“Anything.” The word escapes before I even know I’m going to say it.
Chloe takes a deep breath then, and for the first time I notice that she’s trembling. I go to pull her more tightly against me, to warm her up with my own body heat, but she pulls back. Stands firm.
“No more lies. I can take anything else. I can take Brandon, your mother, even the media scandal if my disaster of a past leaks. But you can’t lie to me again. Not if we have any chance of building a future together.”
The words fall into the growing chasm between us.
Fuck.
I know she’s right. And I don’t want to lie to her. I’ve never wanted to lie to her. But she’s fragile right now, her world shaken by the reappearance of my asshole brother, and the last thing I want to do is cause her more upset. More pain.
“Chloe—”
“No,” she interrupts, sounding anything but fragile. Anything but weak. “This is a deal breaker, Ethan. I’ve spent too many years of my life lying and being lied to. I won’t do it anymore. Won’t duck my head and pretend because it’s easier for everyone involved. And I won’t let you do it, either. If you want us to be together, to stay together, if you want me to fly to Vegas and marry you in a few hours, then you need to tell me the truth.”
Chapter 2
Her words echo through the room like the ultimatum they are.
If I didn’t love her the way I do, they’d be easy to ignore. Then again, if I didn’t love her, I wouldn’t be tempted to lie in the first place. Besides, she’s right. I didn’t protect her from what happened when she was in high school and I can’t protect her from what’s happening now. No matter how much I want to.
And still, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here.
The knowledge grates. I’ve spent a lifetime knowing what to do, knowing how to fix anything and everything that comes my way. Now, here, with the only person that has ever truly mattered to me on a personal level, the only person I have ever asked to marry me, I don’t have a clue where to start. Worse, I have no idea how to finish.
There are a million things I can tell her, a million things I can say here and none of them have to be the truth. I think about the phone conversation I just had. About the plan I’m even now formulating to bring Brandon down. Then I think about how broken Chloe was when I first met her—and how much more broken my lies and half-truths have made her.
And that’s when I know that—no matter how much easier it would be for her—I can’t be anything but honest with her. Not after everything we’ve promised each other. Not after everything I’ve put her through.
There’s only one choice to make here, only one thing to say if I want to keep her safe.
“I can’t let it go, baby. I just can’t. Brandon has to pay for what he did to you.”
Her eyes widen, like she wasn’t expecting me to say that. Wasn’t expecting me to tell her the truth. Which is on me—I’m the one who has put her through hell these last few weeks because I didn’t want to hurt her. And because I was too much of a fucking coward not to lie to her. Too afraid that she would leave me to trust her with all the shit we have between us. With the past that’s come back to haunt us both.
“I don’t want revenge,” she tells me. “Not now, not after all this time. I just want to move on. To pretend it never happened.”
“I can’t do that. I know you want me to. I know you don’t want to talk about what Brandon did to you, don’t want to even think about it. And I respect that. I do. But he hurt you. He raped you. And he got away with it. Worse, I helped him get away with it—”
“And I’ve accepted that.” She grabs my hand, clutches it to her chest. I can feel her heart beating strong and steady beneath the surface. “I’ve moved on—”
“You may have, but I can’t. Not now, when he’s running for public office, living his life like it doesn’t matter. Like what he did before this moment is nothing. And I. Can’t. Let. That. Go. Not when you’re—”
I break off before I can say it. Before I tell her that she’s broken. Not ruined, like she’s feared for so long. Not destroyed. But definitely damaged. Definitely broken, with all the jagged cracks exposed.
Except her face falls like I’ve already said it. Or worse, like she has. We’ve been over this ground so many times before. How she’s trying to be okay but doesn’t truly believe that she ever will be.
I don’t accept that. Chloe is strong, resilient, bright. She can do anything she puts her mind to. Even this. Especially this.
