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Guilt crashed over me like a wave. Here in the circle of Eric’s arms, I felt safe, protected, and I didn’t deserve one bit of it. I’d lied to him about my past, about who I was. How could he say he still loved me after all that? My thoughts brought on a fresh bout of tears. Through it all, Eric held me close, lending silent comfort.
“I don’t understand you,” I finally choked out.
Beneath my cheek, the muscles of his chest tensed. “What do you mean?”
Reluctantly, I peeled myself away from him and dabbed the tears suspended on my cheeks with the pads of my fingers. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
His left arm dropped to rest on his knee, still propped up on one side of me, but his other hand remained at the small of my back, his touch light but sure. Eric answered my question with one of his own. “How long have you known?”
I assumed he was talking about our entangled past. “I didn’t put the pieces together until you told me about the incident in the warehouse.”
I should have told him that night. Instead, I had withheld the truth and put both of our lives in jeopardy.
“That was just a couple days before you were abducted,” he clarified. I stiffened at the word, but I couldn’t dispute the truth of it. It sounded so dire, so distorted, but that was exactly what Matteo had done. With no regard to myself or anyone else, he had taken me away and done the unthinkable.
“What about the video?” he asked softly.
I flinched and closed my eyes against the memory of it. I wasn’t sure I would ever get those images, the sound of Lila’s screams, out of my head. Eric’s hand slipped up my spine to cup the back of my neck. I blinked my eyes open, and my gaze collided with his.
“The day before the accident,” I admitted softly.
Still staring deeply into my eyes, Eric nodded. “Is that what you were going to tell me that morning?”
I nodded and licked my lips nervously. “I... I knew I needed to tell you, I just wasn’t sure how.”
He was silent for several long moments as he studied me. “I can understand that—but that’s my point. You were going to tell me.”
I nodded faintly at his rhetorical statement, and his fingers tightened ever so slightly around the base of my neck. “You asked me why I’m doing this, how I can just put it behind me.”
His hazel eyes bored into mine. “Forgiveness,” he said simply. “I love you, and I will always forgive you. But you need to forgive yourself.”
Tears sprang to my eyes, and I threw my arms around his waist as he hauled me against his broad chest. I held on for dear life as sobs welled up in my throat then finally ripped free, emotion pouring from me like a tidal wave. It was cathartic, like a cleansing, and after several long minutes, I felt as if I’d exorcised the fear and anger and guilt from my heart.
I slipped my fingers up his chest and rested them on the scar at the base of his throat. “Every time I see this...” I choked out as a shudder rolled over me. “I can’t help but think—”
“This was not your fault.” Eric grasped my fingers and pressed them to the faint pink line. “None of this was your fault.”
“But my father—”
Eric gave a hard shake of his head. “You’re not him. And I don’t care who your father was. All that matters now is you and me.” He lifted my hand to his mouth and kissed my fingers before releasing me. “In some fucked up way, this brought us together.”
I blinked rapidly. “But if he hadn’t—”
“Then what?” he asked as he slipped one hand over my cheek and into my hair. “We lived in Chicago our whole lives and never crossed paths. If shit hadn’t gone down that day, I would probably still be working with my team, and your dad would still be in charge of the family. You could be married off to some mafioso, or in college somewhere halfway across the world.”
I knew he was right, but it didn’t diminish my guilt. “I just wish...”
He seemed to read my mind, because he picked up my train of thought. “I wish things had turned out differently too. I would sell my soul to take back all the hurt you’ve endured.”
His words filled me with lightness. Selfless to a fault, his first thought had been of me instead of himself. Though I knew things between us wouldn’t always be easy, and we would still have to work to overcome our past, I clutched onto the tiny kernel of hope in my heart. “Do you think it will ever go away?”
He shook his head. “No, and I don’t want it to. I fell in love with you because of who you are. I want all of you, forever.”
Shedding the last of my reserve, I swayed toward him. His hand tightened in my hair, and he yanked me forward, sealing his mouth over mine. The kiss was urgent and frantic, primitive and animalistic. Our teeth clashed, and our tongues tangled in an exotic dance as old as time. Wrapping his free arm around my waist, Eric fell backward, pulling me down to the floor with him. I sank my fingers into his hair, shaggy now with recent growth. I’d never seen it this long before, and I twined my fingers in the light brown strands.
He let out a little growl as I turned, and his hands slipped down to cup my bottom, long fingers kneading the flesh. I winced, sucking in a sharp breath, and he immediately released me, ripping his mouth from mine. “Fuck. I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.” He pushed up on his elbows, but I shoved him back down.
“No.”
He cocked an eyebrow as he lay back and watched me. I stripped my shirt over my head and felt his hard arousal swell beneath my hips where I straddled him.
“I need your hands on me—all over me.”
Reaching behind my back, I flicked the clasp of my bra and drew it down my arms. I bared myself to him completely, and he eagerly took up the reins. Tentatively, gently, he placed his hands on the indent of my waist then ran them upward. I let out a little hiss as his thumbs swept along the underside of my breasts, then up and over the hard peaks of my nipples.
He rolled us to the side, taking extra care as he gently lay me back on the rug.
“Good?”
I nodded, and he brushed his lips over mine. I opened for him as he swept his tongue inside, his familiar taste like a balm to my soul. God, I’d missed him so much. I let out a little whimper as he pulled away.
“Right here, baby. Just feel.” He kissed down the cord of my throat, one hand cupping my breast and teasing the stiff point. I shifted my hips as he knelt between my legs, his knees brushing the inside of my thighs and forcing them farther apart. His long fingers coasted over every inch of me, his mouth trailing soft kisses in their wake.
“Whose hands are all over your body?”
“Yours,” I breathed.
“Who’s the only man who will ever touch you?”
“You.” My fingers curled into the thick pile of the rug beneath me as his mouth moved lower. His tongue dipped into my belly button, causing me to jump before he continued his descent.
“That’s right,” he said before kissing the space just above my clit. “Me and only me, until I take my last breath.”
His tongue sliding through my drenched slit took my breath away, and I arched at the heady sensation. Spreading my legs wide and opening me to his intense perusal, he delved back inside, a man on a mission. He stroked and licked and sucked on the tiny nub, each ministration pushing me closer to the edge. A wave of ecstasy crashed over me, and I rode it as it lifted me up, close enough to touch the stars. Then it gradually lowered me back to reality, into the safety of Eric’s arms.
Right there in the light of the moon, he chased away the demons and darkness crowding my mind. He filled my heart with love and joy, leaving no room for anything else.