Silver Heart by Victoria Green

another series of letters.
    “What does this say here?” I asked as I lifted up his sleeve. It took every bit of strength and self-control I had within me to hold in my gasp.
    Silver.
    “Is that…for that medal you won at the X-Games a while back?” I managed to ask without letting my voice crack.
    “Yeah. The X-Games,” his lips said, but his eyes were telling a whole other story. His sad smile tore apart my heart, but the words that followed sewed it back up. “There’s nothing better than a silver medal.”
    “Most normal people reach for gold,” I told him, tugging his sleeve back down. Before I had a chance to pull my hand away, he wrapped his fingers around my wrist, locking it in place.
    “Most normal people don’t know the value of silver,” he said, gently caressing the sensitive skin above my pulse with his thumb.
    “We’re not talking about medals anymore, are we?” I whispered, shivering under his touch.
    He leaned in and lifted my chin up to his face, once again taking my breath away with a single, scorching look. “Were we ever?”
    At that point, it was no longer just my body that was doing the melting. My mind melted right along with it. But it wasn’t just the meaning behind Sawyer’s words that took away my ability to think. It was his low, gravelly voice. And that silent, severe need in his eyes. His proximity also had a little something to do with it.
    He stroked my chin with his fingers, awaking sensations I didn’t even know existed within me. My skin purred to life under his touch. I felt a sudden craving for contact. I wanted to touch him, feel him, breathe him, live him.
    It quickly became clear that it wasn’t just Sawyer who had changed; it was the way I perceived him—perceived us —that signified the real difference between the past and the present. Thirteen-year-old Dylan had dreamed about holding Sawyer’s hand. Sixteen-year-old Dylan had wished she could kiss him. Twenty-two-year-old Dylan wanted to do hell of a lot more than that.
    All of those versions loved him in one way or another. Even after all this time apart, there was a tiny flame in my heart that burned for him. But right now that flame didn’t symbolize the kind of love that needed to talk about being in a relationship or even cared to resolve issues from our past. No—that flame wanted to ignite in an entirely different way.
    Twenty-four-year-old Sawyer apparently had similar ideas. His hand slid to the back of my neck as he pulled me even closer. “You’ve always had a way of driving me absolutely fucking crazy, Silver. I think I’m finally going to break down and do something I’ve wanted to do for years.”
    In most situations with the opposite sex, this was the part when my overly logical brain would start to panic and begin to analyze the situation. It didn’t happen this time. Not with Sawyer. Every thought inhabiting my mind—including all sense of “right” and “wrong”—flew out the window the moment his lips crashed into mine.
    There was only one state of being: here and now. Here with his arms wrapped around my waist; now as his lips hungrily parted mine so that his tongue could taste me. I had been fantasizing about kissing Sawyer for years, but nothing could have prepared me for this. No one—and I mean no one —had ever kissed me in such a maddeningly gratifying way.
    “Do you know how often I used to imagine biting that bottom lip?” he rasped against my mouth. “How badly I wanted to taste you?”
    His lips were hard, demanding, hungry. His tongue engaged mine in a tantalizingly slow game of tease one moment, only to drive me furiously wild the next. He had me guessing; he kept me on my toes. Every single one of my senses was fully engaged. I wanted to touch and taste more of him—all of him.
    “Do you have any idea how much self-control it took not to touch you?” He continued his barrage of questions and kisses. His words and his lips were wreaking havoc on my body,