Page 28 of Returning for His Unknown Son

Damp strands framed her forehead. Her lips were dark reddish brown and swollen. At her jaw, he saw the faint pink marks his beard had left when he’d kissed her. The worn out T-shirt hugged her breasts. Then there was the enticing strip of her midriff and those loose, low-slung shorts. The way she was lying hid the sexy tattoo.

So many new things about her —it would take him a lifetime to know them all. The strange thing was that he didn’t mind the idea. Nothing in him recoiled as it did over so many things in his newly discovered life.

He ran a finger over her jaw, his thoughts unraveling faster than he could keep track of. Her taste in his mouth...was like magic that seeped through him, waking up deep desires he’d forgotten along with everything else. Wants he’d suppressed in order to survive. He trailed his finger over the rise and fall of her hips, loving the feel of her silky skin. Pushing damp tendrils from her forehead, he pressed a kiss to her temple.

Itwasa new beginning and he had to let the shadows of the past go. He had to let go of who he used to be. Being stuck in the past, searching for himself there, was useless. He had to look forward. And he would, too. He would be whoever he needed to be for Priya and his son. If all he could have of her was her friendship and this echo of their past relationship, he would make that enough. He had to. He didn’t deserve anything more. He didn’t dare even think of having more when he wasn’t fully whole.

If only his mind would let him be, if only there were no fingers of doubt creeping inside his head every minute, if only he could somehow shed the visceral fear that he would wake up one morning and see nothing but strangers around him again...

Priya moaned in her sleep, as if tuned into the tension thrumming through his body again. He relaxed his fingers on her hips.

She sighed and tucked her feet between his calves, as if it were the most natural thing to do. As if they’d spent the last eight years learning each other’s patterns and rhythms. So easily and effortlessly reaching for him. Trusting him.

Christian smiled, and it came from someplace deep inside him, making his chest expand like a sunbeam stretching and reaching every dusty, dark corner of him. All he wanted in that moment was to wake her up with his mouth, whisper filthy nothings into her ear and then beg to be inside her. To feel that tightness of hers surround him, clutch him, hold him deep inside her until he shattered...until he was nothing but pleasure and sensation. Until fear was nothing but a shadow.

She’d let him, he knew. And not just for comfort.

God, he understood now. Understood that she saw him for who he was. Accepted that in some way or other he was broken but it didn’t matter. Not to her.

He understood that she wanted him—this version of him—as much as he wanted her. The truth settled deep into his pores, undoing the tight knot in his chest, releasing him from his previous assumptions.

His fingers moved from the arch of her neck to the jut of her collarbones to her bare arms to the flare of her hip. He wanted to see that tattoo again, his fingers itched to touch it, he wanted to kiss it again and again.

The tattoo she’d gotten despite the fact that she was terrified of needles...to remind herself of the strength she already possessed. She raised their son, she ran the company and she expertly managed demanding family members. Everything about this Priya was fierce and unapologetic. Even the kiss the night he’d returned. Teasing and taunting him to allow them what they’d desperately needed.

And tonight, the pleasure she’d demanded he give her, the vulnerability she’d let him see... Yet he... He’d been nothing but a coward ever since he’d returned. Buried so deep inside his own head that he hadn’t believed half the things she’d told him. So angry and hurt about everything he’d lost that he couldn’t see all the beautiful things he’d gained.

Because he had gained them. He had a wife and a son.

If she could not only survive losing Jai and him and raising a son alone and being true to herself... How could he do any less? How could he not give her anything less than all of him?

How could he deny her this...himself...after everything they’d both lost? After everything they’d gone through to face this day together again?

CHAPTER EIGHT

PRIYACAMEAWAKEgradually. For all of a second, she was thrown by the utter stillness of the darkness around her. A quick shuffle of her legs under the duvet sent a pleasurable ache between her thighs and just like that, she knew where she was. More important, she remembered what she’d asked of him.

She could feel Christian in the room, even with the curtains closed, nothing but inky darkness filling the space between them.

“How long did I sleep?” she asked, her voice still husky from all the screaming she’d done earlier.

“A couple of hours.” His voice came from the armchair in the corner.

“You went for a run?”

“How’d you know?” She heard his smile in that question. “I showered.”

She shrugged and then realized he couldn’t see her. “You don’t sleep. Or maybe you can’t sleep. So you run around the estate until your body gives out from exhaustion. I’ve seen you.” She licked her lips. “Christian?”

“Yes, Pree?”

“Is it easier for you to talk in the darkness?”

“For what I want to say, yes.” He groaned and she blinked. Now she was able to see a faint outline of his face.

“It’s very possible that what I’m about to say is very...messed up. So just bear with me, okay?”

“Are you leaving us?” The words shot out of her on a wave of piercingly sharp fear.

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