He paused only to open the door. I didn’t ask where he was going, still lost in the kiss, but our destination shouldn’t have been a surprise since our bed was currently occupied.
“I wish I could take my time,” he murmured, gingerly placing me down on my old bed. “But we don’t have that luxury right now.”
Clara no longer slept deeply through every noise. Her sleep was light. Troubled. It had been getting better, but there was arisk she’d wake up. And neither one of us wanted her to wake alone, no matter how much we wanted each other.
“I know,” I replied, hands going to my sleep pants to get them down as quickly as possible. “We’ve got a lifetime to take our time. I just need you.”
Beau’s hands replaced mine, then he rolled my panties and pants off before making quick work of his own.
“Let me savor you.” Beau let out a rough growl when he bent his head between my legs, inhaling. “Just for a moment.”
What could I say?
I let him. His mouth worked quickly, expertly, hungrily. Until I was right at the edge, until he was about to split me apart.
Then he stopped, quickly moving up my body. My heart beat furiously, with urgency as I pulled him down on top of me, needing his heat, his weight. I chose to ignore the dull ache in my chest that came from my rapid heartbeat, leftover bruising. From the shooting or the heartbreak, who could know.
Beau carefully hovered over me.
“I’m not going to break,” I moaned, clawing at his back as his cock pressed into my entrance.
“I know how strong you are,” he murmured. “I know what you can take.”
He pushed inside, slow at first, testing, stretching, driving me wild. Then it was quick. Both of us were unable to go slow, both of us worried for Clara, desperate for each other.
It was a hungry, rushed reconciling. But I came fast, hard, filled with Beau.
I meant what I’d said. We had a lifetime. It’d be complicated, to be sure. There were things to hammer out. But it was us. We were back.
Despite the haste of moments before, Beau lingered inside me afterward, his eyes exploring every inch of my face.
“I’ll never hurt you again,” he promised.
I smiled sadly. “You might. Because love is messy. But never give up on us again?”
Agony stretched across his face. “Never.”
thirty-three
HANNAH
TWO MONTHS LATER
We didn’t heal immediatelyor snap back to the way we were before. There were scars. One of them running down the middle of my chest, above my heart, evidence of the physical injury as well as the emotional one.
I forgave Beau. I even understood his reasoning. Then I remembered Calliope’s words in the car that night.
About him inevitably fucking things up. She had seen it. And if I was honest with myself, so had I. I didn’t miss the comments about the age, the faraway look he’d sometimes get in his eye when I mentioned the future, the jobs I’d get around Jupiter to accommodate his and Clara’s schedule.
He’d convinced himself that I was sacrificing too much, that he was taking too much. He’d made a shitty decision, letting the words of another man shape his choices. But his heart was always mine.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t angry with him. Now, my first instinct was not to protect my heart—no pun intended. Like Clara, I was suffering from PTSD from being shot by my ex-husband and from the bone-chilling fear that he’d take her too.Not just that but from all my hopes and dreams disappearing in one conversation. My life yet again decided by a man.
Beau would never say it out loud, but he was mad at himself too. I didn’t miss the way his eyes glazed over sometimes when we were doing something benign, his knuckles whitening from the force he was clenching them, his entire body stiffening.
Sometimes I had to touch him to get his attention. And that was usually a last resort because when I did, he would violently jerk then stare at me, unseeing, for a few seconds.
The way he made love to me now was frenzied. Intense. He’d do it with his eyes locked onto mine, staring at me like he feared if he blinked, I’d melt away.
