The air is heavy with steam, making my breaths ragged as I hold on to her. She clings her arms tightly around my shoulders, hugging me as I listen to her soft panting in my ear. I pull her off the wall and simply hold her. Feeling her naked body with mine. Savoring having her this close to me. Bared to each other with nothing but trust.

She draws her head back to look at me, and when she does, she brushes her lips across mine, breathing into me, “I love you.”

With those words, I use my hands to move her, and when I do, I find it hard to stand with the pleasure that courses through me. Being inside of her like this, nothing separating us, it’s an intensity that takes over my body. I turn so I can rest my back against the glass as I lift her back up and let her descend slowly down on me. Her legs are tight around my hips as I steadily maneuver her up and down.

It’s hard to hold on to everything I’m feeling in this moment, and the pleasure moves us to the floor of the shower. I sit back against the wall as she keeps her legs wrapped around my body. The air is thick and she’s all around me as I watch her. She’s stunning with her soft eyes on me, her labored breaths escaping her lips, fingertips pressing into my back as we move together. Never in a rush, because I need this. Every piece of this.

“God, I want you,” I say on a heavy breath, and she braces her arms around my neck, using the leverage as she sways her hips into me.

“You have me.”

When her body begins to respond, she drops her eyes to mine. I don’t even have to tell her, she just knows. It’s my security of knowing that she’s always with me in this moment. Never wanting her mind to drift. It shouldn’t be the reason, but it is, and it’s something that, even though it originates from such an ugly place, has become something I can redeem with her, because she’s so beautiful when she comes.

My muscles tense up when I feel her spasm around me, moaning my name in the heat of the air as we both lose ourselves to each other. The pleasure she gives me radiates through my entire being, and I clutch my hands to her hips when our movements begin to falter as passion takes over.

She’s incredible. She doesn’t know it, and if I told her, she’d deny my words, so I don’t speak. We just remain like this, together, on the bottom of the shower as our tired bodies collapse against one another.

We decide to stay the week here, so after Candace spends a couple of days with my mom, shopping and dining out, leaving me to fend for myself, I choose to steal her for the day.

We went to Astoria this morning for a late breakfast with Tori and the kids, and now I’m driving her up to Washington to take her to Long Beach to drive her along the water and spend the rest of the day together.

When we get there, I pull off the road and onto the sand, and she asks, “Are you sure this is okay?”

Laughing at her, I say, “Yes. Everyone does it.” When I pass a sign that states the driving dates for the beach, I point, and tell her, “See. There’s the proof,” with a smile.

It’s still cold this time of year, and today can’t be any higher than fifty degrees, so aside from a group of guys hanging out, the place is pretty empty. We drive along the water, and I get a kick out of her laughing the whole time. The simple fact that driving on sand can make this girl so giddy is a trip, and I’m enjoying every giggle coming out of her.

Pulling away from the water, I find a spot back by the sea oats that’s already set up for a fire. I pull the jeep up the beach and park.

“You wanna grab the blankets?” I ask as we get out of the car.

I open the back hatch and pull out the firewood to start a fire while Candace bundles up. Once I have the fire going, I sit next to her, wrapping the blankets around the both of us as she cuddles into me.

“I had fun at Tori’s this morning,” she says as she clutches the blanket to her. “She’s really nice.”

“Yeah, she is.”

“So her mom is Donna’s sister?”

“Uh huh.”

She laughs quietly, saying, “It’s hard to keep it straight.”

“It’s my mom and her two sisters. And then all my cousins are girls as well,” I explain. “Tori and I always linked up because of our age, and she’s really into surfing too, so we get together a lot to hit the beach.”

When the wind kicks up, she turns her head and rests it on my chest. “I was wondering something.”

“What’s that?”

“If that’s the house you grew up in, why does your mom still live there?”

“I don’t know. I asked her that not too long ago,” I tell her. “She told me that she loves the house and that she chooses to remember all the good memories we had there.”

“What about you?” she asks as she looks up at me.

Adjusting to pull her between my legs, I lean back against the log lying behind me before answering her. “It’s hard for me to remember anything good. Being in that house is sometimes hard on me. I’ll see things that remind me of a particular beating and stuff like that, and it dredges up a lot of shit for me.”

She lets go of the blanket and wraps her arms around me, asking, “Why did she stay?”

“Honestly . . . I never asked her. Now that I’m older, I would just assume that she was scared. Worried about how she would support the two of us if she did leave.”

She doesn’t say anything, just leans into me as we hold on to each other. I stare into the fire when I continue to talk and explain, “My dad was a frightening man. I was terrified of him. Scared he was going to kill my mom one day. He would drink heavily and lose control. You never knew how far he would go. I used to sit and watch him beat her, scared if I left that he might go too far and I wouldn’t be able to help her.”

“So you watched?” she asks, horrified.

“I couldn’t say anything because every time I would scream for him to stop, he would just go harder on her, making it worse.”

“I can’t even imagine. But what about you?”

“He hated me, Candace. At least with my mom, he had once loved her. But never me. He didn’t give a shit what he did to me. I was always walking around in pain. Broken ribs, concussions. That’s mostly why I started using X. It just felt good.”

She looks at me, and I watch her eyes puddle with tears that don’t fall.

“And nobody ever knew? Nobody helped you?” she questions.

“The only other person who knows, beside me and my mom, is you.”

“No one in your family?”

“Only you,” I tell her.

“Does Donna know that I know?”

“No.”

She shifts to her knees and faces me. I know she doesn’t know how to respond to everything I just laid on her, so I take away the pressure when I hold her face and kiss her. She grips my wrists with her hands, and I keep my eyes open as I watch her tears finally fall.

I pull back and wipe her cheeks before I lie us down on the pile of blankets in the sand, the only heat from her and the fire. I’ve never unloaded this weight that I’ve been carrying for years the way she allows me to.

“You’re the strongest person I know,” she whispers against my neck.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“Before I met you, I hid everything. I was selfish and used people. I was weak.”

“But you’re not now. I don’t see any of that in you,” she says, and I know the only reason for that is her.

After a few more days, it’s time to head back to Seattle. I’m finishing packing our bags while Candace gets ready in the bathroom. Having this week away has been good for us. And having her here with my mom makes this connection that we have so much stronger.

Needing to grab a few things out of the bathroom, I don’t knock when I see she has left the door cracked. When I open it, she startles as she pulls down on her sweatshirt.