AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Both,” he answers me sincerely, looking me in the eyes.
“Well you protected me, and I love you regardless.”
My chest rises and falls quicker, and I can’t shake this nervousness, not until he asks me with a rawness in his throat, “You know that I love you more than anything. That I would be anyone you need me to be?”
“You don’t need to change who you are, but you need to tell me if that’s why we’re back.”
“It doesn’t have to do with that. Romano’s still here, but not for long.”
“Then why?” I ask him, even though I think I already know. “There was a note?” My assumption brings his icy blue stare to mine.
“From Marcus. He warned me that Carter needed me and that we needed him.” His gaze drops to my belly and he squeezes my hand. “I would never let anything happen to you, Chlo, and I wouldn’t have brought you here if I didn’t think we needed to be.”
“Marcus said we needed Carter?” I clarify, feeling a wave of anxiety run through me.
"If it was only about Carter, we never wouldhave come here. You know it had to be about you.”
His words sink in slowly. Even after so much time, there’s still a mark on my husband, a mark on me in return. “Can you trust Marcus?” I ask him, focusing on the fact that we’re here; we’re safe. And that Bastian will never let anything happen to me or our child.
“No,” he says, and the answer is simple. He leans forward, pulling me into him and giving me a comfort I didn’t realize I needed this badly. “But he was right about Carter and he’s the reason why Romano’s men never came back. I should listen to his warning rather than regret not doing everything I can. If anything ever happened to you, or our little one, I wouldn’t be able to survive, Chlo.”
I have to keep my breath steady; I have to keep telling myself that we’re safe now.
“No one is going to hurt us here. This place is changing. Carter and his brothers are taking it over. We can’t let it stay what it was, Chlo; you know what happened to us, what it was like living here.”
“I know,” I whisper, hearing the pain etched in his words, but also the fight. To fight what’s wrong in the lowest and most depraved ways. To use violence and force in a world that’s nothing but merciless.
“It’s not our fight anymore, but that doesn’t mean we should stand back and do nothing.”
“Leaving this place wasn’t doing nothing,” I tell him and remember the pain, the fear, the courage it took to leave everything behind. But even as they leave my lips, I doubt the truth of the words I’ve spoken, because they were said out of fear.
“I didn’t say that it was. But now, I know we can do more. I can feel it, Chlo. I’m supposed to be here right now.” Taking my hands into his, the rough pads of his thumbs rub soothing circles on the back of my knuckles. Staring deep into his eyes and knowing that I see him for who he is and he sees me just the same, knowing that settles the harsh memories that creep up at the reminder of what used to be.
“I just don’t want you ….” He pauses to lick his lower lip and exhale a heavy breath. “I don’t want you to think I’m…” His words are lost in the air in between us. “That I’m-”
“All you will ever be, Bastian, is mine. You are mine. Just like I’m yours. I made my life knowing that’s who I was, and who I wanted to be.” It takes more than I realized to admit the words out loud. “I don’t want to be anything else and as long as you are mine, that is exactly who you will be to me.” Pulling my right hand from his grasp, I cup the side of his jaw in my palm and feel the rough stubble as my thumb runs along his chin. “You’re okay with being mine still, aren’t you?” I whisper the question. It’s so soft, it’s nearly drowned out by the sounds around us.
“You’re too good for me, Chlo.” His hand covers mine and I can see in the depths of his eyes he doesn’t believe that something so simple is all I need.
“It’s all I’ve ever needed,” I speak without thinking, without processing anything at all. “I wasn’t whole until I had you, and I don’t want to be anything but yours. I don’t care if you believe the truth or not, it’s still true.”
“It’s the truth that worries me.”
“The truth is you’re a good man who does bad, bad things.” As Bastian pulls my hand away from his jaw, I can hear him swallow. I can practically feel it myself—the hard, aching truth that I do think what he does is wrong. And I do. On some level. But there’s so much wrong in this world, I can’t be bothered to let it destroy what I value most of all. “And you’re mine. The only truth I just said that matters at all, is the last one.”
“You still love me?” he asks as if it’s a real question.
Letting a playful smile show, I tease him, staring at his lips as I say, “I love the way you kiss me.” For the first time in so long, my heartbeat slows when I look back up at Bastian; it pitter-patters, it dances, it’s desperately finding a new beat. It’s when his eyes glance at my own lips that I realize it’s been trying to beat in tandem with his.
The kiss he plants on my lips, with his hands barely holding on to mine, is soft and sweet. Everything turns to white noise and I know for a fact, this moment will last forever. To me, to anyone who ever steps foot here. They will feel it. They must. Because the world moves around us differently, refusing to let this moment go on as if it’s meant to blend in, or meant to be forgotten.
My eyes are still closed when he pulls away. With a deep breath in and then out, I finally open them.
“I love falling in love with you,” I whisper and barely notice how the world moves again around us.
I swear a blush colors my husband’s face. It looks good on him; for all his tough exterior, a hint of vulnerability looks damn good.
He reaches up for the beer on the bar, but doesn’t let go of my left hand and I don’t move my right from his lap.
