26. Chapter 26 #2
He pushed off the door, climbing the bed and pinning me under him. “Say you’re fucking sorry for nearly giving me a heart attack.”
The moment I caught a lungful of him, every nerve in my body came alive. “I’m sorry,” I breathed, panting at his proximity.
The tip of his nose skimmed mine. “Apologise for nearly ruining my life and leaving me here with no way to fix it.”
Something in my chest shattered, breaking into sharp pieces that stabbed my insides. “I’m very sorry.”
He was breathing hard, his heart meeting mine each time he inhaled. “No, you’re fucking not. And it kills me—that fucking kills me. Because there hasn’t been a single moment where I’ve imagined a life without you, but you somehow find it so easy to do so.”
His words choked me. A shiver of a whimper left my lips before I said, “I don’t, Logan. But I’ve had a long time to make peace with the fact that life will carry on for others even when I’m gone.”
“But it wouldn't have. Don’t you understand what I am saying? It wouldn’t have gone on, Willow. Did you even think of me before you jumped into the arms of death?”
“For Piper…you would have stayed for Piper. For your little girl. You would have been okay. For her.” My fingers rose to skim his face. “You were the last thing I thought of when I closed my eyes. And the first thing when I opened them again.”
His trembling breath tickled my lips when he breathed out a long sigh. “You’ll never do that again.”
I nodded, running my fingers down the buttons of his shirt and tracing the shape of his belt buckle. Looking up at him, I slowly undid it, watching his jaw slacken and his eyes flutter shut when I stroked his hard cock root to tip.
His teeth grasped my bottom lip, and then he pressed a harsh kiss to my mouth. I swallowed his groan, feeling it vibrate deep in my belly, igniting an ache in my core I’d only ever felt for him.
We didn't ease into it. It was hurried. Loud and messy. Teeth and nails marking skin. The headboard rocked hard against the wall, the heavy frame screeching against the wooden floor with each thrust.
By the time we were both spent, sweaty and finally sated, he’d pulled me on top of his chest, my heart beating against his.
Swallowing, I dropped my head back so I could look at him. “Did we win the war?”
His fingers moved back and forth over the dip in my spine. “There was no war. And we have you to thank.”
“Me?”
King Ignatius, ruler of Morngate, sat in my husband’s drawing room.
Without armour and unarmed, he looked so…
human, so fragile, so old. He was a stranger—a stranger who had the same eye shape as I did.
I’d spent my life staring at faces, hoping one day I could see a resemblance to mine.
And there he was, wearing the same eyes I did.
Logan reached to pull the doors shut.
“Stay,” I told him, grabbing his hand and lacing our fingers together.
“Willow,” King Ignatius said, trying the vowels carefully as if he was afraid of them. “It’s a beautiful name. She never got to name you, but I know she would have liked it.”
The old human king handed me a photograph of a young woman.
Besides the dark hair, she looked exactly like I did.
My fingers skimmed my whitelock when I noticed she was wearing the same necklace.
“Eudoria,” he said. “My daughter. And—” His tired eyes filled with tears.
“Your mother. She was given that necklace when her sister, my other daughter, passed away. It was a grieving gift. A tradition from the town where her mother was from.”
His voice shook with each word, “If I had known—” His hands trembled as he wiped his old eyes. “—How could I have left you…how would I have let Agnes hurt you?”
I put a hand over his. And it was so strange to hold the same hands that had held my mother. To hold the hands that had raised her, that had known her.
“She loved you so much.” He left a shaky kiss on top of my hand. “And you look just like her.”
A defeated look filled his face when I pulled back. “You will always be welcome here. And I hope you will find your way here often because I have so much to tell you.” The taste of tears filled my mouth. “So much I want to know about her. And you. I want to know everything.”
His smile, a near mirror of my own, was filled with such profound sadness. “I’d hoped you’d want to come with me.”
“This is my home. I love him. And I might love his Piper even more.”
“I can see that.” He took my hands in his shaky ones, pressing a kiss on top of both.
A strange, fulfilling silence sat with me in the empty drawing room for long hours after my grandfather had left. It was comforting.
“You were never alone in this world,” Logan said, leaning against the door.
“I haven’t been alone in a long time.”
“He’s your family,” he said when I wrapped my arms around his waist and rested my chin against his chest.
“You’re my family. All mine. My very own.”
“If you wish to leave with him—”
“You wouldn’t stop me?”
“I’d beg that you don’t.” His brow was pressed to mine as he whispered, “Please, don’t go.
I wish I could be a better man for you, but I can’t.
Not when I have to give you up. I can’t give you up.
” His thumbs brushed across my jaw. “Piper will miss you and your rat. Especially the rat. I think I might miss him a little, too.”
Biting my smile down, I asked, “Is this a good time to tell you that he’s not a rat?”
“Piper told me. And that he’s tried to eat her several times since you both came here.”
I winced. “And you’re still okay with letting him stay here?”
“You would never let anything hurt Piper. Besides, he’s the one who found me and rushed me to you. I can’t hold a good grudge against him. But he really needs a fucking bath.”
“You’ll get used to the stench. Eventually. You’ll even learn to love the silly thing.”
“As long as you stay, I can learn to love anything. For you,” he breathed. “Anything.” His lips grazed mine. “I love you.”
I smiled into the kiss. “And I love you, Logan Duncan.”