I want to fix her. I know she thinks that’s not my job, but I love her and I hate seeing her bleed with every breath she takes. Hate the nightmares that slash her wide open as she sleeps. Hate even more the way she squares her shoulders, lifts her chin as she puts on her armor. Armor she should never have to wear.
Armor I can see her donning right now.
“What have you done?” she demands.
“Nothing yet.” This, too, is the truth.
Her eyes narrow. “So what are you planning on doing, then?”
“I don’t have an actual plan yet.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true, though. I’m still trying to put all the pieces together.”
She pulls me closer then, squeezes my hands more tightly in hers. “Ethan, please. You need to let it go.”
“You know I would do almost anything for you, but there’s no way I can do that.”
Her beautiful eyes fill with tears. She blinks them away, but still my stomach drops. The last thing I want to do is hurt her more than she already has been.
“I don’t care what happened before. It doesn’t matter—”
“It matters to me.” I press my mouth against hers in a frantic kiss designed as much by necessity as desire. Her lips part under mine as Chloe opens herself to me. As she gives herself to me. Completely. Absolutely. Eternally.
The knowledge almost brings me to my knees, as does the wave of desire that washes over me. Swamping me. Flattening me. What is it about this woman that makes me feel over and over again like I’ve been axed by a too-powerful wave?
I start to dive in, to willingly drown in her sweetness, but I can feel the tension in her. The pain she’s trying so hard to bury. It brings me back from the desperate edge of desire like nothing else could.
“Don’t pretend with me,” I tell her. “You can pretend with anybody else, can pretend with yourself if that’s what gets you through the day, but don’t pretend with me. Not about something that hurts you the way this does.”
“Life hurts, Ethan. Everything hurts. That’s just the way it is. I can live with that—I am living with it. But you’re poking at the wound, pouring salt into it instead of letting it scab over. Nothing’s going to come from that but a lot of scars.”
She lets go of my hands, then wraps her arms around my neck instead. And pulls me down to press soft, wet kisses across my cheek. Along the line of my jaw.
“We’re flying to Vegas in a few hours. We’re getting married. It’s a fresh start, for both of us. Can’t that be enough?”
Her words arrow straight through me and my dick grows harder still at the thought that she’ll be my wife in less than twenty-four hours.
“You’re more than enough,” I tell her.
She smiles softly, kisses behind my ear. Down my neck. “Then come back to bed with me,” she whispers when she finally pulls away.
It’s not an answer to our disagreement—but I go anyway, because even though I’ve just had her, I want her again.
I always want her. Always need her.
A few months ago, I didn’t even know Chloe existed. And now—now, she’s my everything. She’s the only thing. My obsession, my addiction, my heaven and—right now, as she asks me for the one thing I can’t give her—my hell.
And still I don’t care. Still I want more.
I follow her across the room, watch hungrily as she drops the robe on the floor before crawling into her double b
ed, holding the covers back for me so that I can do the same.
I do—of course I do—she’s gorgeous and naked and mine. Mine. It’s that thought that’s circling my head when I slide in beside her, that thought that’s beating in time to my too-fast heartbeat as I pull her into my arms. I’m torn, conflicted. About Brandon. About my family. About the fact that Chloe is so adamant about leaving the past in the past. But the one thing I am not conflicted about—the one thing I will never be conflicted about—is the need I have for Chloe.
The craving I have for her is desperate, all-consuming. Never-ending. It slices me open, rips me apart. And somehow, despite that, makes me whole in a way I never have been.
She gasps as I reach for her, trembles. Her hands clutch at my shoulders. Her body arches against mine. And that’s all it takes to tear away the already tenuous shreds of my control. I slam my mouth down on hers, reveling in the way she moans at the first touch of my tongue to hers.
It’s an assault more than a kiss. Mouths slamming together. Tongues tangling. Teeth biting down on vulnerable lips. I try to gentle it, try to rein in the desperation raking razor-sharp claws through my belly. But I can’t. Not when Chloe is in my arms, kissing me with the same need that I feel. Not when her body is soft and yielding and sexy—so sexy—against my own.
