This is the End 2(698)

My breath caught in my throat as I took in the beauty of the crimson colored flowers. Their petals were soft perfection and a beautiful contrast not just between the gray of the brick they were planted against, but between all of the death and decay we had suffered in today.

After a day spent killing, covered in blood and near death, these roses didn’t just represent the living, they represented life where it shouldn’t be, vibrancy where there should be only viciousness, color in a world of black and white.

For the second time today a tear tracked down my cheek and I couldn’t stop myself from holding out my fingers and touching the soft silkiness of the delicate petals.

“I haven’t seen flowers in a really long time,” I whispered, kneeling down in front of them. The moment was reverent and awed as we worshiped the sight of something so purely innocent.

Hendrix reached forward too, seeming just as moved as me, and let his fingers trail over the tops of them. “Pretty incredible,” he whispered.

“Tell me we’re going to make it,” I pleaded in a vulnerable voice I hardly recognized as my own.

Hendrix heard my cry for help and turned to face me on his knees. I turned too, and we knelt just inches apart from each other next to a rose bush and the Oklahoma wilderness with our hearts bleeding out.

He tucked a stray piece of dark hair behind my ear and met my gaze with his ever-steady deep blue one. “We’re going to make it,” he promised.

And I believed him.

I would always believe him.

“All of us?” I pressed.

“All of us,” he confirmed.

His fingers trailed down the line of my jaw and then the column of my throat. I felt each gentle touch as he moved them along the outline of my body until they intertwined with my fingers. The sunlight played across his tanned features, glinting in his scruffy beard and making his eyes sparkle with life.

“Reagan,” he breathed and my chest swelled from the pure devotion of my name on his lips. I waited for him to say more but for a while he was just silent and serious. Finally, a small smirk played at the corners of his lips and in a lighter tone, he said, “It was close today though, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” I agreed.

He seemed to gather confidence and then said impishly, “Makes you realize what you could have lost.” I nodded but didn’t speak- I had been thinking that for hours now. “Makes you realize that you have things to do before you die.”

I laughed a little at that. I had given up all those dreams a long time ago, and I was surprised Hendrix hadn’t too. “Like what? Go sky-diving?”

Without missing a beat, without taking his eyes off me or changing his reverent tone he said, “Like kiss you.”

And this his soft lips were on mine and I stopped breathing. Sensation and desire flooded me as his mouth moved over mine- consuming me, breaking me, making me whole again. His beard scratched and tickled my face but I reveled in the feel of his body moving against mine.

His tongue swept across my bottom lip and I opened my mouth on instinct. His lips were so perfect they were otherworldly- they didn’t even belong in the dark world we lived in. Nothing this amazing did. And yet here he was.

With me.

He deepened the kiss and I felt him everywhere. I felt his hands as they clutched my waist and dragged me against his firm, unyielding body. I felt his body heat as he drew me into him and wrapped his arms around me. I felt his tongue, the hot wetness of his mouth, his beard as it abraded my skin. I felt his happiness call to mine, his soul drink mine in, his essence consume me until I was entirely captivated by him and his kiss.

We continued to kiss forever, for eternity, for I don’t know how long, but I would never quit. Someone would have to pry me off of him, because until this moment, until I felt the absolute rightness of his desire and want- his need for me- I had stopped believing happiness like this existed.

“Reagan,” he whispered again as he pulled back to rest his forehead against mine.

I reached up and rested my hands against his frantically beating heart. He kissed my forehead again and I melted into him. He was just…. he was everything I could ever want and somehow I’d found him in this ugly world and he made it beautiful again.

He made me beautiful again.

Eventually, he pulled back and stood up. He took my hands and helped me to my feet. With a satisfied grin on his face he promised, “There’s a lot more of that in your future, Reagan. I hope you’re ready for what you just started.”

“What I just started?” I gasped, honestly shocked that he was blaming me.

“Woman, you’ve been begging me to kiss you since the day you fell at my feet.”