24. Mila
MILA
Y ou can do this, Mila.
It’s Christian.
One foot in front of the other.
I let out a shaky breath, my hand hovering over the doorknob to the lighthouse.
Get in there, champ!
Okay, my inner pep talk is getting a little out of control.
Steeling myself, I push the door open and step inside. It’s a warm day today, and the sun is shining outside, so the first floor of the lighthouse glows.
Distracting myself, I picture what kind of furniture you could put in the circular room. Another living room? A reading nook?
Shut up, Mila.
“Fuck,” I breathe. I take the stairs up to the second floor, pausing outside Christian’s office.
The worst he can do is kick me out .
I think I’d probably pitch myself off the cliffs, but my inner monologue isn’t wrong.
Tentatively, I knock, worrying it was too soft before I hear his voice like warm dark chocolate drift through the door.
“Come in.”
A shiver rolls through me, and I twist the knob, stepping inside.
Christian sits behind his desk, closing his laptop that was open in front of him. His brow tips up, and he smirks, the look in his eyes going straight to my core.
Why does he have to look so . . . devastating?
“Miss me, little devil?”
I wipe my sweaty hands on my jeans, drawing my bottom lip between my teeth. I stay back against the door while he watches with dark amusement in his gaze. I expected him to yell at me for coming up to his office when he was working, but judging by the look in his eyes, he’d been thinking about me, too.
I can’t believe I’m doing this.
Christian leans back in his chair when I slip the jacket off and drop it in the chair in front of his desk. He turns to face me when I approach, and somehow, this is far more terrifying than anything that’s happened in the last year.
His eyes drop to my worn sneakers, slipping up my jean-clad legs over his T-shirt, covering my breasts, before finally meeting mine. It should make me want to back out, the degradation in his gaze, but it only makes the fire burn hotter.
I clear my throat, unable to push the words out.
“You want my fingers?” He raises a brow, and delicious heat slips down my spine. I shake my head, my cheeks flaming under his heavy gaze. “My tongue?”
I shake my head again.
Why is this so hard?
“Use your words, Mila. You want me to drop everything and fuck you? That can be arranged.”
“Not . . . yet,” I say, breathless. “We’re uneven.”
He pauses for a moment, studying me. After a moment, his gaze goes dark as night.
In this moment, I realize I’m fucked. I’ve never cared as much about pleasing someone as I do when I watch him run a tongue across his teeth, his abs flexing under his T-shirt.
He’s taken my body to places I never knew existed—places I never thought I would reach just because of my past. He forces me out of my head and lets me experience true pleasure and pain in a way I didn’t know I would crave.
“You want my cock in your mouth?” The way he says it, so dirty and full of promise, sends a shiver through me. Slowly, I nod, my tongue darting out to lick my lip.
Christian’s jaw ticks, and he studies me for a moment. Finally, he leans further back in his chair, his leg kicking out in front of him. His arm rests on the armrest, his other coming up to run a thumb across his lips.
“Crawl to me.”
I still, my heart bottoming out in my chest.
“What?” My voice sounds small, even to my ears. Fragile.
I refuse to be fragile anymore.
He holds my gaze, raising a brow as if he’s daring me.
“Get on your knees, put that pretty little ass in the air, and crawl to me.”
He can’t be serious.
I’ve never even given a blowjob before, and he wants me to crawl like a pornstar across the hardwood floor?
But . . . looking in his eyes, I see a promise. He is. And if I want it, I’m going to have to work for it.
Goddamn him.
“Fuck you,” I snap, tears burning in the backs of my eyes. I make my way to the door when his harsh laughter sounds behind me.
“Too proud, little devil?”
I grit my teeth, spinning back to him. Of course not. I just . . . I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.
Goddamnit.
I lick my lips, and his eyes follow the movement. Something hungry passes through them before it’s replaced by a look of indifference.
He wants me as bad as I want him. He’s just afraid to show it.