I roll onto my back without breaking the kiss, pulling Chloe on top of me as I do. It’s important to her to feel like she has some semblance of control when we make love—and I don’t mind giving that to her. I’d give her the world if I could—if she’d take it. After all, I’ve already given her my soul.
Besides, she always yields so beautifully in the end, always gives herself over to me—and to the storm that rages between us—so completely, that I don’t care how we make love. I only care about being inside her, fucking her, loving her. Over and over again. Now, tonight, tomorrow.
Forever.
“I love you, Ethan,” she tells me as she shifts her hips, lowers herself down on me.
“I love you, too.” My voice is hoarse, my whole body trembling with the ecstasy of being inside her again. It’s only been a couple of hours since I last had her, but it will take more than a night to erase the agony of the last weeks I spent without her. Hell, it very well might take an eternity, but I’m okay with that. Right now, eternity sounds just about perfect.
And then she starts to move and even the idea of coherent thought disappears as pleasure washes over me, pulling me under like a riptide I have no desire to ever escape.
Hot, wet, tight, mine. The words form a mantra in my head, in my blood, pounding through me with each hard slam of my heart against my ribs. Hot, wet, tight, mine. Chloe.
She’s riding me now, slowly lifting up onto her knees until I almost lose her warmth around me, then even more slowly lowering herself back down. Again and again and again she does this, until insanity is only a few trembling breaths away.
Until my every muscle strains violently against the restraint I’m holding on to with bloody, battered fingertips.
Until all that I am—all that I will ever be—is tied up in the dark, rich warmth of her.
Unable to resist for one second longer, I lift a hand to her hair. Tangle my fingers in the fiery curls. It’s not about controlling her—not here, not this time. It’s about grounding myself in her, about having something to hold on to as pleasure rages around me like a tempest.
“I missed this,” she says, even as she takes me deeper. “I missed you.”
Her words echo through me, send fire cascading along my every nerve ending as I get closer and closer to the edge of madness. Closer and closer to losing what tenuous control I have.
She’s on top of me, her legs around my hips, her delicate hands braced on my stomach, her lush, beautiful ass pressed against my thighs. She’s here, right here, all around me, and still it’s not enough. Still I want more. I need more.
Lifting my other hand to her mouth, I rub my thumb back and forth across the crazy pink of her lips. They part on a gasp and then she’s sucking me deep, her tongue circling and stroking and licking even as her pussy clenches around me.
“You’re everything to me,” I tell her, the words hoarse and rough and more than a little disjointed. My brain still isn’t working full throttle, but I need her to know this. Need her to hear this. “Don’t leave me again. Fight with me, tell me to fuck off, give me the silent treatment. Do whatever you need to do. But please, please, don’t ever leave me again.”
Tears glisten on her cheeks as her eyes lock with mine. I feel so exposed, so wide open that for a moment—just a moment—I’m tempted to look away. But then she says, “I won’t. I couldn’t even if I wanted to,” and everything that isn’t Chloe just fades away.
I tug on her hair and she leans down then, presses her lips to mine. It’s too much. Her mouth moving against mine. Her pussy sliding over my dick. Her beautiful breasts pressed into my chest.
I grab on to her hips, pull her down hard. Revel in her gasp as I lift her up and then slam her down again. Over and over and over, I bring her body down on mine. Over and over and over, she clenches around me.
“I’m so close—” Her voice breaks, her breath coming out in little pants that ratchet my arousal up another notch, though I would have sworn that wasn’t possible.
My body is stretched to the breaking point. I need to come, need to empty myself inside her with a desperation that borders on the violent. Though I try to keep them gentle, my fingers dig into her hips as I lift and lower her faster and faster.
“Ethan,” Chloe gasps. “I can’t—”
And then she shatters. Her eyes blur, her head falls back, her body goes taut and then relaxes even as her sex clenches rhythmically around my dick.
