Welina Hou #3
She was nodding like she understood my logic, and I knew on a certain level she did. But it was the emotion that was overruling reason. And although I knew I was going to suffer for those emotions, it felt so good to be loved.
“And the Siva Tau? I had to sit there and take part in a death ritual for someone who wasn’t even dead?! How could you do that to me?”
“Because I needed to protect you! You think it was easy for me to leave you? After we had just gotten to a good place? But I wasn’t about to let my pride determine that I was going to sit here and pretend that I had all this shit under control.
The old me wouldn’t have cared because I didn’t have anyone else to consider.
But I did. I had you. That wasn’t something that I could lose. ”
“But we lost something anyway.” The tear fell down her cheek and the tightness in my chest fractured at her words.
“What? You’re saying that you don’t want me anymore?
” It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
I was supposed to come back and make things right.
We were going to work through everything and I was going to earn her trust back and spoil her for the next seventy years.
We were going to build and figure out this thing called life together.
She couldn’t be telling me she was giving up.
“I was pregnant. Early enough for me to know and just like that it was gone.” Asha snapped her fingers and kept her focus there, avoiding eye contact.
“Pregnant?” I looked at her body, one that was now identical in size to Sasha’s, and felt broken that she’d suffered that all by herself.
“Yeah. Guess all the damage they did didn’t have the final say in my fertility after all. You and your super sperm.” She finally looked at me and the sad half-smile on her face was almost my undoing.
“Semira—”
She shook her head and I knew the empathy in my voice was too much for her.
“Nope. I’ve done the grief. Worked through feeling like a failure for not being able to keep even the smallest part of you.
I got qualified help because I truly was drowning.
But I feel like that dragon lady who sacrificed her baby for the life of her husband.
Only you had the audacity to come back to me whole and hale without a bloody scratch on you and I don’t know whether to be angry or happy that I lost one life but got back one that meant everything to me.
What kind of person does that make me? Maybe I didn’t deserve to have a baby feeling like that. ”
I stopped worrying about how she would feel and climbed into bed with her. I arranged my body around her being her shelter through her emotional storm.
“It makes you human. You can’t help but feel relief at being happy to have me back. Fuck, I’m happy that you want me back. And whenever you want to we can always think about trying again.”
I meant every word that I’d said but I was mildly heartbroken.
I felt guilty. Thinking of the life that we didn’t have time to learn about together.
The one thing that I thought would never be within my grasp had slipped away because of someone that I should’ve killed rules be damned.
This was the thanks I got for trying to live my life by the fucking rules of our organization.
It would never happen again. I was sure after Jemma Marie got rid of the snakes surrounding her our generation would vote to change the damn rules.
It had almost gotten half of our families killed throughout the years.
Having all members of the Consortium have equal protection within the organization was about keeping each branch a democracy. I wasn’t sure how much of that altruism would last once I met with my brothers.
Having Asha back in my arms felt like the greatest of miracles and despite how I wanted this moment to last I had to put her first. I’d messed up and I was man enough to own it.
I kissed the top of her head in case it would be a minute before I could do it again. “I can’t stay at my old—”
“They’ve already started construction on it.”
“They?”
She looked up from where her face had been buried in my chest. “I saw the plans that you had. I tweaked a few things and went ahead with them so that your vision could come to life. You’d had them stay out of your condo but I had them go ahead with the full renovation plan that you had laid out.”
“Even though I was gone?”
Her head bobbed so softly I almost missed it. She kept her eyes lowered and took a deep breath.
“I needed to hold on to you in any way I could. If it meant bringing that vision to life since I couldn’t have you and I couldn’t give birth to what I had left of you…
” her entire body shuddered and I couldn’t believe the way she was being so raw with her emotions.
I didn’t think that she’d want me anywhere near her but her fingers wrapped around my sides and dug into my shirt like she was almost afraid that I wasn’t real.
Or that I would slip away from her again.
