Page 49 of A Twisted Gift

She turns, and pride fills me at the way she’s standing. Shoulders back, chin tilted up. No more hiding.

“What if I want to be the one to kill him?”

Standing, I move toward her. This isn’t a conversation to have from across the room. I need her to feel me—to know my heart beats only for her. So I take her hand and place it on my chest, holding it there.

“Do you think there’s a single thing you could ask for that I wouldn’t give you?”

She smiles, her eyes softening. “No.”

“I’ve lived my entire life fighting my way back to you, Raina. Even when I thought you were a ghost, even when I questioned my own memories, my sanity—I never let you go. So yes. If you want his life, it’s yours. If there’s anything you want, I’ll do whatever is necessary to make sure you get it. I’ll stand by your side, be your support, guide you—whatever you need. But I will never stand in your way.Never.”

Her smile grows, and she loops her arms around my neck. The next second, her lips are on mine, and I’m grabbing her head so I can keep her against me for as long as she’ll let me.

“I love you,” Raina whispers, her eyes still closed. “I never stopped, Erik. My heart has always been yours.”

“And I love you.” I kiss her again, savoring the hesitant yet eager way her lips move against mine. It takes everything in me to not spread her out on the couch and eat her out again. It’s getting dark out, which means we’ll be leaving soon.

A few men who occasionally work for me have already come by to transport some of Raina’s clothes and her Christmas presents to my home. Raina wants to leave tonight, and for them to drive her things up by the time we arrive via plane, they needed the head start.

Reluctantly, I pull back, my fingers skating down her arms. Her cheeks are pink, and when she opens her eyes, she looks up at me with so much want that it almost shocks me. I love it, especially since she was so worried that I wouldn’t find her desirable if she wanted sex. Wantedme.

“You have no idea how much it turns me on, seeing you like this. Knowing you want me. I was too scared to hope for it, but you… you’re everything, Raina.”

She blinks. “Turns you on?”

Right.Of course she doesn’t know what a phrase like that means.

“You know the way you feel when I touch you?” My fingertips trace down her body in a lingering caress until I’m gently cupping between her legs. “The way your body is drawn to me? Aches for my touch?”

She nods, gasping sharply when I press my palm against her clit.“Erik.”

“That’s what it’s like for me, too,” I whisper in her ear. “And knowing that your feelings for me match mine for you? God, little rose. It makes me want to rip these clothes off you and worship you all over again.”

“W-worship?”

“Mmm.” I move her soft curls back, my lips finding her neck. “I could live for you, Raina.” Ever so gently, my teeth tug at her soft skin. Not enough to hurt—never that. But enough that she can feel my need, understand how tightly I’m keeping it leashed. “My only purpose being to serve you. Protect you. Fulfill your every need.”

“You’d do that?” Raina asks faintly, breathlessly.

I already do.

“I’ll prove it. Tell me what you want from me.”

“I want… I want you, Erik. Forever.”

“You have me.” I kiss my way down her jawline. “Another thing?”

“I don’t want to hide.”

Inhaling her scent, I press her into the wall behind her. “You don’t have to. Any threat to your safety, I’ll eliminate.”

“Thank—”

“Another.”

“Erik…”

“Another,Raina.”

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