Page 91 of My Sweetest Obsession
All the air rushes from my lungs as I stare down at her.
She loves me.
I’ve longed to hear those words for so many fucking years, struggled through so many nights I didn’t think I’d survive, wanting them, but now that she’s said them, I have a hard time believing it.
A hard time understanding.
“You love me…”
She offers me a sad smile and pushes up to feather her lips across mine gently. “God fucking help me, but I do. Remember how you told me that kissing me tasted like red, that I brought color back into your life?”
I nod.
“Well, kissing you brought me back to life. If you hadn’t shown up on my doorstep that night, I don’t know where I’d be. I don’t know that I’d be here. Or that Drew’s daughter would be about to come into this world.”
I gaze at her through the haze of tears and capture her face between my palms, sweeping my thumb across her trembling lips.
Ones I’ve kissed.
Ones I’ve craved.
Ones I’ve fought so hard to forget.
But now they’ve brought me the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard from the only woman in the world who has ever held my heart.
“I’m going to make sure she knows who her dad was and how much he loves her. And I promise you, Ivy, I’m going to love the two of you enough for the both of us.”
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Ivy stares up at me with so much affection in her soft gaze that it feels like I might drown under the weight of it.
I’m not sure I’m ever going to believe I deserve it.
No matter how long this lasts, no matter how long she puts up with me and all the bullshit I carry with me, the fact that a woman like Ivy, who has suffered so much because of my actions, can still look at me like this feels like a dream I’ll be ripped away from at any moment.
I’ve lived with nightmares for so many years. The kind that had me wake screaming, drenched in sweat, my body craving all those horrible things I gave it. They became what I expected, and after Drew died and I learned the truth of what I had done, they only got worse.
Darker.
More demanding.
But this offer in her gaze is all warmth and light.
She pushes up onto her toes and skimming her lips across mine, running her fingers through my hair. “I know you will.”
Just feeling her hands on me again is enough to make my cock harden where it’s pinned between her belly and mine.
I’ve missed this touch.
The one filled with affection and compassion instead of anger and hate.
It makes heat ripple across every inch of my skin and warms me in a way nothing else can.
When she pulls back, a tear trickles down her cheek.
I dip my head and kiss it away, the saltiness splashing against my lips, and all I want is to be here to kiss away every single tear she ever sheds. “I love you, Ivy, and I can’t promise things will ever be perfect, that I ever will be, because I’m far from it. But I promise I will do anything and everything for you and this baby until the day that I die. Anything you ask, anything you need.”