“You want my cock?” he taunts, cocking his head. “Crawl to me. Unless you’d rather spend the rest of the day thinking of how my cock would have felt sliding between your pretty lips.”
I hate him.
I hate him, and I crave him. I’ve never been so at war with my own emotions.
It’s not as if I’m not scared. I’m fucking terrified, but with him in control, I feel comfortable giving myself over to him because I know he’ll never let me crash.
Gritting my teeth, I step back towards the desk. My thighs are slick with need, my pussy throbbing with the beat of my heart. It’s the middle of the day, and here I am, sinking to my knees in the office of the psychopath who kidnapped me, about to crawl to him so he lets me suck his cock.
What has the world come to?
Holding his gaze, I slowly, sink to the carpeted floor.
Deciding to see how far I can push him, I make sure to arch my back, holding his gaze as my hair falls around my face. My hips move sensually, and his eyes follow their sway as I come to rest at his knees. Sitting up on my legs, I smile angrily.
“Better, sir ?”
He smirks.
“It’s a start.”
His cock is hard. I can see the outline through his dark jeans. My mouth waters despite the nerves swirling in my stomach.
“Scared?” he asks, leaning forward enough to run his thumb over my bottom lip.
Yes.
“No.”
His fingers slide back into my hair, roughly jerking my face up to meet his gaze. A slight tremor moves through his hand, and a sense of power I never knew fills me.
“So fucking beautiful,” he rasps, and my heart flutters for an entirely new reason.
He watches me, his gaze running over my face as if he’s studying a priceless artifact.
“You want my cock in your mouth?”
God, his words are so dirty, but something in my core tightens, and I nod my head, licking my lips. This is what I’ve been craving. The high he gives me when he’s growling my name. At my mercy.
“Ask me nicely.”
A rush of resentment washes through me at his bossiness. This was supposed to be a test to prove myself.
Then, I realize the way my core pulses and tightens at his words. How much I like that he’s in control, showing me that he’s got me.
This is exactly what I need to fight off the voices in my head. Total surrender.
A shaky breath leaves me. “Please?” I ask, and his eyes grow half-lidded and hazy with dark lust. “Please, can I suck your cock?”
“Undo my belt,” he says, his voice rougher than usual, and birds swarm in my stomach.
—We’re way past butterflies at this point.
I swallow self-consciously when he lets go of my hair. Gripping his belt, I undo it when he sits back. The clang of the buckle sounds too loud in the quiet office.
My hand shakes, my mouth impossibly dry—a real problem at a time like this—when I slip my hand into his boxers and pull his cock out.
God, I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to his size.
My gaze flicks back to Christian’s, and he eyes me with a slight amusement in his heated gaze that makes me angry. I refuse to let him win.
“I thought you weren’t scared?”
I glare up at him, stroking him from root to tip, and his nostrils flare. The tip of his cock glistens with precum, the thick veins dark and angry where it stands straight up.
“Mila.”
My stomach dips at the demanding tone of his voice. Like a man on the brink of losing control.
I lean forward, pressing kisses along the head of his cock, delighting in the way his abs draw up tight at the contact.
I slip my lips lower, over the veins and to his balls, my tongue darting out to lick his heavy sac before moving higher.
I don’t have any idea what I’m doing, but he doesn’t seem to mind if the way he’s tensing under my hands is anything to go by.
I tease him, staring up at him from beneath my lashes while I slide my tongue along his length. His hand slips back into my hair, fisting the strands, and he jerks my head back, forcing my gaze to meet his nearly black one.
God, he looks like he could murder someone. My stomach tightens in anticipation.
“Mila. Suck my cock.”
Heat travels through me, pulsing in my core. Swallowing my fear, I tug at his hand in my hair, raising his cock to my lips before slipping him down as far as I can into my mouth. It’s awkward and messy, but he lets out a curse as his head falls back to blink at the ceiling.
