Chapter 27
BELLE
The drive home was quiet. While I wasn’t sure what to think, I loved that his hand rested on my thigh the entire way.
The feeling of his thumb moving in slow, absent arcs like he needs the contact to ground himself grounded me in return.
When we stopped at a red light, his fingers curled slightly tighter, as if confirming I was still there.
I didn’t pull away. I think I needed it just as much as he did.
When we pulled into the driveway, the house looked the same as it always does. It lay tall and imposing against the river.
But there was something different.
He didn’t let go of me when we walked inside. His hand rested on my lower back. Then my waist. Then my hand in his. Always something. It was as if he were afraid I'd vanish.
We didn't talk. Not yet. Upstairs, the air felt charged, but there was no anger left in him. Just something raw and open.
He touched me as if I might break. I kissed him like I wouldn't.
I had thought we would talk first, but I found I needed him right now just as much as he seemed to need me.
His hands roamed my body slowly as we made our way to his room.
Every touch felt like reassurance. Every kiss felt like an apology and a promise woven together.
His hands traced my skin like he was memorizing it all over again.
My fingers pressed into his broad shoulders, anchoring us to something solid.
Next thing I knew, I found myself fighting with the buttons of his shirt. I needed him right now.
I know it didn’t make any sense to feel the need for certainty yet cling to a man that was anything but certain. But my rational brain was losing control.
He pulled back, his eyes searching mine, making sure we were on the same page. We were on the same page, and I intended to prove it to him. I reached up onto my tiptoes and claimed his mouth.
The next thing I knew, we were stripping out of our clothes to remove all physical barriers. As I peeled his shirt off his shoulders, revealing his broad chest with dark hair spread across, I couldn’t help but smile up at my beast of a man.
He wrapped his arms around me and lay me back on the bed. His body covered mine, pressing me into the mattress. The pressure slowly pushed away all the panic that still lived in the back of my mind and centered me only on him, only on what was happening here.
He pulled my knee up, opening me wide as he positioned himself at my entrance. He held my gaze as he slowly pushed in, stretching me wide. “Ma Belle, you look so pretty taking my cock.”
I’d never had sex with someone who held as much control as he did. It was intoxicating, but right now I didn’t want that.
I just wanted to feel him consuming me.
“Please, Raph,” I managed to get out as I reached for him.
I pulled his face to mine. He returned the kiss, claiming my mouth. He licked into my mouth, sucking my lip into his mouth as he plunged deep inside of me. I moaned as I rocked into his meeting his thrust.
We move together in a way that feels less like escape and more like return. With each thrust, each time he plunged deeper inside of me, each time he claimed me, I felt the certainty I sought. Even without any real answers, my body was so sure of this, of him.
I gave over to sensations as we moved and kissed. My release was building deep inside, sending waves of pleasure all through me. Just when I thought I couldn’t take any more, my body tensed, and I saw stars behind my eyes as pleasure surged through me.
Raph wrapped me up tighter and held on with a few last frantic thrusts before he spilled inside of me with a loud groan. He clung to me as he peppered my neck with kisses.
No one had ever made me feel the way he does. No one had ever made me feel so safe and cared for. I clung to him for a long time. He didn’t move either. We just lay there, him still inside of me, reveling in the connection we both so desperately needed.
When it was over, we lay tangled in the sheets, breath still uneven, skin warm and flushed. The room was dim, the light streaming in golden through the sheer curtains.
His arm was around me. My head rested against his chest.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke. The questions had been sitting in my chest since this morning. I traced a slow line along his collarbone. “Tell me about the rooms,” I whispered.
He went still beneath me. His hand moved into my hair, fingers threading through slowly.
“It was our room,” he said at last.
The word our landed heavily.
“My wife,” he continued, voice quieter than I’ve ever heard it. “Her name was Elise. We also had a daughter, Madeline.”
I pictured the auburn hair. The green eyes. The smile.
“She was seven months pregnant with our second when I left for a work trip.”
My stomach tightened as he continued. I may not know the story, but I knew the ending.
“I remember arguing with her about it, I didn’t want to go,” he said. “She told me to go. I told myself I would be back before anything happened.”
His voice stayed even.
“Madeline had been running a low fever that week. Nothing alarming. We were monitoring it.” He swallowed. “I received a call the second night of the trip. The fever had spiked. Elise was taking her to the emergency room.”