I want to make her come again, want these moments to last forever as I send her up and over the edge again and again and again. But my cock has other ideas and I can’t fight it. Not when Chloe feels so hot and wet around me. Not when she feels so goddamned good.
“Chloe, baby—”
She presses her lips against my throat, licks at the sweat pooling in the dips of my collarbones. It’s the last straw. Heat slams through me as my fingers clench on her ass, dig into her soft, resilient flesh. She gasps, her whole body shuddering against mine.
And then I’m coming, so hard and so fast that it feels like my spine is being ripped out straight through my stomach. Straight through my balls. Straight through the end of my dick.
I come and come and come and it’s more than pleasure. More than ecstasy. It’s a light in the darkness, a port in the storm. It’s coming home after a lifetime lost at sea. It’s Chloe and me and everything we’ve built. Everything we will continue to build. It’s our future, the future I am only now beginning to believe that we’ll have.
Long seconds pass while I’m lost in the maelstrom, lost in the feel of Chloe above and around me. Lost in the feel of her warmth curled up inside me.
After several long minutes, my heartbeat finally returns to normal. I pull out slowly, rolling Chloe over so that she’s cuddled into my chest and I can feel her breath against my neck, her heart beating against my own.
“I love you,” she says, her lips moving drowsily against my sweat-slicked skin.
“I love you, too.”
It’s a vow on my part as much as it is a declaration. Because loving her has never been the problem. I’ve loved her almost from the beginning—I started falling the minute she refused to drink the blueberry smoothie I made her and by the time she’d returned the Vitamix I’d bought her for the second time, I was all in.
Yes, loving her is easy. But keeping her—that’s something else entirely. I’ve already fucked things up with her, twice. I lied to her, tried to break up with her, hurt her over and over again when all I’ve really wanted to do is protect her.
I don’t know how one man can fuck up as badly—and as many times—as I have. And yet, by some miracle, she’s still here. In my arms. In my bed. Though, technical
ly, we’re in her bed at the moment.
That’s something else I intend to change as soon as possible. Not that I have anything against Chloe’s room—or her roommate. But I need her with me, in my space. I need her in my house, her stuff cluttering up my dresser, her shoes tripping me on the way to the bathroom, her sexy-sweet scent hanging in the corners of every room I enter.
I need her things mingled with mine, need her life mingled with mine.
Because no matter how much I’ve fucked up, no matter how many mistakes I’ve made, I can’t let her go. I won’t let her go. Not now. Not ever. We’re tied together, our lives twisted and tangled together long before we had a clue what we would mean to each other. I wouldn’t have chosen our past, how we started out. But it exists. It’s real, and it’s something we’re both going to have to live with—for better or worse.
That’s the nightmare. That one day she won’t be able to live with what Brandon did to her. With the part I played in keeping him safe because I didn’t know better. Because I was blind.
But that’s a future I hope will never happen—a future I’m determined to never let happen. Right now, in the present, she’s still here. Still in my arms. Still willing to give me—to give us—a chance to get this right.
It’s more than I deserve, but I’m taking it.
I stroke her back, murmur nonsense words in her ear as Chloe snuggles close to me. Her breathing evens out and she’s asleep again within minutes. She’s exhausted, the toll of the last few weeks—the last few months—impossible to ignore. For both of us.
I close my eyes, try to follow, but my mind is too crowded to allow any kind of sleep to creep in. Chloe’s words from earlier chase themselves around inside my head—and there’s a part of me that knows she’s right. That knows I’ll be messing with all kinds of old wounds if I keep pursuing this. Opening them up, making them bleed. Making her bleed.
Hurting her any more than she’s already been hurt is the last thing I want to do.
But as I lay here staring at the ceiling, I can’t stop thinking about my brother. About the fact that he hurt her when she was young and defenseless. About the way he continues to hurt her even now.