He wraps his arms around me from behind after he put the last dish away. I am getting more and more nervous about sharing my story. Quickly, as if he couldn't wait any longer,  he leans in and brushes his lips against my ear ever so softly. I can not think when he does this. His breath is warm on my cheek and it sends butterflies throughout my body. He whispers words that I don't dare repeat, in a low, sexy rumble. I lean back against him and return his affection. We stay there for a while enjoying the comfort of each other's bodies and the electricity between us. I know he can sense that I am nervous. I don't want to begin the next part of the evening, afraid that it will be the last of these moments that we share.

I can not believe my poor choices have, once again, put me into a place that means I may lose him.

I hear him take in a deep breath. "You smell irresistible," he whispers as he kisses the top of my head and begins to move from my cheek to my neck, "but I must resist...at least for now." Spinning me around, he winks at me while moving farther away. His hands still linger on my hips and his eyes are still that deep blue of desire that I have grown to love. He brushes some hair behind my ear. "We have eaten, we have desserted, we have caffeinated. Now I want to hear all about you." His voice is soft, almost a whisper, how can I refuse him?

"OK," I take a deep breath and square my shoulders, grabbing his arm and pulling him into the living room. It has been set up with candles and blankets. I wanted it to feel as comfortable as his cabin did when he bore his soul to me. It would never, his couch was bigger than mine and the fireplace added to the romance, but I did have this woman's thing for pillows and they are soft and create a cozy space. He grabs a blanket and I sit him down on the couch next to me. It isn't the newest of couches, but it is comfortable and there is more than enough room for two. He wraps a blanket around me and I spin so I can sit facing him. In the candlelight, with the light dancing on his skin, his face reflecting nothing but love for me, I am amazed, at him, at this moment, and at the universe for allowing me to be near him. I lean my head against one arm of the couch and he against the other, our legs tangled. I want to be able to see him when I tell him my story. He grabs my foot and starts rubbing it. It relaxes me. I close my eyes for a second and enjoy the feeling of his hands on my skin.

"Mahri, you should not be so nervous, Nothing you do can make me love you less, nothing can make me like you less, nothing can make me walk away from you."

I take in a deep breath and exhale slowly. "I hope you are correct because I don't think I could stand losing you. You have to promise that you will listen to all of my story and not leave me until I am done."

He promises with a nod and a sweet smile. He draws his body over mine and kisses me, long and sweet. He knows I need it. I need to know of his love for me. Of course, he notices the effect that his kiss has on me. He chuckles and then says, "Sorry for the distraction"

I blush, but lean in and quickly kiss him on the cheek.

He is wonderfully intuitive, the opposite of what he claimed when we talked during Hannah's investigation. I love him with every ounce of who I am.

It is time to start, I can't put it off any longer.

"Well, it starts a long time ago. My mother and my father met in college. My mother, Mahriella, was a political science major. She is brilliant and speaks five languages. My father, Peter, is a journalist or at least he was. He was one of the best. People sought him for stories and his work took him all over the world. That is why we traveled so often.

Anyway, my parents met in California at University. They fell madly in love, got married, and had me and my twin sister, Ella.

Ella was my best friend, the light in my darkness and the other half of me. We were never apart. We ate the same foods, had the same friends, and slept in the same bed. She was free and I needed her to remind me to find joy in the little things. I was always much more serious, much darker. We couldn't be more opposite. That Is why I needed her so badly and why I loved her so fiercely.

When Ella and I were about ten, she fell off of the swing in the schoolyard. They had to fix her arm and run some tests. That is when they found out that she had cancer. I knew that something was wrong before my parents. I think I had known it for a while, but you just never want to admit that stuff, right?" I ask. He nods.

"I called it "twintuition". It is true that sometimes twins are so close that they can feel each other's pain, that they are an extension of each other, and that their souls are intertwined. That is how it was for the two of us. We didn't have to talk, she knew what I was thinking and we felt joy in each other's hearts as well as pain.

She struggled for a while trying to fight the cancer that raged through her body. For a while, I even believed that she would be better. It was looking good and then suddenly, one day, she weakened. I felt it instantly. She had this vibrant personality and it was gone. I was at school and in the middle of class, I knew my sister and her body and I knew that she wasn't going to make it. I called the teacher and said that I needed to contact my parents and get home. I was nearly hysterical. The teachers were sympathetic, but would not let me leave. They assured me that she would be fine. I don't blame them. People without a twin would never understand."

