“Tyler, please…” He moved forward and I stepped back again.
“Don’t ‘Tyler, please’ me. You’re a fucking asshole, Dean. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you!” I sobbed again, nearly collapsing to my knees. Dean sprang towards me and held me in his arms. I let him and sobbed into his chest. I let him take me, consume me, comfort me because I desperately needed it. I desperately needed Dean to take it all away.
But he could never take it away because, at that moment, I remembered. I pushed and punched at him with all my strength. I was pounding my fists in his chest and Dean just stood there and let me, never losing his grip. “Let me go!” I screamed, but it was a wasted effort. Dean was determined to hold me. Determined never to lose his grip.
“I’m never going to let you go again.”
Those words were it for me. I melted into him and cried all my tears. I cried for Jeremy. I cried for all the people I lost. Most of all, I cried for my best friend in the whole wide world. The one I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. He was comforting me, but he wasn’t the same person anymore. He wasn’t my Dean. I had lost him the day he decided to hurt me. The day he decided to break my heart in two.
“I’m so sorry, Tyler. I’m so sorry. I want to spend the rest of my life saying that and the rest of my life making it up to you. I love you so much.” He pulled away and cupped my face in both his hands.
In that instant, I was captivated by those piercing blue eyes. The ones which haunted my dreams and evaded my thoughts. He had me now. And I hated and loved him even more for it.
“I love you, Tyler O’Shea. I love you.”
Without thinking, I grabbed him and pulled him towards my lips. The fireworks suddenly surrounded my head. I was falling back under that spell of his and, right now, I didn’t care to come back up. Pushing my tongue in, Dean accepted straight away, growling into my mouth. My heart rate picked up and my loins suddenly felt like they had come to life for the first time in four years.
If I thought it couldn’t get any worse, Dean pulled me tighter into his body and I felt that familiar growth between his legs that I came to know and love. As he kissed me, he stroked my cheek tenderly, but gripped my waist with a brute strength that set the fires raging. My Dean was here, but so was my Lotus. My ultimate fantasy, my ultimate love…my ultimate nightmare. He was here and it was anything and everything I imagined it to be.
Surely I couldn’t do this. Surely I couldn’t possibly let him in when he had been the one to cause all the destruction around me. His spell was strong, surrounding me in its deadly warmth. I had to get away before it was too late. I had to get away before he completely owned me.
Somehow finding the strength, I pushed away, only then realizing I was still crying. He stared at me with a mixture of shock, hope, and desire that always sparked the same reaction in me. But I couldn’t let that hold me back.
“I can’t do this.” I shook my head and stepped around him. I had to get away before he trapped me. I had to be stronger than this.
“Tyler…” His voice sounded desperate as he held his hand out to me.
“I can’t do this,” I said again. I ran towards the exit gates and down towards the nearest side street. The rain was still pounding down on me, but I welcomed it. With each drop, it washed away my terrible sins and, despite knowing it couldn’t be true, I hoped with all hope it would wash away Dean, too.
As I neared the entrance to an alleyway, I felt a hand tug on my arm and he pulled me as far into the alley as we could go. Before I knew it, Dean had me up against a wall. For a moment, we just stared, our breathing harsh, our hair and clothes soaking wet. I couldn’t seem to move and, right then, I didn’t want to.
“You destroyed me, Dean. I loved you. I would have done anything for you. But you took that love and made it into something ugly. You made yourself into something ugly.” I shook my head through the rain and tears and looked into his pained eyes. “I would do anything in my power to have my Dean back.” I lifted my hand to stroke his cheek. Closing his eyes, he leaned into my touch. “The boy who used to climb into my window nearly every day. The boy who would do anything to avoid kissing me or touching me because he was waiting for me. The boy who, on my twelfth birthday, placed a Hula Hoop crisp on my finger that I didn’t take off for two days because I was desperately and hopelessly in love with him. The boy who would have done anything to see me happy.”
Dean’s eyes flared open and watched me for a second before he placed his forehead on mine. “I can be that boy again. If you’ll let me, I’ll make you the fucking happiest woman in the universe.” Dean gripped his eyes shut, then opened them again. “I will do anything it takes, Tyler. Anything to make you happy. But, please, don’t ask me to let you go because I can’t. I can’t lose you again.”