Page 43 of Incandescence

Chapter Twenty

Alexander

Itook my weight offCharley to lie on my back beside her, my hand clasping hers and our breathing in sync as we stared up at the ceiling.

I didn’t doubt for a second that Charley was as awed as me, knowing that we could make love without fear tainting the act. We no longer had to run and hide, no longer had the vampire in the back of our minds.

Charley tilted her head my way. “I can barely comprehend we now have a future to look forward to together.”

I squeezed her hand. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

She smiled, her gorgeous eyes glowing even as she squeezed my hand in return. “Incredible,” she agreed.

“But?” I asked, sensing more than just happiness behind her stare.

“But, I believe to move forward, we need to put the past behind us.”

I searched her stare. “Sometimes it’s good to share what has defined us. What made us who we are.”

She nodded. “And to go into a relationship with the blinkers off and everything out in the open.”

I brushed my thumb along her lower lip. “Are you volunteering to go first?” I asked.

She blinked. “I am. Just don’t...judge me.”

I shook my head. “Believe me, my days of judging people are way behind me.”

She pulled her bottom lip into her mouth, as though unsure where to start. I lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles. “Take your time. There’s no hurry. Not anymore.”

She nodded. “I guess I’ll start from when my childhood was a happy place. Before my father died in a workplace accident on our farm and my mother went off the rails.”

“How old were you when he died?”

Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment, as though masking her pain. But when she focused on me next, there was a quiet strength in her stare. “I was almost thirteen. I remember that much, at least, because my thirteenth birthday was a non-event, when our birthdays used to be such a celebration.”

My heart squeezed with love for her. As if it wasn’t bad enough she’d lost a parent, she hadn’t had her father either to celebrate her becoming a teenager, and guiding her through those formative years.

“My mother was too drunk to even acknowledge my birthday. She was too deep in her own grief to acknowledge I was also grieving.”

I fingered a piece of her hair that’d escaped her ponytail, before I brushed it behind her ear. “She must have really loved your father.”

Charley sighed. “Yeah, she did. He was her life. I was just the kid who reminded my mom of the man she missed every single day.”

“That should have been a positive for her.”

“Believe me, it wasn’t.” She exhaled softly. “Alcohol might have helped her to forget my dad, but it didn’t stop the bills from coming in. The farm went into debt and mom sold it dirt cheap before we moved to Sydney. It was there that drugs became her amnesia of choice. It was also there that she began to use her body to get her fix, fucking strangers and even her drug dealer to afford the habit.”

“I’m sorry, Charley.”

She managed a smile. “Not even six months after she kicked me out of our dingy home, she overdosed, finally getting her wish to join my father in the afterlife.”

I shook my head. “You should be proud of yourself and how you’ve turned out. I don’t know many people who would have survived that kind of childhood.” And I had no doubt there was a whole lot more to the story. I only hoped she’d tell me all about it one day.

She arched a brow. “Yeah, in my case it was a matter of either getting on with my own life or turning into my mother. And if dad really was watching me in spirit, I wanted to make him proud.”

I kissed her then, needing her velvet-soft lips against mine, to touch her as much as to reassure her. “I’ve never met a stronger, more courageous and beautiful woman in my life. Your dad would have been beyond proud of you.”

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