Chapter 33
“It wasn’t meant for you, pretty bird.” The devastation, the guilt, the horror that is written all over her face is like a knife to my fucking chest. She is realizing what I have known all along: she never needed to run.
There is a part of me that is furious that she could believe this letter was written for her.
But then there is the part of me that is utterly fuming at the person who gave my innocent, fragile pretty bird this letter in the first place, knowing damn fucking well it was not meant for her.
I feel my hatred building inside me, expanding and filling every cell in my body.
“I-I…”
I can see it in the shaking of her head, the rapid rise and fall of her chest, that look in her eyes… She is about to run. She thinks I’m upset with her? I am, in a way. I am screaming at her. How could you believe this lie? What did I ever do to make you think I could feel this way toward you?
But how I am feeling right now is insignificant, she is all that matters.
She scoots back, rapidly trying to find her safe space. But she doesn’t see it. She doesn’t feel it anymore. I am her safe space. She needs to be running to me. She should have run to me all those years ago.
Backed into a corner, she buries her head in her hands and sobs uncontrollably.
“I got you.”
“No. No. No. No.” She is gripping her face, her nails making indents into her smooth golden skin. I won’t let my beautiful bird self-destruct.
“Leo. Look at me.”
The stern tone snaps her head up. Her eyes are wide, and she freezes. Every muscle in her body frozen solid. Even her diaphragm.
“Breathe.”
I take another step closer.
“Breathe.”
She is holding her breath.
I take another step till I am right in front of her, and I can’t stop my body. Like muscle memory, they act on their own as I scoop her into my lap, wrap her legs around my waist, and grasp her ice-cold cheeks in my hands.
She is looking at me, but her eyes are vacant. She is lost in the deep recesses of her mind, holding her breath too long. She needs to snap out of this. So I do the only thing I can think of, the only thing that I have wanted to do for the last eight years.
I kiss her.
I release her.
I forgive her.
And as she always has when it comes to me, she relents.
Her body instantly relaxes, my warmth thawing her body, her fear. She melts into me.
Her eyes are cast down, refusing to look at me, and suddenly I am seventeen again, faced with my timid, shy beauty who doesn’t know how bright her light shines. She needs someone to burn away all her insecurities and shame and show her just how stunning of a little phoenix she is.
“Look at me.” I place the knuckle of my pointer finger to her jaw and grip her chin with my thumb. Her skin is so fucking soft. I’d almost forgotten.
Almost.
She doesn’t.
“Leo Phoenix. Look. At. Me.” A growl escapes this time as I utter the command and lift slightly on her jaw.
Her blue eyes meet mine, and for the first time since I found her, I see her. My Leo.
“There she is.”
“Everett…”
“No. That’s not what you call me unless you’re screaming my name, pretty bird.”
“I… Eight years, Ev. I did this to us. I broke us.”
“It’s not on you. Don’t carry that guilt.”
The hurt in her eyes is fucking killing me, I need to fix this. “I can see why you ran, Leo. You were young and scared. You felt alone, carrying our Rune. And my mom coming to you and offering you money to—”
She pulls back from where she had begun to lean into me. “Wait… Your mom told you about the check?”
“Yeah. Why didn’t you take it? You could have used it.”
Something stiffens in her spine, a shield going up. Her vulnerable eyes turn cold, and she stands up, looking down on me now. A viciousness I have never seen from Leo emanates from her.
“How dare you suggest that.”
Confusion riddles my mind. “Suggest what?” I stand, too. She may be a foot shorter than me, but by the power that is radiating off her, you wouldn’t be able to tell. But I’m not scared of my phoenix. “Suggest that you take care of yourself?”
“Take care of myself!” Her voice is loud now, a lion's roar.
“You think aborting Rune would have been taking care of myself! I never shou—” She tries to step around me but I block her path.
“Wait. Abortion? What the fuck are you talking about, Leo?” I step toward her, but she takes one back.
“What did your mom say exactly?” She crosses her arms over her chest, and I fight the urge to grin. She was fucking adorable back then when she was pissed, and now, still adorable but with a lot more fucking fire.
Focus. Not the time to be eye fucking her.
“She said that she offered you money to set yourself up, get on your feet.”
She laughs. A roaring, beautiful laugh. Jesus fuck. What were we talking about again?
“She tried to pay me off to get an abortion, Ev.”
