Chapter 18
Sophie
The early sunrise bathes the bedroom walls in gentle orange, infusing life into the relics of Xavier’s childhood.
Unable to sleep, too afraid I’ll wake up from this dream, I memorize the order of the room.
The gun on the nightstand.
The rocking chair with embroidered teddy bears along the cushions, his mother’s signature in yellow stitching.
The radio in the corner, a stack of CDs nestled beside it.
A chipped baseball bat leaned against striped wallpaper.
The man beside me in bed is completely still. He fell quiet a while ago. When Xavier led me back indoors, both of us still overwhelmed by the unleashing on the beach, I knew a night of passion was unlikely.
I’m not even sure how my body would respond to it.
My eyes drift, settling on his clothed back. I don’t recall a single instance in our marriage when he slept in his clothes.
Not one.
I keep seeing the scars.
Deep down, I know they are the reason he hasn’t stripped, which breaks my heart .
His voice disturbs the silence, making me realize he hasn’t closed his eyes either. “I wish you’d let someone ease your pain. I would have understood.”
“Did you? Let someone?”
I tell myself I can handle it. I can handle anyone but Rosa.
After what he just showed me, I can forgive anything.
“No,” he says quietly.
“ Hypocrite ,” I tease while closing my eyes with relief.
It takes him a moment to laugh and let what used to come easily to us settle between us. I feel his head shake against the pillow, this bed far too small for both of us. I rest my hand on his back, knowing he’s giving me space, believing I need it.
“Xavier.” His torn shirt hangs open as he turns, exposing his bare skin down to his midsection. With his hands behind his head, he holds his breath while I sidle up next to him, using one hand to unbutton the remainder. “May I touch you?”
“I'm yours.” He says it as if that’s the only answer, all that matters.
Mine . God, that feels so good to hear.
I wet my lips nervously, spreading his shirt apart.
“I don’t know… I’m not sure how far I can take this,” I whisper. “I know it’s been years, and we’re finally together. I might just need some time?—”
He grips my chin, his expression grave. “Don’t ever think of me before yourself, Sophie. Ever.”
He doesn’t know how impossible that is.
My eyes drift closed as I rest my cheek against his chest. It’s even broader than I remember, with rippled muscles stretching beneath trim dark hair. The skin joining his collarbones hollows when he shifts his arm, inviting me closer. It’s then that I notice the rings hanging from a silver chain.
Two of them.
My heart stops.
His eyes dart down to my fingers when I dare to touch them, brushing against the white gold. Lifting my cheek from his chest, his mouth opens, but nothing escapes for a moment.
The sight of those rings has stolen his words. It takes him a while to find them.
“Strata had this. When I saw it, I… truly wanted him to kill me.”
My eyes strain wide. “ How did you get this?”
“I flew to Madrid when you disappeared. I missed you by mere days.”
Another blow.
I don’t know how many more I can take tonight.
He scowls in disgust. “The place was destroyed, and your blood was on the ring. He was very convincing… It didn’t help that the owner of that café kept saying they heard screams, that a body was being dragged out of the harbor.”
“Jesus.”
“In a meeting I arranged to get my hands on your father, he placed your picture on the table. You in your wedding dress, and I knew your location had been compromised.”
“How long did it take you?”
His brows dip together. “How long?”
“To find where I lived.”
He draws in an unsteady breath, pushing onto the pile of pillows.
He speaks when I place my hand over his, encouraging him to confide in me.
“I meant what I said when we said goodbye. I did plan to return to my father and focus on anything but where you had gone. Sometimes, I wished Bo had never told me. Because the moment he did, nothing was going to stop me.”
I'm going to Spain. Tell him.
I should hug Bo when I see him. He kept his promise.
“From the moment I was free… I knew where you were,” Xavier eventually breathes.
My hand has gone still. He traces the lengths of my fingers, giving me a moment to process it. He’s always been possessive. Hearing this would have caged me in when I married him. I’m clearly a different woman now, as fresh tears score my cheeks.
Because what he’s saying, what he’s really saying, is that he’s never left me. And all that time I believed I was fading, his eyes still searched for me, half a world away.
He doesn’t expect it when my chest resolves to his, when my head bends toward his skin.
His sharp intake of air fills the room.
When my lips part against his salt-kissed skin, on the underside of his chiseled jaw, his hand cradles the back of my head. The bristles scattered along his chin graze my lips as I slide them inelegantly towards his mouth.
I cast his hair back with both hands, gazing down at him, watching his eyes close, dense lashes fluttering every time my mouth finds him.
He breathes like he hasn’t been able to in four years.
I soak in all of his mannerisms, some new and some familiar. The way his dark brows trough when he thinks I might stop. How his jaw sets when my fingers coil into his unwound curls, tugging ever so gently. How, when his eyes peel open, hazed with desire, he is never the first one to look away.
After all this time, I see it so clearly, written plainly on his face.
Longing. Need. Desperation.
