Page 104 of His Coveted Obsession

“Who you are is who you are. I would never try to change that or force you to behave in any way other than the real you. Finding out you and your makeshift family are killers was pretty disconcerting, and you did scare me a little… okay, a lot. But I’ve had the time to reflect. Thank you for giving me that time. Listen, your honesty is the most important thing to me. Heck, at first, I thought you lied to me about your job… Well, you did, but you didn’t. You told me you were a killer, and I thought you were just joking. I see now that youweretelling me the truth. Do I still need to process? Yes. Am I over what happened to Annie and me? Probably not for a long time. Me murdering a man will live with me forever, even if he was my tormentor.”

He kissed my forehead again.

“Let me tell you all the ways I love you, Superman. I love your honesty. I love your bluntness. I love your unique perspective on how you view the world and process information. I love how you go out of your way for me. I love how you take care of me. I love how you protect me. I love how impatient and angry you get when I’m not around because you need methatmuch. I love how sexy you are. I love how you get jealous. I love how gorgeous and fit you are. I love how you made my sister yours simply because she’s mine.”

“I do those things for myself.”

Thomas chuckled and grabbed my face. “I know that now, and that’s okay. But I also know that you don’t have to do those things. Youchoosethose things. Youchoseme. Making me happy makes you happy because you get to keep me.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“I think I can work with that. I love you, flaws and all.”

I huffed. “Flaws?”

His smile turned crooked and mischievous, popping a dimple on one side of his face. “Yes. Even Superman had flaws.”

“Psh…”

IwasgratefulSidconvinced Easton to open up to me. After talking with both men, I felt like I had a fuller, clearer picture of Easton. Everything clicked into place, nice and neat. I understood him, and that would help make it easier to navigate through our future together.

Even with who he was, I still worshiped him. He would always be there. He involved hisentirefamily to save me. Now that things were clear, any residual fear dissipated. He truly was my Superman. A dark Superman, perhaps, but no less my hero.

“Speaking of flaws, we need to deal with your father,” Easton said, wrapping his arms around me finally, but he was still stimming his fingers on my back.

“If you say we need to kill him, that’s out of the question.” God, I couldn’t believe I just said that,andthat it was even on the table as part of a discussion.

“He needs to be dealt with. It’s his fault you and Annie almost died.”

“And he will.”

“You haven’t done anything, and see where that landed you.”

“He needs help, East, not death. I’ve already talked to Annie about all this. But I want him to get help. This is something I’mfirmon. It probably won’t repair us or our relationship. I’m not sure I can forgive him. But I don’t want him to die either.”

“What if I hurt him a little? He’ll stop for sure.”

I smacked his hard chest with both of my hands. “No hurting, maiming, breaking fingers, cutting… God, I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. Look, I haven’t seen him or talked to him since all this happened. I’m sure he’s terrified for us. Hedoeslove us. I know it. Those Russian people intentionally pushed his addiction. They told me so. Who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky, and he’s already seeking help on his own now.”

“Or he’s even more addicted than before, since he has no idea how to cope,” he insisted.

“That’s a possibility, too.”

“I can threaten him to get help.”

I couldn’t help but smile and huff a laugh at the strange discussion. “That might actually work. But before you start getting all predator on him, I would like to try first.”

“Fine, but only for you.”

“Aww, I love you, too.”

I leaned forward and kissed his lips that I’d been missing. That kiss when I let him in earlier was everything. It was hungry and told me he was angry and had missed me. It was perfect. However, this was a gentle and sweet way to show my love for him.

“Can we have sex now?” he asked out of the blue, pulling a giggle from me.

If something worse had happened to me before my rescue, I wouldn’t have been able to. I knew I would’ve broken had Easton not saved me when he did. I just wasn’t as strong as he was. He hadn’t just saved my body, he’d saved my soul. I still needed some mental help, but for now, I was doing better.

“We can do it now, but we’ll have to be quiet.”

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