An image of Rune pops into my head. The thought of him never being born, not being here to spread his joy and his light? Fuck. It literally makes my chest hurt. But am I surprised? No.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Leo.” I step into her again and again and again until she is up against the wall.
“But I’m not fucking sorry that I found you. I’m not fucking sorry that your stubborn little heart is going to have to learn to love me again. Just like the first time, I am going to be relentless. I’m not fucking sorry that you are mine, even if you don’t want to be. Always mine.”
“Ev—”
“Don’t. Don’t say anything. Just kiss me. Please. Let’s deal with this fuck ton of trauma tomorrow. Tonight, just be my Leo again. Heal me. Revive me. Crash into my dull world like you did all those years ago. Please, Leo. Take me.”
She is hesitant at first. But then her insecurity and doubts clear like the clouds and her light shines again, her wings unfold, and she takes flight. My pretty bird.
Her hands wrap around my jaw, and she slams her lips to mine. It’s a collision of stars. A fucking supernova. Home.
She is decadent in the way she moves her tongue, her hips, her body colliding with my own in the most devastating dance.
I pick her small, luscious frame up, wrapping her thick thighs around my waist, and carry her to the bed.
The dominant in me is ready to tie her ass up and fuck her till she forgets her own damn name, but we can save that for later.
My gut tells me that tonight she needs me to be gentle.
She needs reassurance that despite her mistake, I am and always will be hers.
I lay her down gently on the bed, my own large frame shielding her.
When I run my hands under her soft T-shirt, she gasps, music to my ears.
Her cold hands running under my own shirt send shivers across my body, and my muscles tense under the pads of her fingertips.
Her touch completely unique, like nothing I have ever experienced. She lights me on fire.
I move my lips from hers to her neck, and I inhale her cinnamon scent. Fuck, I missed this. Her body under me after so long seems like a dream. “Fuck. Don’t wake me, Leo. Let me live in this dream with you.”
“I’m here, Ev. I’m here, with you.” Her light voice filters into my ears as her hands wrap around the nape of my neck, and she pulls me so our foreheads are touching.
“I love you, Ev, and I am so sorry for—”
I silence her with my mouth. I don’t want to hear that. I don’t want to relive any of this right now. I just want her.
I lean up and remove my shirt then pull hers off as well. She is laid out in front of me, watching me, waiting for…what? An assessment? A judgment? She will find none.
Her body is even more perfect now than it was last time I devoured it.
There are small stretch marks on her belly, and her breast are slightly larger, also decorated in the beautiful marks that tell me she carried and brought a life into this world, nourishing my son with her body.
It’s spiritual, the way I want to worship her.
“Fuck, Leo.”
She misunderstands my meaning. “I know. I don’t look the same.” Her voice holds insecurities, doubt, hatred for the body she lives in.
“I never thought you could be any more perfect, but I was wrong. You’re a fucking goddess.”
Her stormy eyes meet mine, and I can’t help the smirk that graces my face. I’m ready to consume her, and she knows it. She wiggles her hips against me, and I’m a fucking goner.
I lean over her and begin nipping at her breasts, her soft belly.
I place kisses to her scars, the old and the new.
Her cesarean scar paints a story across her lower abdomen, and I run my tongue along it, feeling the ridge that the scalpel left.
Her scar is not a perfect line. It’s shaky, messy—left in urgency to save my son’s life.
I grasp her leggings and lace thong in my hands and tug them off. I’m left in jeans, and she is bare under me. Just as she should always be.
When I lean down, hooking her thighs over my shoulders, my mouth inches from her center, my nirvana, I can’t help the moan that escapes at being home again.
“Ev, please.”
“What is it that you want, pretty bird?”
A bite into her full thigh.
“You know what I want.”
A bite to her other thigh.
“Do I? It’s been a while, Leo. I’m having a hard time reading you.”
Lie.
“You fucking liar.”
I love the way she calls me out. I love seeing her fire that she used to keep hidden. I love seeing how she has changed over the years and how she has remained the same.
“Are you still having a hard time using your words, little phoenix?”
Instead of replying, she grabs the back of my head and pulls my mouth to her center, taking what she wants. I smile against her center. Fuck…
I run my tongue from her opening to her clit and suck the bundle of nerves into my mouth, twirling my tongue to drive her mad. Her hips buck under me, and I have to wrap my arms around her to hold her down. Her taste washes over my tongue, and her moans are like music to my ears, my favorite song.
No one compares to her.