Chapter 34
Warmth envelopes me. My eyes remain closed, but his smell, his leather and cinnamon aroma, infiltrates my mind. Serenity. Peace. Calm.
Finally.
For eight years, I have woken each morning in pain. In the cold. But he is here. Am I hallucinating again? Is this real?
My heart-wings flutter, making a breath catch in my throat, and there’s the familiar burn of tears trapped behind my eyes. I am flooded with what I did. What I didn’t do.
I didn’t trust him.
I didn’t run to him.
I ran from him, and I took his son away from him. I took Rune’s father away from him all over a letter that I should have known was not mine.
How utterly foolish. Shame and guilt and heavy despair fill my limbs, my chest, and now my hummingbird heart is drowning. She doesn’t deserve to fly.
“I can feel you thinking, pretty bird. Stop.” His gravelly morning voice is right at my ear, and then a kiss is placed to my cheek, my neck, my shoulder.
His hand snakes around the front of me and grips my throat.
My mind flashes back to last night when this grip stole my breath, but this morning it gives me breath.
His loving touch reminds me to breathe, to pull in oxygen, and it lifts the wings of my broken heart.
“Ev…” My voice cracks as the tears fall.
“I got you.”
He turns me so I am on my back, and then he hovers over me, protecting me, shielding me from my own pain. The way he can read me is unbelievable. How I could ever think this man would leave me in a letter is unfathomable. I feel like a complete idiot.
I cover my face with my hands. How can I even look at him? How can he look at me? I hid his son from him! Oh my God!
“Hey, I told you to never hide that beautiful face. Especially from me.”
He reaches up, his rough hand clasping my wrists and pulling them down.
“How can you look at me after what I did?”
His eyes were always so expressive, and all I see is his love, his patience, his strength. His mask is gone now. This man is ready to hold me up yet again, and I cannot fathom why.
“What you did? How you were manipulated? How you did the one thing you could think of to protect our son? Sacrificing your own happiness for his? How could I look at a woman like that? With absolute fucking awe. That's how.”
What?
“I…I never should have believed that letter, Ev.”
He puts his forehead to mine, and I close my eyes, soaking him in.
“Yeah, maybe not. Maybe if you were in a healthy state of mind, you wouldn’t have.
Maybe if you had been raised to see your worth, you wouldn’t have.
Maybe if you weren’t living in a constant state of fight or flight, you wouldn’t have.
Maybe if every time you fought, you weren't abused, you would have fought for us. But you didn’t.
You made the best decision you could have made with the life you were given.
And I don’t blame you for choosing to run, Leo. ”
He pulls back and looks me directly in the eyes again. His honesty, his understanding hits me in the chest. I don’t deserve his forgiveness.
“I spent eight years hating you for what I thought you did.” I grab his face, hoping and praying that with my honesty, we can move forward.
“No, you didn’t. If you hated me, you wouldn’t have told Rune about me.”
He knows?
“How do you—”
“Rune told me that you had given him pieces of me throughout his life. Telling him about me. Even when you thought you hated me, you still loved me enough to share me with him, and I am so fucking grateful for that, Leo. Rune knows who I am because of you. That’s so fucking brave, pretty bird.”
“I think I needed him to love you like I did—like I do.” I kiss the tip of his nose. My tears have dried to my face. God, I probably look like a wet raccoon with mascara and tears running down my face, but I don’t care.
“Where do we go from here?” There is a spark of hope in my chest that wherever we go, we will do it together.
“I think it’s time for breakfast. I’ll cook, you make the coffee?” He winks, and those dimples—fuck, those dimples come out, and I kiss each one.
He hops off the bed, still just in his jeans. Holy mother of muscles. He is ripped. He was always fit, being an athlete and all, but now?
I didn’t think it was possible to be so sculpted. His porcelain skin is taut over each ab. I can see each muscle in his back move. This man is giving Thor a run for his money, and me? Well, I could possibly compete with an Oompa Loompa.
He leans down and picks his shirt up off the floor, lifting it up and over his head, and it falls smoothly down his back and settles on his hips.
I hate shirts.
Really. They suck.
He looks back at me. The arrogant look on his face tells me he knows exactly what I am drooling all over my pillow for. “You coming?”
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
He walks back over to the bed and leans over me, caging me between his large arms, his veins popping out in all the right places. Shit.
