Dreaming in Color by Cameron Dane (mobi reader .TXT) 📗

how much I missed you. I often closed my eyes and tried to see it on your wrist. It kept a line to you open. I needed it.”

“Then I'm glad you found it and kept it. I like thinking about you wearing it.” Colin fiddled with the band, adjusting it on Marek's wrist. “Yeah, it looks nice.”

“Thank you,” Marek murmured. He shifted, this time stretching out at a ninety-degree angle from Colin. He leaned his arm across Colin's stomach and rested his head in his hand, facing his lover. “So you're here, you know about my frequent use of your butt plug, so I guess I can conclude you read my e-mails.”

The green in Colin's eyes muted to moss, and his lips pursed a little bit. “I did. Today. Yesterday now, I guess.” Worry lines appeared between his brows. “The time and traveling has thrown my days off.” He tucked one hand under his head, and his jaw ticked with a pause. “I hadn't read them, up to that point. Jordan cornered me, and in that way she has, she nudged me to reconsider. She knew I missed you and still loved you. Everyone did.”

Blinking hard to hold back another wave of emotion, Marek uttered roughly, “Christ, I missed you in the way I missed Payton when he was taken from me.” He wiped his hand over his mouth, struggling to maintain control. “Only, you were still around, somewhere, but I was the one who drove you away, so I didn't have the right to go after you and bring you back.”

“Shh, I know.” Colin took Marek's hand, pressed a kiss to the tip of each finger, and tucked it against his chest when he finished. “It's okay now.”

“I can never thank Jordan enough for deciding to forward my e-mails to you. There were moments where I didn't think you would ever be able to forgive me for what I did to you, and I just didn't know how to handle it. I would send Tag a note or even talk to him on the phone, and he would always just say, 'Is he worth it to you?' I would say yes, and he would say, 'Then get up tomorrow and keep doing what you're doing. Find a way to bring him home.'“

“And what a way you did.” Colin whistled and let his focus wander all around the interior of the house, as if he could see through the walls to the changes outside. “What you've done with the house so far is beautiful and perfect. I couldn't even in my wildest dreams imagine what you were doing down here while I was fighting so hard to forget you.” This time, Colin's voice cracked a little bit. “I couldn't. And when the dreams came back… God, they were so fucking powerful.”

“I get up every day and do this for you,” Marek confessed. “I fall into bed exhausted almost every night. But the labor feels good; it gives me a sense of purpose. I prayed every night that you would come home so you could see it.”

Colin's eyes dampened with empathy, and he rubbed the back of his hand along Marek's cheekbone. “The work you've done to repair this house is beautiful,” he said. “I think Beatrice and Stewart would be very proud.” He looked right into Marek's eyes and didn't blink. “I know I am.”

“Are you really?” Marek's guilt, and hope for forgiveness, mingled and tightened his voice, giving him away, but he could not control the emotional outpour. “I know you said no more apologies, but I have to know. Can you truly look beyond how I sold you out? Or that I withheld such important information about our past the way I did? God knows I love you and want you in my life more than any other single thing in this world, but at the same time, I would never forgive myself if I became a constant reminder of your assault. It would kill me if you looked at me across the dinner table and kept seeing my betrayal, both times. I don't ever want to hurt you again. Inadvertently or on purpose. I would rather give you up and live with the consequences of my mistakes than that.”

Clouds crossed through Colin's gaze, but when he blinked, they went away and a clear stare focused on Marek. “I think your home life must have been hell to push you to what you did, because I know your heart, and I know you aren't cruel. I know you weren't back then either, just from talking to you during our walk that day. That was the real Marek; I know it was. I want you to trust me and be able to talk to me about your family and the home you grew up in one day. I think it will help me understand where your head was all those years ago.”

The ugliness of his childhood reared its head and set Marek's heart to racing. Fear that he would be unworthy if he revealed himself knotted his stomach, but he forced himself to speak through the dryness clogging his mouth. “I can try to do that,” he whispered roughly. “For you.”

“That's all I ask.”

“What about the other?” Marek had to know. “About what I did when you came here?”

“I understand why you didn't confess everything right away. Once I was able to step back from it, I had to admit I might have kept my mouth shut too if it meant getting to spend time with you and hoping you would get to know the real me.”

“That's all it was.” Marek sat up straight and straddled Colin's stomach, clutching his hands. “I liked you so much, so fast, and the thought of never seeing you again or never talking to you again or never touching you again scared me into silence.” A sliver of old fear—that actually came true—cut through Marek and induced a shiver. “The thought that you