“Some have paid, others we are not finished with.”
She looked worried.
“There are ways to do things when it is not obvious who is doing them, Liberty.”
“I am pleased you are punishing them, although I doubt it goes anywhere near close enough to what they did to you.”
He smiled at her anger on his behalf.
“So you forgive me just like that?”
Her sigh was small. “I’m not sure it will be that easy. After all, I’ve carried anger toward you inside me for many years, but I will be happy to not feel tense, like a cat out in the rain whenever you are close.”
“I’m truly sorry, Liberty. More sorry than I can say, but all I knew was anger and shame back then and not how to deal with what I’d endured, and how it had left me feeling.”
Her fingers tightened around his. “There is no shame on your part,” she said, her eyes full of fire. “That is all on them, those that hurt you and your friends.”
“I have no right to ask you to trust me not to hurt you again, Liberty.”
She studied him through those cool blue eyes for long seconds. He felt exposed but didn’t look away. In that moment, he did something he hadn’t before. Allowed himself to be vulnerable for her. His old friend, who he knew meant a great deal more to him now.
“I trusted the boy you were,” she whispered.
“But not the man I have become?”
“I don’t really know the man you are now.”
“Do you want to?” The tension inside him climbed as she stared at him.
“I do,” she whispered.
More of the ice inside him thawed. Losing Liberty was yet another painful memory he could now let go of.
“And you are wrong, you know, Tobias.”
“About what?” His finger traced her cheek.
“You’re not broken.”
Three simple words and they completely undid him. He felt the sting of tears and swallowed to force them back down.
Liberty tugged her hand free and cupped his cheeks. “You are so much stronger than what that place did to you, Toby. You wouldn’t have survived and, yes, thrived in your own way if you weren’t.”
He looked into her eyes and saw the tears that, as with him, she fought to hold back.
“Do I wish you had dealt with this another way and told me? Yes, but I also know this was your way of surviving what happened to you.”
“Liberty,” he rasped. He took off her glasses and placed them in his pocket. Then he was kissing her. Deep and desperate, right then he needed this woman more than he’d needed anyone in a long time.
She took everything he gave and returned it. Her hands went to his hair, his to her waist, pulling her closer, so close she was soon in his lap. Where one kiss finished, another started.
“Stop me,” he whispered against her lips.
“No.” The hands in his hair tugged him closer. Nothing separated them but clothes, and that was too much. His body was hard, his hands trembling with the need to touch and taste her like an innocent youth.
One hand moved, unbuttoning her spencer. Toby’s fingers touched the soft skin of her neck. Tracing the curve of her bodice andthe swells of her breasts above the neckline of her dress, he swallowed her soft moan.
“I missed you very much,” he said, easing back to look at her. “We talked about entering society and what it would be like for us, and while I knew I’d enter first, that you would be there one day was something I’d always believed. Then you were, and we were strangers.”
