Page 47 of Bombshell

Sterling doesn’t object. He simply scoots my hips toward his, as his soft, warm sigh floats up to me like a summer breeze. What we did yesterday left me sore, but his attention so far has dulled that particular ache, and when he enters me, it feels like something I’ve only glimpsed and never known: the easy rightness of coming home.

“I love you so much, Adair,” he says with wonder bordering on reverence.

We’ve made love with me on top before, but even then I always let him be in charge. But I take the reins now, riding him slowly as I work up and down, savoring every sensation as I guide us toward the edge. I watch his face, moving my pace to his, urging us on to the same path, and when he goes rigid, I let myself shatter, melt, dissolve.

I know he will catch me and put me back together—always.

And I won’t forget.

“I’ll be right back,” he promises, slipping from the bed.

I watch covetously as he grabs a pair of sweatpants from the dresser and tugs them on. They hang loosely at his hips, and he disappears out of the bedroom.

Panic seizes me instantly, and I scramble out of the bed. Picking up his abandoned shirt, I slip it over my shoulders and button it as I go to find him.

He glances over from the refrigerator, the light from the ice machine silhouetting his form. Sterling holds up a glass as I join him. “I was just getting you some water.”

I fall in love with him all over again

“I wish you’d never left,” I blurt out, feeling another crying jag coming on—all over a stupid glass of water.

But it’s more than that. It’s being taken care of by someone who loves me more than himself. It’s loving him so much it physically hurts. It’s feeling my breath hitch every time I see him again for the first time.

Sterling’s eyes close and he places the glass on the counter, reaching out to take my hand. He kisses my knuckles, his eyelids still pressed into two firm lines. When he finally speaks, his words are thick on his tongue. “You have to believe that if I’d known, I wouldn’t have left you.”

“We can’t change the past,” I say, swallowing hard. We can relive it, however, and I can’t avoid it any longer. He needs to know the truth. He needs to know what we’re up against. “But you need to know.”

“Are you sure?” he asks. When I nod, he leads me over to the couch, the glass of water forgotten on the counter. Zeus pads over, looks between us, and then flops to the floor at my feet like a guard dog.

“By the time I realized I was pregnant, you were gone,” I begin.

Anguish clouds his eyes, and I force myself to look away. I know the pain of being separated from a child too well.

“I wish you’d tracked me down,” he says fiercely and for the first time, there’s a dangerous edge to his words. “I should have been told.”

“I tried,” I say flatly. “I called Francie. Did she tell you that?”

He shakes his head. “She didn’t talk to me much when I was enlisted. Couldn’t,” he clarifies quickly. “There’s not a lot of time for personal calls. She probably forgot to tell me.”

“I doubt my frantic call to her slipped her mind. Look, she didn’t want me to reach you, and I can’t blame her.”

“Francie would never—”

“I believe her exact words were that I’d done enough by ruining your life, and…”

“And?” he presses.

I take a deep breath, finally voicing the words that had haunted me for years, “She told me if you died out there, your blood would be on my hands.”

They crack me open and spill out along with the tears I’ve been trying to keep contained. I can’t hold back anymore. There’s too much—too much he needs to know, too much I need to finally confront myself.

“But I’m right here,” he says, his palm stroking my arm gently. “I’m sorry, Lucky. I’m not mad at you for not finding me. I’m just mad that I wasn’t there for you.”

“I wanted you there,” I croak.

“Even after I left?” He shakes his head, that familiar self-loathing twisting his handsome face. “You’re a better person than I am. I can’t imagine what you went through. I can’t imagine what your family did to you.”

“That’s why I went back to London.” I shake my head, wishing I could slap my younger self for ever being so monumentally naive. “I thought I could hide it from them until I figured things out, but I was just fooling myself.”