He paused.
I could feel his heart beating beneath my cheek.
“I was at a business dinner,” he said quietly. “I told myself I would call back in ten minutes.”
I ached for him.
“It was early June, and that night we had a bad thunderstorm. There was a car accident,” he continued. “On the way to the hospital. A truck hydroplaned through a red light.”
His hand tightened in my hair. “They died instantly.”
It was as if all the air had left the room. His grief hung heavily in the room.
“I wasn’t there,” he said.
The guilt in those three words was heavier than anything else he’s said.
“I should have been there,” he added. “I should not have left. I should have come home when the fever started. I should have—”
His voice fractured slightly for the first time.
“I was not there.”
I lifted my head and looked at him. His eyes were open, fixed on the ceiling, jaw tight.
“I live with the knowledge that if I had stayed home, they might still be alive.”
My throat burned. “You don’t know that,” I whisper.
“I know I was not there.”
The conviction in that sentence was absolute.
He exhaled slowly. “I sealed the rooms,” he said. “I preserved them exactly as they were. I told myself I would process it later.”
He gave a faint, humorless breath.
“It has been fifteen years.”
Fifteen years of locked doors, of silence.
“That’s why you snapped at me about the song?” I ask softly.
He nodded as he stroked my head. “Elise liked it. She would hum it to Madeline as she rocked her.”
The music box and haunted melody were all making more sense and breaking my heart in the process.
“I did not know how to tell you,” he admitted. “I did not know how to let you see that part of me.”
He finally looked at me then.
“I was not angry at you,” he said. “I was angry that it was no longer contained.”
I slid my hand up to his jaw, forcing him to look fully at me.
“You are not responsible for that accident,” I said quietly.
His eyes flickered. “I left,” he said again.
“You went to work.”
“She was pregnant.”
“You were building a future for them.”
He closed his eyes briefly. “I failed them.”
The certainty in that statement was devastating.
I reached up and pressed my forehead to his.
“You loved them,” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“And you love fiercely.”
His hand tightened around me. “I do not know how to love halfway,” he said.
“I don’t want halfway.”
The words slipped out before I could measure them.
He stilled. The weight of what we were both admitting settled between us.
He lived in guilt. I lived in fear of instability. Somehow, we found each other in the middle of that.
He pulled me closer, burying his face in my hair.
And for the first time since I opened those doors, I understood. Not the grief fully, but the man, and the storm he’d been holding inside all these years.
He rested his forehead against mine, his breath still uneven but steadier now.
“You know everything,” he said quietly. “There is nothing left hidden.” The words were not dramatic. They were almost clinical in their precision. “I am an open book.”
I studied him in the low light. The man who had built walls so thick that even he forgot what was behind them. The man who sealed rooms and locked songs away. The man who roared when the past slipped its leash.
“An open book?” I murmured.
“Yes.” There was no defensiveness in him now. No sharp edges. Just exhaustion and vulnerability.
“I did not tell you because I did not know how,” he continued. “Not because I intended to deceive you.”
I traced my thumb along his jaw, over the place that tightens when he’s holding too much in.
“I wasn’t trying to invade something sacred,” I said.
“I know.”
He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again, forcing himself to stay present.
“I have lived in preservation,” he admitted. “Not healing.”
The honesty in that sentence felt heavier than anything else he’s said.
“You deserved context,” he continued. “You deserved a warning. Instead, I gave you anger.”
“You gave me grief,” I corrected gently.
He exhaled slowly.
“I do not wish to keep anything from you,” he said. “If we are to continue this—whatever this is—I will not hide.”
Whatever this is. The words linger between us.
“You’re not a monster,” I said softly.
His mouth curves faintly. “I have been called worse.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
Silence settled again, but this time it was tender, something fragile and budding.
“I don’t want to compete with ghosts,” I said after a moment.
“You are not competing,” he replied immediately. “You are not replacing anyone.” His voice was firm now. “They were my past. You are . . . ” He hesitates, searching. “My present.”
My chest tightens at that.
The river moves softly beyond the windows.
The house felt different now. Less like a fortress or mausoleum, now it was just a home with history.
He brushed a strand of hair away from my face.
“You know everything,” he repeated softly.
I held his gaze. I believed him.