Page 117 of Beyond the Blue Horizon
“I’m not sure I can give you what you’re asking me.” It was a bare, vulnerable whisper.
“Your trust.” I guess it was a clarification. A quiet, prodding murmur that begged her to open up to me.
“I don’t even know you, and I’m pretty sure you’re hanging onto as many secrets as I am.” It was her own challenge.
Guilt twisted my guts.
She was right. There were so many things she couldn’t know about me. My life was nothing but deceit. My scars and sins ugly and deep.
My greatest failure burned like a thousand-degree coal inside me. One that would never go out. A sentence of permanent agony.
And still, I tightened my hold around her waist. My other hand glided up over the soft flesh of her abdomen and chest, riding all the way up to curl around the front of her neck.
Woman plastered to me as I kept her bound.
Her pulse fluttered like hummingbird wings against my palm.
Frantic and wild.
As wild as her eyes that met mine in the mirror.
My voice was hoarse as I offered her a piece of myself that I shouldn’t.
“And all those secrets are exactly why you should come to me.”
A tremor rocked down her spine. “I think you’re giving me every reason why I should stay away from you.”
My lips ran the length of her neck. “Is that what you want, Piper? You want to stay away from me?”
A heavy rush of air gushed from her lungs. “I should.”
“But you want this, don’t you?”
Didn’t even know what the fuck I was saying.
This woman winding her way into all the places I couldn’t allow.
“I want this. While I’m here.” It was tremulous, though I could tell what she was trying to insinuate.
This thing could only be temporary.
“And how long is that going to be?”
I shouldn’t care. I shouldn’t want to beg her to stay.
I knew I couldn’t make good on the promises that wanted to spill from my mouth.
My footing quickly slipping.
But I could be here for her while she was. Show her what it was like to be cherished. Show her that she deserved to be adored.
Maybe hunt down the motherfucker who hurt her and wipe his stain from the earth so she didn’t ever have to think of him again.
She breathed out a labored sigh, and she barely shook her head, the scent of cherry filling my senses as her hair brushed across my chest. “I don’t know. I get…antsy if I stay in one place for too long. But Nelly has been begging me to find a place for us to stay. And I know she’s right. Somehow, I need to find a way to give Finn a good life. A home. Security. But I’m not sure I can ever give it to him.”
No question, whatever she was running from wasn’t so far in the distance. Wasn’t relegated to the past.
I ran my nose along the angle of her jaw. “And what could I do to convince you to make it permanent? To give him that here?”
