Chapter 21
Leaning against the doorframe, I take her in before saying, “I pictured us here. Relaxing by the ocean when I built this place.”
Celine’s glassy eyes find mine. The image of her on this bed, in this house I created for us, has me questioning if I am dreaming. This world is not big enough for us not to find each other. We’re two magnetic poles.
This love of ours is not rational. It goes beyond physical. It’s endless.
My letters lay scattered around her in a blanket of confessions. Emotions punch at my chest. All my love, my fears, are now in the open.
“You know, snooping through these letters is punishable by law.”
She gives me an intent look. “I don’t think that counts when they’re addressed to me.”
I cup my neck. I just want a bit of easiness to push at the sadness cloaking the air around us.
“How did you find me?” she asks in a meek voice.
“Even though Bailey refused to tell me, I knew she was helping you. And I got the confirmation when I opened my nightstand drawer and the other set of keys was missing.”
“Smart.”
I love this woman so fucking much.
She looks to the side, avoiding my gaze.
“How was your night? You made quite the statement.”
“Nothing happened,” I say, walking to her.
She expels a sigh of relief.
When her eyes seek mine, she clutches her chest. “I am hurting, Kaden, and these letters help with the heartache.”
Rain breaks through the clouds, falling in angry streams down the windows. The sky itself wants me to stay, wants us to go through the carnage we put each other through.
“I’ll leave if you tell me to. If my presence causes you more pain than my absence, I’ll do it. I’ll do anything for you.”
“I think if you leave, I’d die of a broken heart. Don’t leave.”
“I am so sorry … for the pain I caused you at my hands, with my words, with my actions…”
A heartbreaking cry pierces the room, and she covers her face.
“Shh, no baby. I’d take fucking everything from you… I caused it, all that pain, that anger…” Her hands drop like my restraint. My feet eat the distance separating us.
On the bed, she jumps in my arms while I hold her with sheer desperation. She buries her head in my chest, crying while I kiss the top of her head, caressing down her spine.
“Please forgive me for being so damn stubborn, petty, and blind. For believing all the crap I feed myself to vindicate my heartbreak.”
“Stop crying, please, it’s killing me.”
She lifts her chin, palming my cheeks. I lean my forehead against hers, and we breathe each other in.
Finally, after two years of being exhausted and lost, it feels like I broke free of my dark prison and found my way back home.
Even with puffy eyes and tear-stained cheeks, she’s gorgeous. Her beauty strikes every cell of me, electrifying my insides.
She’s the image of my dreams, the face of my life, the essence of my being.
“Honesty?” she asks, hope lacing her soft voice. Her words carry a melodic tune, filling my insides with yearning.
“Only ever honesty from now on.”
“The anger is not completely gone. There’s a part of me that is still mad at you. But I am even more mad at myself… at the injustice that happened to us.”
“Me too, baby. I’m mad at everyone and everything. I have been dying inside. Missing you, loving you, and seeing you with—”
“You were not the only one who kept their vow.”
It’s a cacophony of emotions awakening my comatose soul.
Thunder strikes, illuminating this vast patch of land. It’s just us and our emotions running high.
“I love you,” I say, needing her to believe me.
She places her hands on my chest, fisting my shirt, clawing her way inside of me with no way to escape. She smiles at me tentatively, feeding me life.
This woman of mine.
“Why?”
“Because I was born to love you. And nothing you would do or say would change the fact I’m yours. I love you with every beat of my heart, every fiber of my being….You madden me. Terrify me even more. But you’re mine and mine alone.”
“I love you too, Kaden, and I will love you for an eternity.”
Her eyes peer into me, and I don’t have it in me to mask my anguish, but she reads me. I have her heart and I have her body, but something is missing, and that fucks with my head. I want to get past the mistrust and all the secrets so we can move forward and start healing.
I become feral in my need for her. I slam my mouth against hers, kissing her with savage desire.
The biggest flash of light cracks outside, illuminating the space around us. Lips sealed, my hold on her tightens. Scooping her up, I carry her toward the bathroom.
In the shower stall, water sprays down on us. Desire unleashes, and my control snaps. Reaching behind my back, I tear my shirt off, then rip hers off. It was mine anyway, making me burn even hotter for her. In just her thong, she’s a vision for my famished eyes.
She giggles. “Someone is in a hurry.”
“Someone is fucking desperate.”
