Page 26 of If You Fight

Her mouth took from me as my cock filled her, our tongues mingling as we tumbled over that ledge into sublime pleasure that for at least a few minutes pushed everything and everyone in the world away and let us be nothing but completely happy. Finally, she collapsed against me and lay her head on my shoulder with a sigh.

For a long time, we said nothing, each of us silently reveling in the other person next to them. When Serena finally spoke, I heard the concern in her voice.

“Tell me we’ll still get away from here, Ryder. I need to hear you say it today. That we’ll someday soon leave this place and go somewhere just the two of us.”

I turned my head and saw the fear written all over her face. Those beautiful dark eyes stared into mine as she waited to hear me tell her what she so desperately wanted to know.

That I’d do what I always promised.

Easing out of her, I lowered her to the floor. I cradled her worried face and smiled. “We will leave here, Serena. We’ll go to the mountains and find a place away from the rest of the world where the two of us can live away from the ugliness of this house.”

She covered my hands with hers. “I need to believe that, Ryder. I can’t stay here much longer.”

“There’s no reason you have to now. We can go. I don’t have a lot of money since your father likes to say he’s paying me when he puts money into an account only he can get to, but I have a little saved up. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to give you a home like this, but what I promise I will do is give you everything I can.”

“I don’t need what I have here. I’ve always had a beautiful home and never felt like I belonged. I want to feel like I belong somewhere.”

I knelt down in front of her and wrapped my arms around her waist as I pressed my cheek to her. “You belong to me, and wherever I am is where you should be.”

Serena gently ran her hand over the top of my head. “I belong to you. I always have. And wherever you are is where I want to be.”

I stood and kissed her softly. “Are you going to stay in this apartment or go back to your room at the main house?”

She looked around at the place she had shared with that fuck of a husband and frowned. “I don’t want to stay here. I only came back here after the funeral because I wanted to make sure we had someplace we could be alone. I feel nothing for this place.”

The misery she’d had to endure there filled every word, and I hated it. Taking her into my arms, I held her to me and whispered, “I’m sorry, Serena.”

“Why?” she asked, looking up at me like what I said hurt her.

“I should have gotten you away from here before your father made you marry that fuck. If I had, you would have never…”

The rest of my sentence got stuck in my throat.

Serena pressed her finger to my lips and shook her head. “You tried to convince me. I didn’t go. That was my mistake. You saved me from a life with him. I could never ask any more of another soul in this world. You have nothing to be sorry for, Ryder. You saved me.”

I kissed the tip of her finger and wished I could believe I’d done enough. Pressing my hand to her belly, I said, “If I had made you leave…”

Again, I couldn’t bring myself to say if I had gotten her away from him, our child would still be growing inside her. What I didn’t do haunted me more than what he did.

Cradling my face, she kissed me and whispered against my lips, “Don’t do this to yourself. You aren’t to blame for anything that happened.”

“I can’t help it. The sight of you lying at the bottom of those steps in a pool of blood makes me want to hate something. I can’t hate him anymore, so that leaves only me.”

“Then hate me for not listening to you when you said to leave this house with you that night. Hate me.”

The thought of that made my heart feel like someone had it in a vice. I couldn’t hate Serena. How could I hate the very soul who made life worth living?

I grabbed her by the shoulders and held her in front of me. “Don’t say that. Don’t ever even think that. I couldn’t hate you. You’re the only thing in this world that keeps me human. If it wasn’t for your love, I’d be nothing but the fucking animal your father wants me to be.”

She took my hands in hers and placed a kiss on my knuckles. “Then hate him. Hate my father for marrying me off to that bastard. Hate him for what he makes you do for him. Hate him like I do.”

I took her in my arms to hold her against me. “No more talk about hate tonight. I don’t want to talk about hate with you. Only love.”

“I love you, Ryder,” she whispered sweetly against my chest.

I kissed the top of her head, feeling the softness of her hair against my lips. “I love you, Serena.”

“I wouldn’t be alive without you. Never forget that.”

As we stood there in each other’s arms in that apartment where Oliver had tried to kill her and had succeeded in taking our child away, I had once again saved her just in time, but the truth was I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for Serena. I might exist and look like I was alive, but I would have been dead inside long before now if I didn’t have her.

She made me want to live like I hadn’t wanted to since I had a home and my parents. And now that I felt that love again, I’d protect it with my life, if necessary.

I’d do whatever I had to do to get her away from Robert and that world where love couldn’t exist. I’d promised her I would, and if I died trying, I’d see her free from this place.

---