I break down into absolute tears in front of him. These are the kind of tears that are uncontrollable, ugly, and unending. To his credit, He wraps his arms around me and pulls me into his lap. He holds me tight and gives me kisses on the head and the cheek and my hands, finding whatever way he can to comfort me. I bury my face in his shoulder as he rubs my back and whispers in my ear, "Baby, it's ok. We can bear this together."

I grab onto him tighter as my crying is slowing down. He continues to rub my back and continues to speak loving words to me. When the crying finally subsides, he wants to go and get water and kleenex for me. I allow it and when he returns, I climb back into his lap desperate for his warmth and for the peace I feel in his arms.

I slowly begin talking again, "It was just that I felt her leave the earth. I knew the second she was leaving and I felt it when she died. They wouldn't let me say goodbye." I stopped and looked him in the eye. "Jake, I just wanted to say goodbye. I never got to say goodbye."

"I know, Love," he says, "She knew you loved her and she never really left. She still lives in your heart."

"She does," I stop mid-sentence. I know he is trying to say the right thing, "It is just that when it is your twin, there is something that dies inside. It is like a part of you that will always be empty, a part that will never return. I miss her every day. I miss that part of me. My highest moments of joy never seeemcomplete." I pause for a moment, thinking. He turns me around and sits me between his legs and wraps his arms around me as I snuggle into him.

"To say I was never the same is an understatement, but my parents changed completely. They had been attentive, fun-loving parents that wanted to do family things and create memories. With the death of my sister, our family died. They began to travel all over the world, but not for fun. My parents became all about work. They barely paid attention to me or what was going on in my life. They barely paid attention to each other. Dad went on trips all of the time for research. He was always writing some expose. Mom would travel as a social ambassador, always going to someplace exotic.

Often, they had to go to different places and it became difficult deciding what to do with me. They eventually sent me away to boarding school and the trips home became more infrequent until they stopped altogether."

He stops and twists his body around so he can look into my eyes without letting me go. "When is the last time that you saw your parents? Are they still together?"

I nod and respond, "Last time I talked to them, they were still married. That was about six years ago. I assume nothing has changed. They love each other very much. I only called them six years ago because I needed paperwork for a new job. They peppered me with questions like they were actually interested. I got off the phone quickly. They tried to call me back for a while, but when I never answered the phone, they eventually gave up."

"Do you want to have them back in your life? Do you ever miss them?" Jake asked as he stared intently into my eyes.

"I don't know. I guess so. They haven't been a part of my life for so long. I don't really remember what it is like to have them around." I answered, but I wasn't really sure what I wanted with regard to my parents.

He nodded. I knew this was something that we would discuss later. If we were still discussing things after what I was about to tell him. I could see on his face that he was sad that I had a family but that I discluded them. It made sense knowing that he had lost his mom. That wasn't part of this story and that wasn't what we had to discuss right now. I was glad he let it go.

"I still wanted to make my parents proud, even though I didn't want them in my life, so I went into journalism and language. I graduated with a degree in both, and the languages I speak allow me to move between countries rather effortlessly. My father's drive to get to the bottom of the story is something that I definitely inherited from him. It has helped me in my career."

"How many languages do you speak?" He looks curious and impressed.

"Seven, more or less." I smile.

"So all of those times the group thought that you couldn't understand or all of the times that I spoke under my breath, you understood everything.?" He looks a little embarrassed.

"More or less, " I say and smirk.

He smiles and rubs his fingers along my cheek, he is proud of me. That feels unbelievable. His eyes return to their dark sapphire. "I have underestimated you once again. I have to stop doing that. You are the most incredible..." he says as his head moves closer to mine, his fingers on my chin begging me to move closer. His voice lowers, "intelligent..." He pulls me closer and kisses me, a long, deep, sensual kiss filled with attraction and desire. "...and intoxicating woman that exists. I am so lucky that I have you in my life."

The kiss continues and then he pulls away. My lips are swollen. He is slightly out of breath. "I would love to keep this going, but I promised I would listen to your story all of the way to the end. If I start this, we won't make it to the end of the story.."

I know that he is right, but I don't want him to be. I cross my legs so that I can face him. My legs are resting on top of his legs. I need to see his face for this next part and I need to be in contact with him so I have the strength to continue. He holds my hand in his and draws small circles on it with his thumbs as I continue to speak.

"Years went by, and I was always looking for a way to get my name known. I wanted to be as famous as my father was. I was trying to find those good, secret stories, the ones that spoke to the heart of the public, but that also spoke to something deeper. I was in Duskwood as a part of a new job investigating a murder that had happened years before. Walking down the road to get a layout of the town, I saw a house on fire and a man pulling a young girl out of the flames.