I back her into the wall. Nibbling and kissing down her neck, I play with her nipples, rolling them into pointed nubs. The little sounds she makes in the back of her throat spur me on. I kiss down to her stomach. She’s so soft and perfect. A heavy concoction of lust streams through my blood, making me drunk on her. I hook my thumbs around her thong, and the material tears when I snap it, and I throw it to the side.
I bury my face between her thighs, inhaling her scent that I can never get enough. Potent desire consumes me. I drag my tongue up and down her slit. There’s nothing sweeter than her pussy, nothing sexier than those throaty sounds. I drink her up with an uncontained thirst.
Her hand tugs at my hair, and she moans even harder. I place her leg over my shoulder and lick at her slit, from bottom to top, letting her addictive flavor permeate my taste buds. I could do this forever.
Who needs air when I have her beautiful pussy to sustain me?
“Kaden… inside me. I need you inside me.”
Her words light my body on fire, ravaging my insides.
“But I need to greet my pussy properly. Believe me, baby, I’ll give you my cock and everything else you want from me. But this is for me. I need to quench my thirst, and only your sweet juices can satiate me.”
I go back to eating her out, devouring her. Her thighs squeeze my head, trembling with the beginning of her release.
“Come on my face, my beautiful girl. Bathe me in your juices, baptize me in your religion.”
“Good God!”
“Always a believer when I have my way with you.”
Lapping at her with insatiable hunger, I dive into her pussy and don’t come out until her high pitch moans fill my ears. Head thrown back, hands fisted in my hair, she erupts.
“Just like that, baby, ride it. You look so fucking beautiful.”
I kiss her thigh while she comes down from her high. Digging my hands into her waist, I need to get inside of her, connecting on every level: skin, heart, and mind.
“Now, right now. I need to feel you inside of me.”
Need. The word that sets my veins on fire.
All the blood rushes down to my cock. I am so hard I am afraid I will break her. I am desperate to show her what she does to me––consumes me to the point of obsession.
Standing up, I lift her by her ass.
“Put me inside of you.”
She guides the head of my cock to her entrance. Both of us look down at our bodies connecting. Her pussy lips wrap around my cock––softness and hardness meeting.
I thrust inside of her, giving in to the euphoria. Loving her is what I was made to do. She’s all my vows in one. Everything I am is hers. Everything I do is for her. Throwing her head back, she clenches so hard around me as if she’ll never let me leave. Good.
“I would live inside you if I could.”
Our eyes lock. Paradise is not a place. It’s when you look in the eyes of the woman you love, and she looks back at you as if you’re all she wants. Rocking my hips, I go even deeper, hitting the spot inside of her that has her shivering.
Her nails dig into my skin, overcome by the pleasure I give her.
“Mark me, let me wear the proof of what I do to you.”
“Kaden…” Her head falls back. I graze my teeth over her neck. Satisfaction pumps through me at her inability to form words. I don’t need them, anyway. I know what my girl needs.
“You feel fucking perfect, baby.”
“You’re so deep.”
“I want you to feel me for days.”
She drags her nails down my back, biting into my chest. Carnal frenzy takes over. Our hips roll and meet in a savage rhythm. She squeezes me so well, her pussy so fucking tight. My vision blackens from the potent rapture.
A low groan rumbles in my throat. Skin slapping, our mouths clash together in a passionate kiss. She’s the most exquisite drug, custom-made to give me the greatest high.
Pleasure overtakes her features––a pouty mouth, eyes glazed over, a rosy complexion. My hand snakes down her ass, and I trace her asshole with my thumb. She sucks in a breath.
“Can’t wait to take this too. Would you let me?”
“I would,” she says in a shaky voice.
“Such a good girl who’d let my cock defile her.”
I dip my thumb inside. She clenches lightly, but I caress her back in soothing strokes.
“Relax, baby. It’s me…”
Body coiled tight, she kisses me so hard, teeth and tongue collide.
I am barely holding on. The pleasure is too intense.
“Celine? I love you, baby.”
“Strange way to defile me.” She giggles and I slap her wet ass hard enough for an echo to bounce off the shower walls.
“Smart ass. Now, let me see how beautifully you fall apart for me again.”
With my thumb in her tight hole and my cock buried to the hilt inside of her, she explodes. I brace my hand on the shower wall and spill inside her, marking her too.
