Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
I was on my knees behind her before I had given myself permission to make the move. I wound one arm around her left side and across her chest as that hand went to the right side of her jaw.
I had her boxed against me, but it was Aria who had me caged.
My mouth dropped to her ear. “Don’t speak in days, Aria. Not when I will give it all so you have a life. A real life. A future. Peace. Love. A family, if you want it. Whatever makes you happy. Whatever brings you joy. It’s the only thing I want for you.”
She shifted enough to look back at me from over her shoulder. Gray eyes glimmered, a sea of glittering silver in the slice of sunlight that cut through the slit in the drapes. “I already have love, Pax. It’s bold and bright and never-ending. It’s always lived inside me, hidden in my dreams. It’s you, where you’ll be forever written inside me.”
Then she unwound herself from my arms, and through the shadows, I watched as she walked into the bathroom and locked the door behind her.
It felt like she was trying to put a barrier between me and her confession.
There was no chance of that.
It whispered on the connection that bound.
Rode on the tether that tied.
One so fierce, I was sure it was going to follow me into death.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Aria
Hot water pounded against my skin, close to scalding, where I stood beneath the spray with my face tilted toward the steamy fall. I was hoping it might erase the need that blistered through my body. Burn it away. Eradicate the ache that consumed—body and soul.
I wanted to know his touch so badly that I felt it as a hollow cavern carved out in the middle of me. An empty space that throbbed and moaned and begged. A match to the pulse of my spirit.
Because I wanted him everywhere, pressing in and taking over. Beneath my fingers and gliding through my veins.
But I also understood. Understood his reservations and why he held on to the fear.
But that didn’t mean I didn’t know with every beat of my heart that what I felt for Pax couldn’t be wrong. How could it when not loving him was an impossibility? There was no piece of me that could ever accept that he could turn against me.
Blowing out a sigh, I used the shampoo that Pax had placed in the shower with the rest of the things we’d picked up at the store.
I let the coconut-and-pineapple scent invade as I envisioned the foolish fantasy I’d allowed myself yesterday when we were walking the aisles of the store.
Pax and I on some deserted beach, our toes in the sand, with cool water lapping up the shore. A breeze wisping against our faces. Our fingers twined where we rested together.
It would be a place only meant for us. Where nobody knew us. Where nobody could find us. Where our dreams didn’t carry us away, but instead, we slept soundly in the safety of each other’s arms.
My daydreams were ones of simplicity.
But I didn’t get that—simplicity or safety or sanctuary.
An intonation of my father’s voice flashed through my mind, distant and faraway, dust that gathered on the horizon before it blew away.
It’s her fault Aria escaped.
My chest squeezed with terror. A dread that clamored through my senses. Talons that sank into my spirit in a gutting awareness.
Because of me, my mother might not have any of those things, either.
Safety or sanctuary.
She was in danger.
I could feel it. I could feel it penetrating all the way to my soul.
I hadn’t been able to bring myself to confess it to Pax this morning, unsure of how to handle it or process what it meant—or more, what I would have to do.
I couldn’t just turn my back on them and pretend as if I didn’t know.
My spirit sagged, burdened with so much. With the hazards that came from every direction.
I hissed when I pried off the bandage Pax had placed over the fresh wound in the middle of my chest yesterday.
It was a wound that shouldn’t be possible.
A scar that I was sure would go deeper than any other had before.
A new question that marked me in doubt.
How had I sustained it? How was it feasible?
The memory of the woman and her child sparked in the spiral of my thoughts.
They were worth it. They were worth it.
I carefully cleaned the wound, dabbing the cloth against the oozing flesh. The blood that I wiped came away in black, charred clumps.
I rinsed, then stepped out and wrapped myself in a towel.
I eased out of the bathroom, almost wary to meet Pax’s fierce gaze after what had happened between us earlier. But I wouldn’t regret it. I would never regret confessing my love for him when it was my truth. I didn’t think that I had it wrong when I said it was his, too.