Page 144 of Resurfaced Passion
The chasm of inches between them was too much and she crawled the last inches to close the gap and wrap herself around him. Instantly his arms came around her, holding tight enough her bones complained, but Paige didn’t.
“Thank you, Reaper. Thank you for looking out for me.”
There was so much to process that she felt like her head might split open down the middle. He went on to tell her he’d been the one to put the bus ticket in her purse, along with the thousands of dollars and he’d helped with her job and apartment too. Their meeting that day on the street was no coincidence either.
Protecting her again. Getting her out of her father’s clutches once and for all in case any backlash came out of Sony’s death.
In his arms she let the tears fall.
Tears for a baby she’d never had the chance to meet or love while he was in her belly.
Tears for the years she’d lost with her husband.
Tears because throughout it all he’d never stopped loving her, hoping she’d come back to him.
“What…what would you have done had I fallen in love with someone?”
His jaw tightened and she rubbed his fingertips, soothing him. “It was my greatest fear, ladybug. Losing you all over again would have killed me.”
While Paige wasn’t the old person he knew her as, she was here now, and she loved him so much.
“I think I would have always been drawn to you, no matter what. I love you.” She whispered into his neck and felt how hard his chest exhaled, his arms squeezed her tighter. “I’m going to love you for the rest of forever, Reaper.”
“Thank fuck,” he grunted in return. “It killed me to miss you so much.”
Stroking the back of his head she held him close. “I’m here now.”
She hadn’t known a love like this could exist. That it would span years of not being together and still the love sustained.
Would another man have done the same as Reaper?
Would a different kind of man have moved on and left her to her new life?
She’d never have those answers because her man endured.
Through all his painful days of knowingeverythingand watching her,caringfor her as much as he could and still… he stayed and that love she felt for him just went on and on.
CHAPTER FORTY
“Tick, tock, girl.” - Sargent
The first time he saw her, she was the sweetest—barely out of high school, full of life girl, with her hair only blonde back then and piled like a pineapple on top of her head with wispy parts hanging down around her oval face. She’d been laughing at something her friend was saying, and she just took him.
Her eyes weren’t even on him in that second and he’d known right there as his fucking feet refused to move, that she’d taken him. Owned him.
He belonged to Paige before the first hello.
Before she’d given him that shy, beautiful smile of hers. He was hers.
Nothing about the way he’d felt then changed an inch over the years and looking at her sleeping on their pillows in their apartment, the heavy bricks he’d felt laid on his chest for days began to fall away.
She was here and she loved him.
What lucky fucker got to say his wife fell in love with him twice?
He smiled and nuzzled her neck, whispering her name.
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