I thought this would be a good story to get into the local papers, so I grabbed my notepad to jot down facts. The first person that I ran into was a man, dressed all in black. He was the one who had rescued the girl."

Jake's eyes were going wide.

"I asked him his name and why he was in the area. That man wouldn't give me any information. He looked at me with the most gorgeous blue eyes and then said, 'Ma'am, I only did what anyone else would have done. You should interview the firefighters, they are the real heroes.' Then, he pulled his hood tighter over his face and walked away."

Jake stiffened, his mouth hanging open. I was even more nervous. I wondered what he was thinking, but I knew that if I stopped to ask that I wouldn't say all of the things that I needed to.

"I wouldn't let go of this story or about finding out more about this amazing man who pulled a girl out of a burning house and then just tried to walk away without anyone noticing. I found a red-eye logo on his backpack and wrote it down in my notebook. I followed him for a bit to the bakery across town. He hid in the shadows, but I saw him watching two girls from a distance. He watched for a while. I thought maybe this guy was a weirdo, some kind of stalker, but when he turned around, that is when I saw...you... swipe away a tear, and then I noticed a look of true concern and something else on your face... loneliness maybe?

I lost track of you at this point. I had hoped that I would find you because I had the feeling that I could maybe find out more about you from this woman that you had been watching, so I went back to find her.

I knew that you were hiding from something or from someone and I am not normally one to do this much work for a story that won't amount to much, but there was something about you from the start. I don't know if it was your intense blue eyes or the shy way in which you avoided my question or the way I found a slight smile as you turned away, but I was intrigued. I wanted to know more about you, this mysterious stranger. I knew I needed to know you, that I was meant to know you.

So, I found Hannah and I asked her about a man that might be watching her, someone that had been estranged from her. She said that she wasn't sure. Now we know that she thought that she was being watched. I probably contributed to her paranoia. I had no idea. It is one of my biggest regrets. I was too afraid to admit this to all of you, especially you.

I handed her my number and told her to call me if she needed anything or if she could remember anything about this man. That must have been how she ended up with the number that connected me to all of you. She must have thought I could help and sent Thomas the number a couple of weeks later, right before she was kidnapped.

Jake starts to say something, but I give him a quick kiss and continue.

"I went on a manhunt. I searched all of the dark alleys and talked to all of the people that hide in the shadows, but no one had any information. You are very good at hiding, almost too good.

I thought I had a lead, but then I received a call inviting me, well sort of inviting me, to help find a missing girl. I agreed and I felt like this would somehow lead me to something good. I didn't know it would lead me to the best thing.

So, when I met this secretive person over the internet a few moments after Thomas contacted me, and when I found out this missing person was Hannah and that this "hacker" was desperate to find her, I wondered if it was you. I hoped that it was you. I thought it was too good to be true, but I prodded, made you talk to me. It had been a couple of weeks since I met you for a few minutes, but I couldn't get you out of my mind. I was hooked." I smiled and tried to show him that part of me loved him, even then.

"It took a minute, but then you sent me that video. Though I couldn't see your face, I recognized the sweatshirt and something in the way you carried yourself. I knew that I had stumbled across the lovely man that I couldn't escape. As soon as I knew that it was you, I quit my job for fear that I would inadvertently put you in danger.

You speak of fate and the way that it brought us together. I believe that you are right. Something out there in the universe intended for us to be the other half of each other. In your eyes, I felt the things I had lost with my sister. For the first time in a long time, I could feel joy all the way to my toes and I could laugh from the bottom of my soul. The more we talked, the more I felt, and the more I fell in love."

I paused and looked at Jake. He said nothing, just released one hand to take a drink of water.

"I was honest with you in all of our interactions, except for the fact that I had met Hannah and that you and I had met before. I am sorry for that deception and for the fact that I let it continue as long as I have. I make so many mistakes out of fear and distrust. I was and am being honest in my feelings for you. I love you so much and really believe that I knew that I was going to love you from the first moment that we met. I hope that you can forgive me. I hope that you can still look me in the eye and tell me that you love me."

He sat and watched me, his hand still holding mine though he didn't move. He didn't smile, didn't lean in toward me. I tried to meet his eyes, but they weren't ready to meet mine.

"What are you thinking, my love?" I ask him, trying to snap him out of his daze. I hope that I liked the answer, and I hope that his next words don't break my heart.

He removes his hand from mine and stands up, running his fingers through his hair as he quickly turns toward the door.