“I meant to breakfast, not in your panties, pretty bird.” His tone is laced with seduction, and I need to evacuate before I never find the self-confidence to show my body in front of him again.
“Yup. Nope. Fuck.” I swallow and try to regain my composure. Words. Use them in a cohesive sentence, Leo.
“I am coming to breakfast, but you need to leave because you are too perfect to see me naked.”
He rolls his eyes. “Leo, I saw you naked last night, you fucking goof.”
He rips the covers from me, and I immediately move my arms to cover myself, but he scoops me up and over his shoulder and plants a firm slap to my ass.
“Everett! Put me down! I need clothes on!”
He begins walking to the kitchen, “No, you don’t. I plan on eating you after breakfast anyway. It would be highly efficient if you were already naked.”
“Oh my God! You are not doing that in my kitchen!”
“Yes, I am.” His arrogance is pouring from his voice.
He plops me down onto the kitchen counter, completely naked, and then stands between my legs. Warm hands land on my hips. The coolness of the counter sends shivers up my body, and he takes note.
“Fine.”
He reaches behind his head and pulls his shirt off then dresses me in it. It falls to the counter, gathering around my ass and hips. It smells like him, leather and cinnamon, and I am in heaven.
“What do you want to eat?” He begins looking through all my cabinets, and I cringe at the lack of anything he will find that would be up to his standards.
“Umm, all I have is instant oatmeal, bread, eggs, and maybe cereal.”
His head falls forward, and he lets out a sigh. “Thank God I am here now so you and Rune don’t have to live off instant oatmeal and eggs. Jesus.”
“Hey! I do my best.” I say it jokingly but the look in his eyes is devastating.
“I know. You did good, baby. But now I’m here. No more cheap meals. Only the best for my girl and my boy.”
That last remark hits me in the gut like a sledgehammer.
I guess we do have some talking to do. Might as well start now.
I hop off the counter and begin making our coffee.
I pour the frothed heavy cream over the rich coffee and then sprinkle it with cinnamon.
I also drizzle honey on top of his but leave it off my own. “Are you? Here, I mean? For good?”
He looks at me with his teeth clenched. “Of course. I will not have you believing that I would ever leave you. Do you hear me?” He moves toward me, his presence daunting. His hands come up around my jaw, and his thumbs graze my cheeks.
“Hear me loud and fucking clear, Leo. Nothing and no one could take me from you. I don’t care what happens. I am here. Till my last fucking breath, I am here. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. No matter what happens. You are mine, and so is Rune. Do you understand?”
His eyes are angry, but not at me. I nod.
“Words, Leo. Use them.” The dominance in his voice leaves me breathless.
“Yes. I understand,” I whisper.
“Good girl. Now…” He kisses me hard and rough. “Do you still like your eggs scrambled and toast practically burnt like a fucking lunatic?”
He steps back, and I feel myself lean forward, as if he has his own gravity pulling me with him.
“Yes.”
I know he hears the desperation for him in my voice, because he looks at me like he really does plan on eating me after breakfast.
He finishes our breakfast, and I finish our coffee, and we sit next to each other at the small kitchen island.
“Tell me about your life after you left,” he says between bites of his unburnt toast.
I knew this was coming, that he would want to know about my life, but how do I wrap up eight years over breakfast? But he deserves for me to try.
“Well, after I left, I took a bus until I ran out of money. I just tried to get as far away as possible. I had enough saved to stay in a hotel while I looked for work.” I shudder at the memory of the dirty hotel I stayed in. It wasn’t safe, but it was all I could afford at the time.
Ev just waits patiently as he eats, keeping his eyes on me.
“I was lucky to find Miss Dianna’s salon. She had a help wanted sign and interviewed me on the spot.” I chuckle, remembering how pathetic I must have been.
“I started bawling my eyes out mid interview and ended up telling her everything. I don’t know what it was about her, but she just felt…safe, I guess. It was overwhelming and freeing at the same time.”
He lays his hand on my thigh, giving it a squeeze. “I’m happy you found her.”
I take a sip of my coffee then run my fingertips over the lip of the mug, soothing my nerves.
“Me too. Her daughter Colette is my best friend, the one who picked Rune up yesterday. And who you met in the ER. She’s a year younger than me, and she was working at the salon too.
She trained me, and Miss Dianna let me stay in the studio apartment above the salon.
She was gracious but still made me work for my keep.
I was happy about it though because it kept my mind busy. ”