“ Fuck , that’s a good girl.”
I pull back, swirling my tongue around the head, before I push him further into my mouth, only able to swallow half his length before I’m choking and sputtering.
“That’s the sound I’ve been waiting to hear,” he grits roughly. His hand slaps my cheek. Not hard enough to sting, but enough to have my pussy tightening with need. “Open your mouth and stick out your tongue.”
I oblige, and he does the most savage thing I’ve ever experienced and spits on my tongue.
God, forgive me.
“Suck.”
I let out a small moan, slipping his cock back between my lips and taking him deeper. My tongue slides along the underside, and my fist wraps around the bottom half, feeding him between my lips. I don’t think I’ve ever been this turned on in my life.
“That’s it.” His thumb captures a tear on my cheek. His gentleness is a stark contrast to the burn of his hand in my hair. “Suck my cock like a good girl, little devil.”
My pussy clenches, and I set up a steady pace, rocking on my knees while I bob my head on his cock.
“Fuck, you’re so much sweeter when your mouth’s full,” he murmurs, and I glare up at him, letting him feel a brush of my teeth. His fingers tighten painfully in my hair, and I’m sure some of the strands rip free, but I don’t stop sucking. “I fucking dare you, Mila. Try to bite me. See how well it ends for you.”
My clit throbs at his dark words, and as much as I hate to admit it, my body responds. The wetness coating my inner thighs is enough to drive me insane, as is the incessant throb in my clit.
I suck him harder, my eyes rolling to the back of my head as he grits his teeth.
That power could get addicting. Mark my words.
His hand in my hair guides me over his cock as moans spill past my lips. I shift on my knees, rubbing my thighs together to relieve some of the pressure. “You want me to fuck your face?”
I blink up at him in acquiescence, and he growls, the rumble traveling through his body and straight down to my core.
“Fuck,” he grits, brushing the hair back from my face. “Tap my thigh if you want me to stop.”
Holding my head in a firm grip, he pushes up into my mouth, his cock slipping into my throat until tears spill past my lashes. I force a breath through my nose to stave off a gag as he hits deeper than I was able to.
“So obedient. You going to swallow my come like a good little slut?”
I moan, sending vibrations through his cock, my thighs rubbing together to try to lessen the ache. His hand locks under my jaw as he pushes past the confines of my throat, forcing me to take more of him than air. Tears stream from the corners of my eyes, but I refuse to tap out.
“Relax your throat and let me in, sweetheart,” he grunts, pushing further. “Fuck, let me see how much you want me.”
My chest flutters at his words, and I force myself to suck a breath through my nose, letting him fuck my mouth until drool slips down my chin. His fingers dig into my skin, and the sting slips down to my pussy.
“Stick your tongue out,” he hisses between his teeth, pulling his cock out of my mouth and linking his fingers over mine, stroking his length. Watching him stroke himself with my hand is probably the hottest thing I’ve ever seen, but I don’t tell him that. Sticking my tongue out, he holds me there, his eyes boring into mine when he grunts, coming with a deep, soul-snatching growl. “ Fuck, Mila . . .”
His come hits my tongue, my cheek, and my lips. The taste of him blooms in my mouth and I swallow it down greedily. I hold still, mostly because his hand is forcing me to, but also because watching him come for me is madly unsettling, and I wonder if this is how he feels when he does it to me.
I want to see it again. I would pay money to see it again.
A shudder moves through him that he covers up by scrubbing a hand over his face before he looks down at me. I caught it, though, and something warm and unwelcome ignites in my chest. Something that definitely shouldn’t be there for a man who kidnapped me and is holding me hostage on a deserted island.
“Open,” he orders, his thumb swiping through the come on my cheek. I open my mouth, and he wipes it on my tongue, pushing his fingers to the back of my throat and making me gag. My core tightens at the savage look in his eyes. “Swallow.” I do, and he chuckles darkly, not an ounce of amusement in those dark eyes. “That’s my good girl.”