“I’m so sorry, Ka’iulani.”
“Stay. I need you to be here when I wake up. Again. I don’t care anything about what has happened or the danger that might be lurking. I just can’t have you gone when I wake up in the morning. I will feel like I’m losing my mind and normally that wouldn’t be a problem but—”
I lifted her chin and saw the tears that were brimming to the surface. I couldn’t believe that she was crying. This type of vulnerability was one that I wasn’t used to seeing from her but I was happy it was there. It meant that I wasn’t alone in how deeply she’d gotten embedded into me.
“But what, love?”
Her hands kept mine on her chin. “I need you to be real. I need to wake up in the morning and this not have been a dream. You’ve turned me into this woman who needs a man—”
I kissed the madness she was about to speak softly off her lips because I wasn’t going to let her finish. “No, you’re a woman who needs your man just like I’m a man who needs his woman. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
I’d slept better than I had in almost six months.
I’d gone overboard with everything concerning Asha once my having to leave was confirmed.
The wedding had been the first step and I had to play my role so they could implicate themselves.
I’d retired from the FBI but was still putting in work to build a case that no one could refute.
The evidence had been gathered while I made plans to disappear.
The hardest part was how closely Asha and I grew together after the case was closed.
It made me feel like a liar keeping things from her but I knew it was the right thing to do.
I’d burned the candle at both ends and being so close to being done with all of this allowed me to completely shut down.
It was also due to my wife’s body being wrapped around mine almost afraid that I was going to slip through her grasp. On instinct, I woke up before she did. My body knew that she was about to rouse and I wanted to be there to see her realizing that she hadn’t imagined the entire night before.
She sniffed deeply and I’d purposefully used the body wash she’d purchased for me.
I’d hoped the smell had lulled her to sleep the way my smelling her hair had done for me.
It had been the sweetest torture to feel her leg rubbing up against my dick as she began to stir.
Thoughts of getting back to her, feeling her skin beneath my fingertips and waking up to a moment just like this had been what kept me going while I’d been away.
There was no doubt she was going to have questions.
Her and my brothers who would probably want to take turns beating my ass.
If Asha left anything for them when she was done.
I saw her eyes quiver beneath her closed lids before she cautiously opened them.
“Hello.”
Her eyes immediately watered and I felt her body go pliant as she rested her head back on the crook of my shoulder. I gave her a second before she could gather herself. I stayed silent, allowing her tears to pool at the joint of my shoulder and gently stroked her back as her tears fell.
“Where were you?”
The side of my mouth quirked because I knew she was going to ask eventually but I was thankful she was even calm enough to ask me a question instead of pulling out a knife.
“Cuba.”
She huffed and I felt her body tense and relax. “So I should’ve killed Alec when we were in Margo’s apartment. Not only did he help you lie but he also hid you. I should’ve known since you’re so bloody tan.”
Her voice was contemplative, as if she were planning to right the wrong of having kept my friend alive.
“You want to kill my friend after he kept me safe?”
She mused briefly on her reasons before shaking off the thought. “He could’ve told me.”
“Alec was only doing what I wanted him to do.”
She crossed her arms, which was unfortunate since they covered up the breasts I longed to taste again. Now wasn’t the time but it had been a long self-inflicted drought and my attraction to her would never waver. “That is such bullshit. Why didn’t you trust me?”
My hand went to her cheek knowing she needed an explanation because I’d broken the trust that took me almost an entire year to earn.
“I did and I do. Trusting you was never the issue. I told you day one that would never change. But you have to understand that I was in an impossible position. The ability to keep you safe meant keeping you in the dark. If I failed to do that because I wanted to stay close to you then I would never have forgiven myself if something bad had happened. The idea of failing the one thing I promised I would always do wasn’t something that I could let happen. ”
“You don’t think I could’ve helped protect us both?”
I knew she was hurt. Surviving what she had and always being strong meant she felt slighted that I hadn’t called on her to aid me. But I had my reasons.