Page 64 of Exacting Vengeance

“I should have been there.” Even to him, his voice sounded dark and filled with pain. “But I wasn’t, and I have to live with it.”

Another first. He’d said the words, only this time he meant them.

“I don’t know what to say.” The tears wetting her cheeks were for him, and he didn’t deserve a single one.

“There’s nothing for you to say, but you need to hear the rest of it.” He took a deep breath, determined to push through it. “I used to lie awake at night thinking about them, imagining what the baby would have been like. We would have had a little girl.” To this day, every time he thought about the tiny little life that never was, his chest tightened with so much despair he thought he’d die. He reached into the box on the table and pulled out a pink origami crane. “These were for a mobile I was making to hang over her crib.”

More tears rolled down Victoria’s cheeks. He used to cry over what he’d lost, too. Now he was all cried-out. “After losing them,” he continued, “I tortured myself with guilt until it nearly ate me alive. I took down all the photos of her and of us. It was too painful to look at them. Finally, I left the Army and joined the FBI. I drove myself hard, taking every risky assignment I could.”

“All this time,” she said, shaking her head, “you’ve been putting yourself in constant danger to try and make up for what you mistakenly believe was your fault.”

Being in the psychology biz, he shouldn’t have been surprised that she’d cut right to it. Luckily, Morrison had always been there to pick up the pieces. Including that fateful night in Chicago. “Until recently, I couldn’t see what was happening to me, what I was becoming.”

“What is it you think you were becoming?” she asked, lacing her fingers with his.

Kyle compressed his lips, acknowledging the truth in ways he never thought he could. “Numb. Dead inside. I couldn’t let myself care for anyone again.”

“I understand.” She tugged her hand from his. “You’re telling me you can’t open yourself up again.”

“That’s not what I’m saying, and that’s not why I’m telling you all this.” Over the years, everyone—his brothers, his mother, his boss—all pounded into him that it was time to let go of the past, but it hadn’t been. Not until now. “Maybe that was true, once. When I met you, you lit something inside me I didn’t think was still there.” Something that made him believe he could move on with his life. If only circumstances hadn’t intervened and separated them.

She gave a deep sigh. “I know what we have is still new, but you know I can’t ever give you children. I can never give you the baby you lost.”

“I’m not about to lose you again.” He pressed her hand to his lips. Children or no, he could never let her out of his life now. They’d come too far to let fate rip them apart again. “No matter what.”

Her forehead creased, but it was the intense worry radiating from her eyes that bothered him most. “Do you really mean that?”

“I do.” He leaned in, determined to kiss away her doubts. “Let me show you how much.”

He kissed her lips, her face, her neck, savoring the warm silkiness of her skin. She let her head fall back, uttering a sexy little sigh that shot straight through him like an erotic arrow.

Unable to wait a moment longer, he picked her up and carried her upstairs to his bedroom. As much as he wanted to rid them of every stitch of clothing, he wanted to savor this, to make her ache for him as much as he ached for her.

Gently, he laid her on the bed and sifted his fingers through her coppery hair, cradling her face as he kissed her more deeply. Kissing her was like drinking from the sweetest fountain known to man.

She slid her hands up his back beneath his sweatshirt and tugged it over his head. He did the same with her sweater and the rest of her clothes until she was completely naked. And absolutely beautiful.

He kicked off his sneakers and shucked the rest of his clothes. She bestowed him with a beatific smile, echoing the blissful emotions he’d been depriving himself of out of some misguided sense of guilt.

He settled between her thighs, and when she locked her legs around the backs of his, hot flames licked at his body, igniting his soul and setting his heart on fire with the need to tell her the words they both needed to hear.

Not yet, the overly cautious part of his heart warned. He might not be ready to say it, but he could show her. With his hands. With his body. And his heart.

Kyle kissed her slowly, softly, murmuring, “I don’t know what I did to deserve you.” Because in his mind there was so much grief, pain, and death he’d caused. Silently, he thanked fate for giving him a second chance.

“You’re a good man, Kyle Gates.” She stroked his cheek, her touch softer than an angel’s, or so he imagined. “The best I’ve ever known.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to say that her standards must be incredibly low. Instead, he skimmed his knuckles down the side of her ribcage, then back up, stopping to caress her silky breast and rubbing the tip of her nipple with his thumb. “What do you want? Tell me.”

“To be on top.” She grinned, turning his insides to mush. “I’ve never done that before.”

He would have laughed but understood there was so much more to her response than mere playfulness. Yuri was such an egomaniac, he would never have given a thought to pleasuring his wife or letting her take charge.

“My pleasure.” He flipped their positions so fast she gasped, then giggled, a sound that tugged at every remaining thread holding his heart together. Straddling him, with her creamy thighs on the outside of his and her breasts beckoning for his mouth and tongue, left him struggling with the need to take her hard and fast. But she wanted to be in charge, so he’d let her.

As she leaned over and kissed him, he positioned his rock-hard erection beneath her, ready for her to take him inside her warm, slick folds. He held her hips loosely, wanting to bury himself in her beauty and the goodness that was an inherent part of who she was.

Slowly, teasingly, she lowered herself onto to his aching body. “Ohh, Kyle.” She gripped his forearms and undulated against his balls.