He reaches for my hand, tugging me to my feet, and I stand on wobbly legs, my pussy crying out at the friction from my panties.
“Bend over.”
“That wasn’t for me,” I gasp, and he just swats my ass, pushing me to stand between his legs. He shoves me towards the desk, standing behind me. He places a hand on the center of my spine, bending me down to rest my shoulders and cheeks against the flat surface.
“This isn’t either.”
He swats my ass before slipping my jeans down my legs. I shiver in the cool air of the room, despite how hot I am, when the phone rings from beside me on the desk.
“What?” he snaps, sinking down in the chair behind me with the phone pressed to his ear. My cheeks flame that someone is calling him while I’m standing in front of him, ass on display and his come on my face. “I’m in the middle of something.”
There’s a pause as the person says something else on the phone, and he runs his fingers over the soaking-wet seam of my panties. I grit my teeth, biting down on my arm to keep quiet when he slips them to the side and slides a finger inside me.
“I have something time-sensitive on my desk, and you’re keeping me from it.”
There’s another pause while he pumps his fingers in and out of me, slowly drawing out the torture, before he hangs up with a rough breath.
“Christian—” I start, but it ends with a moan when he runs his tongue through my folds.
My eyes roll back in my head, and my front bows off the desk. Holy shit.
“You enjoyed sucking my cock, little devil.” It’s not a question. More of an accusation.
“Yes,” I breathe, my fingers gripping the other side of the desk while he dives back between my folds with a deep groan of satisfaction. He swirls his tongue up to the tight ring of muscles at my ass, and I jerk forward on the desk before his hands lock my hips in place.
“Breathe,” he instructs, his voice rough, and something presses against the hole, stealing my breath away. I shudder when his thumb enters me, his tongue immediately going back to my pussy as he fills my ass.
“Christian,” I moan, my eyes screwed shut from the pleasure barreling through me. My legs shake with the effort to hold me up, and I’m so close to coming I can taste it. “Please.”
His thumb moves in and out of me slowly while he licks my clit in lazy strokes. He closes his lips around the nub, fluttering his tongue, and my legs threaten to give out.
“I’m going to fuck you here soon,” he breathes against my skin, slipping deeper inside me, and my pussy clenches in response. “You want that? You want my cock in your ass?”
“Yes,” I breathe, actively working to breathe as he continues his assault on my body.
“Fuck, I’ve been dreaming of you,” he grits, and I don’t even know if he realizes what he’s saying before he closes his mouth around my clit and sucks me into his mouth until I’m gasping underneath him.
I can’t stop the orgasm from shattering me into a million pieces. I cry out, my voice hoarse and my hips bucking wildly while he milks the pleasure from my body. I collapse to the surface of the desk, shaking, and he has to hold my legs up to keep me from falling to my knees again.
I shiver when he pulls me back from the desk, placing me in his seat before crossing the room to grab a box of unopened tissues from a drawer in the corner.
Of course, they’re unopened. I doubt Christian Cross would ever get sick.
When he returns, my heart is racing, and my skin is damp with perspiration. It all happened so quick, but now that it’s done, I’m waiting for him to kick me out.
Instead, he surprises me when he gently takes my hand, pulls me to the edge of the seat, and kneels down in front of me.
“Let me see,” he murmurs, a strange tenderness in his voice that I’ve never heard from him before. I tilt my head to him, and he wipes the drying come from my face and the makeup that ran from under my eyes. Keeping my gaze, he then gently cleans between my legs, and it’s enough to make my cheeks burn brightly.
“Okay?” he asks, his eyes betraying his carefully concealed concern. I wait for the fear to slip through me, my throat closing over painful breaths, but . . . nothing comes.
There are the usual thoughts. Whore. Broken. Damaged.
