“Wait.” Her tongue peeks out to catch a drop of the agony she’s readying to unload. “Does this mean … or will it … do you forgive me for leaving?”
I brush my lips against hers as my heart jumps to my throat. Inducing guilt in her is the last thing I want. “Yes, baby. All’s forgiven. Any remnants hanging around will be left in there. Promise.”
“It’s hard to put something that’s shattered back together. What if I cut you?”
“Then I’ll rejoice in the blood as we pick up the pieces.”
“I’ll probably still be broken, a heap of shards,” she counters.
“So we’ll build a fucking mosaic.”
She smirks, her lashes fluttering. “Do you have an answer for everything?”
“Yes. Every road leads to you.”
A puffed breath precedes her resolution. “I’m ready then.”
As if she fired a pistol to start our journey, my body darts into action. I lower us into the tub-sized cocktail, press her against me, hold my breath, and in we go.
The champagne fizzes, bubbles tickling my skin, the cool temperature rousing my weary muscles, the scent of one of my favorite memories latching on to strangle the life out of the very worst.
I see the night I found her. The blood and bruises and lifelessness. I hear the cries of her—our—precious boy and her doctors telling me it didn’t look good. I feel the hollowness of every day in the hospital and every second she was gone.
Floating in white oak and screams.
But then the girl in my arms squeezes me, the woman who is my entire world, my breath and life and taste of champagne. And I know that even though we’ll face challenges, she’s safe with me. We can beat anything that comes our way as long as she believes in us.
So, as I prepare to rise, I hope like hell she’s ready to fight.
MERCY
It’s slick and slippery and effervescent. And though I thought he’d lost his mind when I grasped his baptism intent, the luxuriousness submerging us makes perfect sense.
Of course this is the battlefield Ryker Noire would choose to have us go to war with our demons.
Because he’s over the top and generous and passionate. And so sentimental that he transformed a drink that’s been a staple for us into a weapon to spear old ghosts.
It just might. Or at least make a damn good slash in them.
I do my best to release the tangled thoughts about this incredible man with the horrid memories of the monster who tried to kill me. To leave it all to rot in these bubbles.
The guilt for not listening to his warning, for not telling him that a twinge of something deeper for him struck me that day by the car, for pushing him away, and for staying gone so long.
The anger—justified or not—that he didn’t tell me how he felt about me.
The feelings of worthlessness and failure and defeat. Of being powerless and a victim. Scarred and never enough.
I’m sure some of those things will resurface from time to time, maybe even reemerge with a vengeance, but as we sprout out of the champagne baptism, I focus on the new version of us that he promised.
One day at a time—and today is a day I’m desperate to live.
A shower of decadence rains down upon us. The filtering dawn light frolics on the celebratory bubbles. The fruity scent of apricots and peaches and berries and plums permeates the air. Our limbs are sleek and entwined; our breaths stuttered, like a wispy laugh; our chests melded; our hearts hammering.
And he must be lasered in on that new version, too, because he smooths my drenched strands off my forehead, swipes at the dribbles hanging on my lashes, and searches my face. It’s only a second, one rise and fall of our fused chests, before his mouth collides with mine.
Unapologetic. Unhinged. And ravenous.
If I thought we were wild before, I was mistaken. Everything unfolds in a blur.
