much as I fought myself, it all came down to this.

A connection, tried and true and real in every possible sense of the word.

Some people bring you peace and others mix it up, but what Nik showed me was that I had never really lived either.

Safe but unsatisfied, gymnastics had been just that as the years passed—a place to be.

I wasn’t content but I wasn’t scared either, and the combination of the two was enough to keep me there much longer than it probably should have.

His hands moved to my neck, pulling me up and into his lap, a leg straddling each side and my lips firmly on his. He kissed and I kissed back, opening my mouth to him and allowing his tongue to take control.

From turmoil to need, my belly shifted and coiled and begged me to give it some kind of absolution.

Down the front of my shirt, his hands skimmed the fabric with care and reverence, hooking at the bottom of the hem and retracing their steps up when they did.

The night was quiet and deserted, only the two of us and the sounds we made to keep us company. His groans fed my moans, and his touch mirrored the direction of mine.

My hands went to his hips, and his followed suit, squeezing and kneading my exposed flesh with the pads of his fingertips.

One hand left my hip to pull the shirt over his head, his skin clinging to mine with the damp of the air nearly immediately.

We moved together and apart, friction heating the connection and making my entire body flush with need.

He laid his shirt on the sandy ground and me on top of it, stripping my pants and panties in one smooth motion and kissing the path left exposed.

My eyes closed as his tongue lapped between my legs, and the arch of my back stretched as though on a tightening string to the moon.

The air around us shimmered, water droplets and lightning bugs and bright flashes of pleasure all mixing together to create one of the most impressive shows I’d ever been privy to.

He stood, shoving his own pants down and rolling on a condom, and then settled back between the waiting space between my legs.

His eyes held mine as he entered me slowly, his lips a scant millimeter off of the surface of mine. Our breaths mingled and mixed, concocting a new recipe of scent and sensation that I would forever associate with this moment.

A slow burn built in my belly, sliding into my limbs and spreading into my chest with each thrust. In a test of flexibility he ran his hand down my leg to my calf and lifted, up and out to the side and around, until the center of that muscle settled fully onto his shoulder.

My legs in a full split, I marveled at the feel of him, deeper and thicker and even more present in this position. I could feel his every inch, and he could feel mine, and the only thing that would have made it better was being able to admit that he was it for me.

That the rest didn’t matter—not the things or the expectations or the people.

He started to shake, and his lips met mine, urging me to find my pleasure faster before he found his.

I pushed myself and fought it at the same time, wanting the ultimate high without wanting it to end.

“Callie,” he whispered, desperately close to his climax. The seconds immediately after seemed empty, desperate to be filled with more words of declaration. Of promises, of dreams, of love.

But I closed my eyes and let go, welcoming the freedom of my release as I orgasmed, screaming into the silence and breathing heavily into the shell of his ear.

He groaned just as I finished, my peak driving him to his with laser like precision.

I could feel him twitch and pulse inside me at the same time that my body held onto him and refused to let go.

Breaths mingled as we came down, kissing and pecking and sucking at each other with gentle affection.

His hands felt like heaven, and I’d finally gotten over the fear of using mine. They scratched and pulled at the smooth skin of his back, but he keened, relishing the feel and letting me know it.