But when he tucks a curl behind my ear, searching my gaze with a fine-tooth comb, I realize, no matter what his reasoning is for bringing me here, he’s the only person I would choose to heal with.
Christian is all man. Rough and hard. The darkness in the light.
He’s also seen every one of my horrors, my nightmares, my inability to be touched when I first walked into the cottage, and he’s never made me feel like I was anything other than me.
“I’m good,” I whisper, and a smile tugs at the corners of my lips.
Christian runs the back of his knuckles down my face, a smile pulling on his lips, and for once, this feels normal.
We feel normal for the first time ever.
“I’ve got a phone call to make, and then I’ll be down for dinner, okay?”
“Who called?” I ask when he pulls back and helps me stand. My legs are wobbly when he stoops down to slip my jeans back up my legs.
“Rudy,” he murmurs, and something about the way he says it and the fact that he won’t look me in the eyes tells me it’s a lie.
Why would he lie about who’s calling him?
“What would Rudy want?”
“Probably to talk about that damned boat,” he grunts.
“Are you—”
He silences me by tugging my hand, forcing my body to his. He presses a kiss to the corner of my lips, and the silence stretches between us as we breathe each other’s air for a moment too long.
I want to kiss him.
God, do I want to kiss him?
I can’t, though. Kissing Christian would open up the door for those feelings I’m desperately trying to keep at bay. Kissing is a lover’s game, and he’s already made it clear we will never be that again.
Eventually, he’s going to use me for his revenge. Whatever that revenge may be, what’s happening between us is transient.
Until then, I’ll use him to get myself back.
I step back, my head spinning from lack of breathing.
“I’ll go start dinner.”
“You . . . don’t have to sleep out here.”
Christian pauses as he sets up the couch for the night, his eyes flicking to where I stand at the foot of the stairs.
God, why do his eyes feel like stepping naked into the center of a crowded football stadium?
“I just meant . . .” Fuck, what did I mean? “You can sleep in the bed if you’d be more comfortable.”
Inviting Christian to sleep with me—actual sleep—sounds like a worse idea than reusable toilet paper, but I hate sleeping in the big bed by myself, knowing he’s out here cramped on the couch.
He stares at me for a beat, and the air hums in the silence stretching between us.
Okay, maybe this was a bad idea.
“I’m closer to the door,” he murmurs finally, and embarrassment floods through me like hot tar.
Way to go, Mila.
“Right,” I nod, forcing a smile on my ever-burning cheeks. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
I hurry upstairs before he can see the bitterness coursing through me and practically swaddle myself in the blankets as if they can hide me from the weight of my actions.
Why would he want to sleep with me? Why would I even ask such a question?
It’s not like it makes a difference where he sleeps. He kidnapped me , remember? I should get the bed on the principles of hospitality.
So why do I still feel like I ate a bag of sour candy?
My heart collapses when I hear the creak of the stairs, and I quickly rearrange as if I were getting ready for bed and not contemplating leaping from the back cliff to sink amongst the broken ship to hide from the embarrassment of being rejected.
When he stops at the top of the stairs, I force myself to meet him with an indifferent gaze.
Something tells me he can see right through it, though, judging by the way his eyes light with dark amusement.
“I get the side closest to the stairs.”
Alarms sound in my head when he steps over to the bed, leaving me frozen in place right in the center.
They get infinitely louder when he reaches over his head and tugs his shirt off.
My eyes travel over the thick, hard ridges of his abs, the tattoos, the sculpted V leading down beneath the jeans he’s wearing. Then . . . he shoves his jeans down his legs, standing before me in nothing but a pair of boxers with the best butt I’ve ever seen.
“My eyes are up here.”
Fuck.
I quickly look away, fluffing my pillow aggressively, and he chuckles under his breath, sliding into the bed beside me.
Okay, now that he’s in it, this bed feels small. Like baby mattress small. I’d forgotten how it feels to fall asleep next to him.