It reveals itself through his fingers as they glide over my shoulders, cascading down my spine. It exists in the stillness of his body nestled beneath mine. In the virile presence between his legs, firm beneath his slacks.
He is nothing like those who hurt me.
Every inch of him reminds me that perfection is somehow within reach. I'm acutely aware of his beauty—those emerald depths, his dark lips slightly parted, the incline of his chin, the curve of his sharp cheekbones .
My thumb brushes against a soft mark established near his brow, taking my time to reacquaint myself with his body.
The sheen between his breastbone visualizes his restraint.
“What do you feel?” he asks softly.
Words fail to describe it. I wish I could find a way.
This man is the embodiment of my sensuality, the one who taught me to love my body. I’d already become a woman before I was his wife, but it was his touch alone that made me embrace the change.
I know there will never be a moment when I don’t desire him, and yet there’s a pit hollowing my stomach. My body doesn’t know how to move forward, fearing what I might see.
For years, my nightmares have left scars of hatred.
Xavier speaks softly, choosing another route to my heart. “Can I touch you?”
As I nod, he shifts us to face each other. I hope he can’t sense my racing heart. His eyes beseech mine, guarded as he holds my chin. “Tell me to stop if it becomes too much.”
He doesn’t kiss me right away.
Instead, his lips softly skim the base of my throat, lingering until my tensed muscles relax.
Then, he shifts them, trailing over my throat to the tender root of my ear.
His teeth lightly graze that delicate spot.
My hands are balled against my chest, my eyes squeezed shut, focusing on the path of his mouth.
He glides his tongue along the delicate curve of my lips, gently parting them, gently urging me to accept him.
As a wave of warmth courses through me—for the first time in a long time—my jaw loosens, breathing him in.
And in response, his tongue fills my mouth, his kiss deepening as he inhales sharply, cradling my face with both hands.
At times, he’s starved. Overwhelming, flattening my lips as he licks into my mouth with desperate hunger.
He catches himself—often. I never wish to slow down or stop him, finding immense comfort in the familiarity .
Whenever I think of that bed in Madrid, the one side that was never turned, a pang of loneliness moves through me, and I find myself clinging to him, clawing at him just as desperately.
It gives him freedom, a chance for his hands to roam down my side, over my hips, and back up. Faster than I expected, clothing becomes an unwelcome barrier. He gauges my mind space before sliding his hands underneath my top, pulling it up over my head, unclipping my bra.
“I need to see you,” he says, sliding the thin straps from my shoulders. He replaces my fumbling fingers undoing my jeans with his, tugging them from my hips. My chest heaves when his fingers hook around my underwear. He hesitates, hearing my altered breathing. “Soph.”
“Don’t,” I pant. “Don’t stop.”
My eyes fix on the ceiling fan as he sheds my last article of clothing until I’m bared. The sun hasn’t fully risen, but muted light touches every surface in the room, including us.
When he puts his hands on me, I'm gulping through the rapid beating in my chest.
His hands scale the path of my hips to my waist, and when his mouth envelops my nipple, I balk, catching him off guard. He almost stops, but my hands prevent him from going far.
His touch is gentle, like ripples on a stream. Each caress of his tongue, every breath against my skin possesses power—power he intends to heal me with. It’s felt in every trace, every shiver, every groan. He’s here, but he won’t focus on himself.
He never guides me to touch him despite how hard he’s become. He doesn’t push to undress himself or tell me how badly he needs more, although I know he does.
His true intention becomes crystal clear when he lifts my thigh, positioning my leg over his hip until we’re flush against each other.
Emeralds bore into me as his hand disappears between us, his fingertips lightly grazing the inside of my thigh, drifting up to...
One. Touch.
That’s all it takes to ruin me. This. Us.
Everything blurs in an instant, but I feel myself recoil, feel as I go unresponsive. Most of all, I feel him wince at the jarring difference in a matter of seconds. I’m grateful he can’t see what I see, feel what I feel when my eyes squeeze shut.
Hands, so many of them, pulling my thighs apart.
Saliva coating my throat.
Hands restraining my arms, weighing down my ankles.
Xavier’s voice breaks the sound barrier.
And I'm hyperventilating .
He’s in tears, no longer touching me.
“It’s me ,” he says as if he’s repeated it a hundred times.
My chest caves in, realizing where I am and what’s happening. “I'm sorry. I'm?—”
He draws me to him in a rush, dropping his head onto my shoulder, every one of his limbs shaking.
I had no idea my cheeks were wet until he turns his face to mine to kiss the moisture away.
My cheeks are so hot they’ve numbed.
In a manic haze, my eyes dash to the clock, trying to gauge the extent of this. I think I lost time. I think he struggled to pull me out of it.
Not understanding it frightens me. “Xavier…”
“I love you.” He breathes the words onto my skin.
They’re a cure. A remedy I’ve been without until today.
My nails sink into the shirt on his back, eyes drawing closed to listen to that sequence of words, what they mean.
He repeats them over and over until he knows they are embedded in my brain. “I love you. I love you .”