Chapter 35 #2
My fingers clutch his shirt, desperate to anchor myself, but the fabric gives beneath my grip. He’s the only solid thing left in my spinning world. Every kiss, every breath, is a promise.
This is Griffin.
This is everything .
When he finally eases back, his breath ragged, the soft huff of it fans over my lips. His heart pounds, frantic and wild, keeping pace with mine.
“You still want me?” My voice breaks.
His hand cups my cheek, thumb brushing tenderly over the bruise. “Yeah, I still want you.”
“Do you love me?” I whisper again.
“Yeah.”
The ache in my chest deepens. The words tumble out before I can stop them, echoing the question he once asked me. “You love me, or you’re in love with me?”
“I’m putting a baby in you tonight kind of love.” His voice is raw, reverent and wild all at once, a vow and a demand tangled together. His gaze pins mine, searching. “Are you okay with that?”
My breathing falters as the memory rushes back—Griffin’s promise to me before Vander showed up. How we said there’d be nothing between us anymore. My mouth curves in a smile. I loop my arms around his neck. “So we’re going for the baby before the wedding?”
His low laugh rumbles through me, steadying me. “I think that works.”
“Yeah,” I whisper, hope burning hot down my cheeks. “It does.”
His eyes darken, his voice dropping low and rough. “I need to feel you, Reese. I’ve missed you so much, I can’t—” His hand fists in my blouse, shaking with restraint. “I need you.”
My heart clenches. I reach for him, scattering frantic kisses over his mouth, his jaw, his cheekbones, as if I can kiss away all the hurt between us.
“You’ve got me. Whatever you need. If you want to sleep, we’ll sleep.
If you want to eat, we’ll eat. If you just want to sit in front of the fire, I’ll sit there with you. ”
His forehead presses to mine, his breathing ragged. “I want to make love to you. Now. But I don’t want to hurt you. You’ve hurt enough already.”
“Please make love to me,” I whisper, my fingers clutching his shirt. “You’ll never hurt me.”
“ Never .”
My body still aches, sore in ways I can’t ignore, but I need this. I need him surrounding me, reminding me I’m safe.
His mouth crashes onto mine, and I let it consume me as he sweeps me into his arms and carries me to his bed.
He unbuttons my blouse with the gentlest of hands, his eyes locked on mine.
I flinch, catching his wrists. “Wait—the bruises. I’ll just… keep everything on.”
But his gaze only softens, steady as stone. He presses a kiss to my temple, then goes back to opening my blouse.
“No,” he murmurs, voice hoarse. “Because every inch of you is going to know it’s safe now.”
“They’ll fade,” I whisper.
“They will.” His eyes blaze with quiet ferocity. “And I’ll make damn certain no one ever lays a hand on you again.”
His mouth traces down my jaw and along my throat, depositing soft kisses that ignite and soothe me all at once.
He takes his time, unhurried, reverent, like I’m something sacred. But when his mouth drifts lower—over my collarbone, over the fading bruise at my shoulder—his breath catches.
Brightness burn in his eyes as he looks up at me, his voice fracturing. “Baby, why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you come to me? I would have died to protect you.”
My hand slides to the back of his head, holding him close. “Because I need you here. Alive. With me.” My throat tightens, the truth clawing free. “It was you who kept me going. I carried a picture of you in my mind, the way it felt when you held me. That’s what got me through.”
His mouth trembles against my ribs, pressing over another bruise, and then he stops. But I feel his sobs against my skin—the agony in his heart that he wasn’t there to stop it.
It breaks me all over again because I never want Griffin to feel an ounce of pain.
I cradle his face between my palms until he meets my eyes. “It’ll be okay. Do you want me to put my shirt back on?” My voice wavers. “If it’s too much?—”
Tears still glisten in his eyes, but his gaze is fierce, unrelenting. “No. I don’t want anything between us. Not your shirt, not anything.” Then his thumb sweeps away my tears. “No more walls. No more condoms. What I said before—I meant it.”
The weight of his words crashes over me. He’s asking for everything. Do I have it in me to give him that? All of me—my body, my heart, my future?
When I look into his eyes, those endless blue depths, I know the answer in an instant. Yes. Always yes.
“Are you certain that’s what you want?”
“Yes.” His forehead presses to mine, his voice guttural with need. “It’s always been you. A life with you. A family with you. Tell me I can have that. Tell me I can have all of you.”
My tears fall hot and fast, my body shaking. “You already do.”
Something in his eyes gives way, softening into a desperate certainty as his hands move with aching patience, stripping me bare piece by piece.
It’s so intense I clutch the sheet, my go-to protective instinct.
“No,” he murmurs, low and fierce. “You’ll never hide again. You’ll never hurt again. From this moment, you’re mine. Only mine. Do you understand what that means?”
“I do,” I whisper.
His mouth moves lower, over every bruise, every faded mark, reclaiming every inch of me from the man who tried to break me. By the time he reaches the waistband of my jeans, I’m trembling and crying—not from pain, but from the way he loves me.
When he finally pushes inside, slow and steady, I gasp, biting back the sound as my nails dig into his shoulders.
The stretch is exquisite, unbearable in the best way, and I can’t stop staring at him.
The awe, the grief, the love so fierce it could devour us both—it all plays across his face, raw and unhidden.
“Reese.” My name rips out of him, a groan, his head dropping against my shoulder. “So good. My God, so good.”
I frame his face, forcing him to look at me as tears blur my sight.
“Are you okay? I’m not hurting you, am I?”
“I’m perfect,” I breathe, a smile breaking through the tears.
He delivers a slow, drugging kiss against my lips. “You’re everything I dreamed of.”
And in that moment, I understand why nothing else ever worked out. Why no other man could ever reach me, why my heart never opened the way it was meant to. Griffin was right. I’d been waiting for him all along.
In that instant, I realize something deeper than I ever let myself before—Griffin, despite everything in his past, is finally living his dream.
He isn’t performing, isn’t pretending, isn’t being paid to give pieces of himself away.
He’s free here, free with me, with a body he loves as much as I love his.
And every time we connect, he reclaims a piece of his soul. I’m on a quest to help him find all the pieces.
And now, finally, I know—this is what forever looks like.