Not to mention hot. He’s like sleeping next to a space heater. In LA, it was a minor inconvenience. Here in the cold Washington fall, it’s far too tempting to curl into him.
He settles on his back, and so do I. A silence falls over the room, and neither of us speaks. Nor moves.
Hell, I don’t even breathe.
“Are you warm enough?” I ask after a moment, just to break up the silence.
I know, me personally? I’m on fucking fire.
“I’m good.”
I swallow over the thick lump in my throat.
This is just like those damn romances where there’s only one bed.
“I can scoot over—”
“Mila.”
Fuck.
“Stop.”
My voice squeaks when I respond. “Stop what?”
“Overthinking.”
May as well ask me to stop breathing.
“I’m not.”
“Little liar.”
“What’s your family’s lodge like?”
He’s quiet for a moment, thinking.
“Big. In the mountains. It was passed down from my grandfather to my mother.”
“And now, it’s your legacy?”
“Something like that,” he murmurs.
“Tell me about something,” I offer, rolling onto my side facing him. It’s a mistake because he’s even more devastating in the dark.
“About what?”
I shrug, tucking my hands under my head.
“Anything.”
He cocks a brow, side-eyeing me.
“You want me to tell you a bedtime story?”
“No,” I grumble, rolling my eyes. “Just anything. Something that you’ve never told anyone.”
He’s silent for a long time. I wait patiently, watching him look up at the slats in the ceiling above.
Just when I think he’s either fallen asleep or he’s going to deny me, he speaks.
“When I was a kid, I had this dog named Pepper. She was just some little mutt, but she was a good dog. She fucking loved pancakes. Mom would make pancakes every Saturday, and the damned dog always got the first one.”
“Your mother had her priorities straight,” I chuckle softly.
“She fucking loved that dog,” he murmurs, shaking his head. “Sometimes I wondered if she loved the dog more than us kids.”
“You have siblings?”
His jaw ticks, and his eyes finally find mine.
“I had three. Two—now. A brother and a sister. I’m the oldest.”
Figures. He has big brother energy.
“Can . . . I ask what happened to the other?”
He stares at me for a beat before facing back toward the ceiling.
“Gone. Died in a fire the night Mom did. Up at the old cabin, Dad used to own.”
“I’m sorry,” I breathe, warmth pooling behind my eyes. Why am I always crying when he tells me about his past?
“Don’t be. Shit happens.”
“You have such an absolute view of it,” I murmur. “Most people would struggle with losing their family that way.”
“No use being sad over shit you can’t change,” he mutters gruffly. “Mom was a good person. A good mom,” he adds after a moment. “Just prefer to think of that rather than what happened to her.”
“What were they like?”
He smirks, chuckling under his breath.
“You and Mom would have gotten along. She would have loved you.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because Mom had a knack for finding the sickest creature she could to try and nurse it back to health.”
“She sounds lovely,” I quip, and he smiles softly.
“She was. Too fucking nice for her own good. Dad didn’t deserve her. She may not have realized it, but I did.”
“Why do you say that?”
He’s silent, turning to look at me. His eyes search mine, sliding from my lips up to my hair. A tingling sense of awareness slips over me, but I force myself not to hide.
“A lot of men don’t deserve the women who love them, Mila.”
I can’t decide if he’s talking about us or in general, so I chose not to allow myself to think about it. Thinking about it will only get me more questions that I’m not prepared for the answer to.
“Or maybe a lot of men are too hard on themselves.” He doesn’t respond.
“Not my father.”
“You don’t get along.”
“We never have,” he murmurs. “He was always a dick. Mom was everything Dad could never be, and he hated her for it.”
“What was your mother’s name?”
“Mom was Elizabeth. My brother was Sebastian.”
My eyes are growing heavy, but there are so many questions I want to ask him that he would never answer before.
“I’m sorry you lost them,” I whisper. He opens his mouth, but whatever he was going to say is lost when I reach for his hand, wrapping my fingers around his.
