“For what?”
“For being Liam McBride.”
LIAM
By the time I’m done with Lucky in the shower, she can barely stand. Her legs are a quivering mess, and the taste of her release coats my tongue. Knowing I was the one who did this for her fills my chest with a warmth I never thought I’d feel again.
Pure fucking joy.
The kind I used to feel all the time—before.
Before my world went to shit.
Before what I thought I knew about myself vanished like the morning mist from the mountain.
But since this woman has walked into my life, all those feelings of being disconnected, of seeking answers and not being able to find them, seem to have shifted away from being my central focus to merely inconsequential threads in the bigger tapestry that has now placed Lucky front and center of the intricate, stunning design.
I hold her tightly to me as I turn off the water and snag a towel. Wrapping it around her, I ghost a kiss over her forehead, cling to her for one final moment. Breathe her in and enjoy the way she leans into me and stares up with half-lidded, sleepy eyes.
She offers me a tiny smile, but already I can see the darkness starting to creep into the edges of her vision, those sky-blue eyes of hers starting to shift to the stormy version with the reality of what’s going to happen now.
I tried to distract her this morning, tried to cushion the fall that I know is coming for her by assuring her that it won’t change anything between us, but the fear is still there.
On both our parts.
Whatever she’s going to tell me must be bad.
Something that she’s been dealing with on her own for a very long time.
Something she’s never told anyone.
Opening up to me is going to be painful for her, even if she wants to, which I’m not entirely sure she does. I understand that all too well. I don’t want to shut out Killian, Connor, Willow, and everyone else, but I’ve had to.
Self-preservation instinct to keep the pain at bay.
The only way I knew to keep the nightmares that haunted me from seeing the light of day, to wrangle those demons that wanted to control me.
And now I’m forcing her to face her own.
But she won’t do it alone.
I wrap another towel around my waist, scoop her back up into my arms, and carry her out of the bathroom and up the stairs to the loft, setting her on her feet near the dresser so I can dry her thoroughly.
The sunlight flooding through the window now illuminates the rumpled bed, and she keeps her gaze locked on it, as if she can’t bear to look at me right now and wants to focus on that spot and what we did there this morning.
I let her.
Taking my time rubbing the soft towel over her skin. Gently swiping away every last drop of water before I tug open the drawer where I put all of her clothes and grab a bra, underwear, a pair of stretchy pants, and a t-shirt to put on.
She doesn’t have much, only a few sets of clothes that she could easily carry in her backpack, but that’s going to change.
As soon as we have this conversation.
Once she realizes I’m not going anywhere and neither is she, we’ll get her anything and everything she could ever want. I’ll fill these drawers and this house with everything she’s always dreamed of having when she was moving from foster home to foster home.
A place that’s hers.
That’s ours.
