Page 47 of Glorious Sinner

“Fuck, Stephanie. Look at you. Jesus, so sexy. So beautiful up there. Take it, Angel. Take what you need,” he groaned.

I did; I took it, and I gave him everything as well, rolling my hips and grinding on his beautiful body. Feeling more powerful, more beautiful than I had in my entire life.

“Tomas,” I moaned. “Oh God.”

Tomas gritted his teeth, holding me up as I lost it completely. A sob burst from me as I started coming, riding him through it, chasing it to the end until I dropped forward, quivering in his arms. Tomas was pulsing inside me, coming as well, and he held me there against him, one hand at the base of my neck, the other on my lower back. He thrust up inside me one more time and stayed there, his deep groan vibrating through me, his own body trembling along with mine.

We stayed like that, neither one moving, with Tomas still buried inside me, his hand moving over my skin like he couldn’t stop touching me.

I kissed his chest. “Sex…it’s never been like that, not for me. That was…” I struggled to find the words.

He cupped my face, making me lift my head to look down at him. “It’s never been like that for me either, but what we just did, it wasn’t just sex. Shit, Steph…” His thumb swiped over my jaw. “Is this actually happening? Are you really mine?”

My eyes stung and I blinked against the happy tears threatening. “Yes, I’m yours,” I said. And he was mine.

“Fuck, I love you,” he said roughly.

I blinked and a tear escaped.

Tomas swiped it away, his dark eyes softening.

“I love you, too, so much.”

He smiled, his whole face lighting up, then he pulled me down and kissed me again.

A little while later, I lay curled against his side. We needed to get off the floor and get dressed, but I liked where I was way too much. Willa’s words echoed through my mind from earlier and I squeezed him tighter. That his father had hit him when he was just a small boy, it killed me.

“What’s on your mind?” Tomas said against my hair.

The man could tell something was wrong even when he couldn’t see my face.

“Why didn’t you tell me what happened when you were a child…your father, what he did?” I had to bite my lip when a wave of emotion came over me.

He squeezed me back. “I guess I’ve avoided thinking about it for so long that talking was the last thing I thought of doing. I’m not used to sharing, of letting people in. I’ve spent a lot of years doing the opposite.”

“Where are they now, your parents?”

“My father lives alone in the same house I grew up in, on the same street. My mother, she died when I was ten,” he said.

Something about the way his body tensed when he mentioned his mother made my stomach twist in knots. “What happened to her?”

He pulled me in closer, surrounding me, holding me to his chest, and I got the feeling he didn’t want me to see his face when he told me what he was about to tell me.

“My father hit her too hard one day. She fell down the stairs, hit her head. She died instantly,” he said, his hand moving over my back like he was trying to comfort me.

But then I felt the way his heart was pounding, heard the rough way he exhaled with every breath, and I realized he was seeking comfort from me, not the other way around. I clung to him, desperately wanting to give him what he needed.

“My father was an extremely religious man—that’s what he told himself anyway. He was the opposite, but he used his warped idea of religion as an excuse to punish us, to justify his need to hurt the people he should have protected with his life. I struggled with school as a kid. It frustrated me. I felt stupid a lot of the time. So I lashed out, became disruptive in class to try and cover it. I used to fight a lot. I found out later that I was dyslexic.” He kissed the top of my head again. “My father said God gave it to me to punish me because I was a sinner. That when I died I’d burn in hell. After my mother died and I became the main focus of his abuse, he told me she died because of me, because God decided to take her back, to get her away from me. I was a kid; I believed him, until I got older and saw him for what he truly was.”

His father was a monster. “Tomas, I’m so sorry.” I kissed his shoulder, knowing there was nothing I could say to take away the memories, the pain he’d gone through. I wanted to, though, so much.

He chuckled, but there was no humor. It was a dark sound and lifted goose bumps on my skin. “I thought about killing him. I could have easily enough. Once I got older, I made sure he knew it, too. I wanted no part of his religion and went about proving to him that I was the sinner he said I was. I drank, I fucked, I fought, working my way toward the man I eventually became, the man I still was just over a year ago. Cold, distant. Not giving a fuck who I hurt. Running right over anyone who got in my way.” He shuddered. “But it was me doing the running, from him, from his voice in my head, telling me it was my fault she died. Some part of me, no matter how stupid, believed it. There was no way I could have protected her. I was a kid. Still, it tormented me and the only way to escape it was to close myself off, to harden myself to it.”

He leaned back, slid his fingers under my chin, and tilted my head back. “Then you called me that day and, Christ, the fear I felt hearing your voice. I didn’t think I was capable of feeling fear like that, not anymore, not since I was a frightened little kid.” He shook his head. “But walking into that room? Seeing you lying there…” His voice cracked. “I felt a fuck of a lot more than fear, Angel, so much more. And when I picked you up and carried you out of that house, the walls around my heart shattered, were fucking decimated, and you claimed it.” His stare grew impossibly intense. “I’ve spent the last year trying to deserve you.”

Tears streaked down my face. “I’m so sorry you went through that. You didn’t deserve it, Tomas.” I kissed his jaw. “I wish it hadn’t taken me so long to come to you. I wish—”

He shook his head, stopping me. “I’m okay. I’m not some rebellious teen trying to prove something, not anymore, certainly not to my father. I’ve moved past that hurt. He’s nothing to me now. You love me and that’s enough; that’s all I need. And as much as I wanted you before now, you weren’t ready. Now you are, and because of that, I have all of you.” He kissed me softly. “I’m going to make sure you don’t regret giving that to me, not for one moment.”