We breathe fast, chests heaving. She closes her eyes for a moment, sighing contentedly, looking so adorable.
I pump a few more times until I slip out and place her down.
Seeing our cum trailing down her thigh makes me want to beat my chest like a damn Neanderthal.
I chuckle. “You really want me to get you knocked up, huh?”
She sighs, her eyes turning sad. I kiss her cheek, wanting to erase that look that twists my insides.
“I can’t get pregnant, so…”
The sadness in her voice hits me first, followed by her words.
Still in shock, she sidesteps me and wraps a towel around her body, gripping the sink. Our eyes meet in the mirror, and she says, “But there is a slight chance. And I would rather take that any time… with you.”
The last part resurrects everything in me. All the shit I went through is pulverized by her words.
“If we don’t get to become parents, nothing will change on my end. I need you. You, Celine. A lifetime with you would be more than good enough for me.”
“I know it’s stupid, but I have this idea in my head that my chances are dimming with every year that passes. I had one surgery already. It won’t be the last.”
I peruse her body as if it could tell me what’s wrong.
“It’s endometriosis. When not on the pill, the pain is debilitating.”
I wrap my arms around her, her back pressed to my chest.
“I don’t remember.”
“Yes, well, it started soon after…”
I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment. “I had to make the hardest decision I’ve ever made,” I confess.
“And that’s the problem with us, Kaden. Not even I can stop you from protecting me, and I can’t have that.”
“That doesn’t mean I haven’t learned my lesson. I shouldn’t have taken the decision away from you in the first place, but you weren’t there.” I breathe through the havoc those memories wreck in my head. “After three days of physical and mental torture, my head and body were a mess. And I had one goal, to keep you from experiencing that…”
“But what if we would have made it through?”
“Are you sure? How about when they would have broken us up and forced me to be with Abigail?”
The reminder is enough because she remains silent. She goes to the walk-in closet and returns wearing another one of my shirts.
“My shirt, huh?”
“A problem, husband?” she asks, a playful tone coloring her voice.
“Nope. It turns me on, wife. I love you in my clothes.”
“I can see that.”
She drags her lower lip through her teeth and points at my dick that’s making a tent behind my towel. Well, we have a lot to make up for.
“Here’s another vow. I will put a baby in you.”
A beam takes over her features. I’d do everything to put that radiant expression on her face again and fucking again.
I prowl to her, and she squeals when I lift her and throw her on the bed.
I want her to be like this always —dreamy and eager for me. She spreads her legs, teasing me as she drags a finger up her belly, lifting the shirt to expose her creamy skin.
Yanking my towel off, I climb between her legs. She lifts her gaze to the sky: a black and golden sparkly canvas.
“It’s beautiful, Kaden.”
“Not more than you. Everything I have envisioned, have dreamed of, has always had you in it. I would have waited a hundred years to spend even one more day with you.”
I enter her, and her perfect mouth creates a mesmerizing O. Her palms land on my chest and between kisses, she says, “It’s the same for me.”
Fingers interlaced, we make love, hearts synchronizing to our own unique beat.
And when we come again, I crash next to her, spent and satisfied. But I know it’s not for long. Nothing could quench my need for her.
My cheek rests on my palm as I gaze at her while she props on her side. A bright smile tugs at the corners of her lips, illuminating my world.
“I’m glad you came for me.”
“You and me, Celine, it’s Fate.”
I stroke her hair, and she caresses my thigh. Peacefulness envelops me, and my throat rumbles with a satisfied sound. I could die a happy man right now, but I am fucking selfish, wanting more of these moments.
She straddles my lap, peppering kisses on my face. My chest overflows with potent emotions. Heaven must exist on earth as well. There’s no other explanation for what I’m experiencing now with her. It’s just too right, too perfect, too surreal.
Her stomach rumbles and she giggles. “Ignore it.”
“Can’t because that means it’s time I feed my girl.”
“I didn’t even check if we have food.”
We. A piano concert from a virtuoso plays in my chest whenever I hear her refer to us.
“I brought some, and we also have stuff in the pantry. Any preferences?”
“Pancakes.”
I press my lips against her forehead, lingering longer to ensure I am not dreaming. A contented sigh rolls out of her mouth, confirming I haven’t lost my mind. She’s here.