It’s hard to believe the mountain of a man beside me would be the same person as the kid who must have been terrified. Part of me wishes I could go back in time and stop those things from happening, but I also know everything happens for a reason, and no matter how painful it was, it shaped who he is today.
How many girls would he not have saved had he not been through so much bad himself? Would he have left Washington and come to LA, or would he still live here, living a completely different life, right now? Maybe married with a couple of kids. A dog they rescued from the pound and a house with a white picket fence.
I can’t stop myself from picturing what his wife would look like. Beautiful with a gentle smile and soft hands. A kind heart, just like his mother. Maybe she’d make pancakes every Saturday for him and the kids, or maybe they’d spend the morning lazing around in bed together.
Whoever she is, she’s beautiful. Perfect for him in every sense of the word.
I hate her. I hate her, and she’s not even real.
“You were sent to us by the FBI to bring down my stepfather, weren’t you?”
“I was.”
“So . . . that’s why you and Bailey . . .”
“I never wanted your sister, Mila.”
“Oh.”
“I was meant to gather intel. The easiest way to do that was through the people closest to Parker. Bailey thought I wanted her, so I played into the role. Nothing more than a few off-hand comments.”
“Makes sense,” I grumble, because that doesn’t mean I don’t hate it.
“Bailey’s a good girl, but . . .” he reaches up, brushing his knuckles down my cheek. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t get this little blonde brat out of my head . . . still can’t.”
My chest clenches with the butterflies taking flight in my stomach.
“You shouldn’t say things like that to me.”
“And why’s that?”
My heart feels like it’s going to fly out of my chest.
“Because it makes me think thinks I shouldn’t.”
He opens his mouth to speak, but I cut him off.
“You said you were in the FBI. Why did you stop?”
He blows out a breath through his teeth, his chest heaving. He’s quiet, and I almost give up when he speaks.
“I didn’t quit. I was fired.”
“Why did they fire you?”
“Because a year ago they wanted me on another job. I refused.”
“Why would you refuse?”
He looks at me, studying me.
“You know why, Mila?”
Tears sting in the backs of my eyes and I look away. So much has happened that led us here, and yet, I’m learning more and more about him every day.
His fingers intertwine with mine, and we hold each other’s hands for a long time, neither of us speaking. After a while, he releases me, only to hold out his arm instead.
“Come here,” he murmurs gruffly, rolling onto his side to face me.
I stay where I’m at, eyeing him apprehensively.
“It’s not like you’re not going to end up here, anyway. Just so we can sleep,” he explains, holding his arm open for me to slide into.
I go, nestling into his warmth, and a cold chill sweeps over me when he wraps his arms around me, holding me against his chest.
Just like old times . . .
“What you said last week . . .” he starts, his voice barely legible over the crashing of waves against the rocks outside. “You lost something precious . . .”
“ We lost something,” I whisper softly, a silent tear slipping down my cheek. “I don’t know when it happened. Probably when you . . .visited me.”
Thinking about that day, the moment I found out? It hurts . Like running a knife over the same wound, letting it heal, and then repeating the process over and over again.
“I wasn’t far along.” I clear my throat past the lump lodged there. “I didn’t even know.”
Absentmindedly, his fingers stroke over the scars on my stomach, but he doesn’t speak.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” I whisper, blinking back the tears that cling to my lashes and willing the familiar numbness to take over. “It . . . just hurts knowing . . .”
His arms tighten around me and he presses his lips to the side of my neck where my hair’s fallen away. It’s gentle and sweet. Protective and possessive. Everything I’ve always wanted from him and everything I know I never should.
“The Universe put those men on this planet, Mila,” he murmurs roughly against my ear. A shiver ghosts up my spine despite the warmth of him at my back. “And when I find them, I’m going to take them out.”
He leans down, pressing a kiss to the top of my head before leaning back against the pillows.
“Sleep.”