Page 83 of The Billionaire's Accidental Legacy

And there was no thought to be given to control. Not now. Not in this moment.

“I like talking,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong. But I did think that perhaps we were missing something that this honeymoon needed badly.”

She took a step toward him, and that was all he needed.

He released his hold on everything. On his control, on everything that was tethering them to the earth, and moved to her, wrapping his arm around her waist and drawing her flush against his body.

“I want you,” he said, the words guttural.

“I want you,” she said. “But I want all of you. All the things that you are. All the things that you hide. I made myself my mind. Only my mind, and it was only when I made love with you that I was able to turn it off for the first time in my life. That night we were together, all I did was feel. I was not crowded with thoughts. And ever since then, even if it has taken work, I have been able to find my way back to that place, because now I know what it is. You gave me a gift. You allowed me to unlock a door inside myself and walk into a room that I did not know was there.

“It is all me. But it is me that I kept hidden. The part of myself that I kept most protected. And I learned something. That it is not protection. It is prison. I kept that part of myself imprisoned. What do you keep locked away?”

She was searching him, her gaze far too keen, far too sharp. And he wanted to turn away from her. He wanted to tell her there was nothing. Nothing.

Because he had not locked a part of himself away; he had hollowed himself out. Bled himself dry the way that his mother had done.

Because there had been no choice for him that day. No other way for him to survive.

And as he looked at her, suddenly that glory he’d felt a moment before over seeing her round with his baby was overshadowed by fear.

Fear.

That was what he kept locked away.

Because as long as he was vengeance, then he was out there taking control of the world and making things right. Balancing the scales.

But the truth that it hid, the thing that he denied the most, was that he would never be able to stop injustice.

He would only be able to fight it afterward, again and again.

But there were some things in this world that you could not stop. Some things that you could not ever have dominion over, and that was the thing that frightened him most.

It was the thing that made him feel like a small boy who walked out in the cold, starving and freezing.

And the worst thing was it was his father who held the key to all of that; it was...some power that simply laughed at the misfortune and destruction of humanity.

For he was angry at his father for a great many things; his father had been forever the demon in his life, but his father had not killed his mother, and he had not killed his brother.

It had been a force that he could not seek vengeance on. A force that he could not control.

And he would never be able to protect Jessie, either. He would never be able to protect the child.

He pushed those thoughts away, and growled, kissing her with all that he was.

He would not speak anymore.

He knew how to deny all of this. He knew how to keep it hidden.

How to keep it secret.

He knew.

So he opened up the part of himself that embraced nothing but feeling, sensation, and he consumed her.

He moved his hands over her smooth, soft curves, kissed her neck and down to the plump swells of her breasts.

He took one nipple deep in his mouth and sucked hard until she cried out.

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