I pull my sweatpants on and go downstairs. Reaching the kitchen, I look through the pantry for the flour, then move to the fridge. When I turn around, she’s leaning against the door. “We don’t have eggs,” I say.
“Then something else.”
If she wants pancakes, she’ll get them.
“There is a farm nearby.”
“Kaden…”
But I am adamant. I kiss her before I get in the car and track down the farm stand. Finding the eggs and milk, I grab both, hurrying back to her. Every moment I don’t spend with her is a lost one.
When I return, she’s in the kitchen swaying her hips to music coming from the radio.
“I can sense you.”
“Just enjoying the view.”
She takes the eggs and milk from my hands, preparing the batter while I put butter in the pan.
She flips one after another. I nod, impressed.
“We always had them on Sundays,” she says.
“Tell me more.”
“Mia, Hunter, and I. That was our Sunday tradition. I couldn’t even work a pan to save my life. Hunter was just plain lazy. One Sunday, we waited for Mia to make them when she told us we had to do it instead. We had so much fun that day.”
“It sounds… nice.”
“I miss hearing you play,” she says over her shoulder.
“I haven’t done it in a while.”
She turns to me. Her features pull tight with guilt. “I’m sorry for ruining the piano.”
“I am not. It gave me hope. I just didn’t want to upset you more.”
Celine makes smiley faces with whipped cream and blueberries on one pancake, Nutella and banana on another, and she drenches the others in maple syrup.
We take our seats, indulging.
A bright smile lights up her face. “We’re going to be sick.”
A light atmosphere surrounds us, making reality better than any dream.
With full bellies, we go to the living room, and she crawls on the big, comfy couch and lays her head on my chest. I put on a movie, and she whispers, “I wish we could stay here.”
“We will.” Just not now, but we will. This is a vow.
“Will you play for me again?”
“I never stopped playing for you.”
“I never stopped loving you.”
Those words coming from her mouth are a symphony for my heart.
She brushes her finger against my chin. “I don’t want to hide stuff anymore. So please, swear to me, you’ll never break my trust again.”
“I swear.”
“My father is alive.”
At my lack of reaction, her body tenses.
“I know. I tracked your phone and followed you that night when you stole my key and went to my old house, snooping around Felix’s office. And then I heard you, Mia, and Hunter talking about him, so I paid your father a visit.”
“The bike that followed me. It was you, wasn’t it?” Vulnerability threads through her voice.
“Yes.”
“I should have known.” She looks down, fidgeting with her fingers.
I can’t have her retreat in her head. We must resolve our mess once and for all.
“That I have a bike? That I am obsessed with you? That I would die for you? Which one, baby?”
“You wanted me to trust you based on promises I thought you broke…”
“I know, but that was all I had left… that small hope that you could not believe I betrayed or stopped loving you. Get angry with me. Yell at me. Whatever it takes to leave that part of our lives behind.”
“No, Kaden. I can’t promise we won’t fight in the future, but I’m done with that anger owning me. Your letters and accepting the truth that you love me have healed me. It’s just hard to accept that I failed my mission. After all the training and the trust my father put in me.” She swallows hard, twisting my heart.
“Celine, no. Don’t think like that.” I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, my thumb caressing the pulsing vein in her neck.
“You’re not the only one who has learned stuff. Every one of us had to juggle the masks we wear in front of the Family. We have the money to disappear, but we won’t be free until we make sure they can’t track us down.”
“I can’t believe my father didn’t tell me about you.” Her voice breaks, and I pull her to my chest, kissing the top of her head.
“You’re my priority. I just want to be there for you.”
“I think your father is keeping my mother hidden.”
“Then we’ll find her. Together.”
She eyes me, those eyes where love wins the battle over her frustration. I breathe a sigh of relief.
“But trust me, okay?”
“It must have been quite a surprise to see me like that in my coveralls, breaking and entering.”
“I was half hard, half terrified.”
She giggles, and I dip my chin and kiss her. “You want answers. I want us away from the Family.”
Standing up from the couch, she stretches out her hand for me. I take it, lifting her hand to my mouth and placing a kiss on the inside of her palm.
She cups my cheek. “You’re lucky I love you.”
I chuckle and wrap my arms around her waist, savoring her in my arms. And no one will take her away from me. I’d hold on to her even then if they broke all my limbs and bones. No one will ever rip her from me again. They can pry her from my dead body and not sooner. But I’d kill everyone long before it would come to that.