My release washed over me, and I came hard on his cock before he came, filling me until it dripped down between us. I collapsed against his chest, content in his strong arms.
“I love you,” I whispered against the wet skin of his neck before kissing the spot just below his ear. “Every single part of you.”
He gently pulled me back so I could see his face. There in his eyes I still saw the intensity I adored in him. “I couldn’t do it if I didn’t have you and the baby as the reason. I need you to know that.”
“I thought you loved it.”
Ryder shook his head. “I love you. I love our baby. Fighting is what I have to do to take care of you. If it wasn’t for you, I’d hate it just as much as I used to. It’s only because I know it’s a means to a much better end that I don’t hate it now. But it’s for you and the baby.”
He set me down on my feet and knelt in front of me as he slid the soap along the inside of my thighs, cleaning me of all the traces of our time together. When he finished, he said nothing but turned off the water and wrapped me in a towel.
“I’ll meet you in the bedroom,” he said sweetly before kissing me softly.
When he and I were alone like this and no one else in the world intruded on our time together, I believed everything he promised would come true. That it meant he’d have to be that brutal man everyone else saw him as didn’t matter.
All that mattered was when he was with me, he was the only person in the world I completely trusted with my heart and soul.