Page 230

“But surely you can’t…”

“I can’t what?”

“Want me in quite the same way knowing that.”

“Of course I do,” she said. “Adonis, you are the only man that I’ve ever wanted. We are not the things that happened to us. But every single person who ever hurt you is exactly what they did. They will never be able to transcend it. They never deserved to be forgiven. They will never be more than what they did to you, and to any other child. But your life is not made of that. You are my protector. My friend. My lover, my husband. You are also a victim. Who was terribly, badly betrayed by the person that you should’ve been able to trust. But it will never be all that you are.”

She stretched up and kissed his lips, slowly, carefully.

And he suddenly wanted this more than anything. Needed it.

Because he needed to draw a firm line under his past. Because he needed this to happen here and now with the two of them. To prove, even to himself, that abuse was not the same thing. That it couldn’t take this thing away from them. His heart was thundering hard, and for the first time in his life, he was worried that he might be rejected.

He wasn’t bringing the dominance that he normally did, wasn’t wearing a mask. With Esme, there had never truly been one, but this was another facet of himself, one that had never been explored with another person. Someone who felt used and like there might be something wrong with him. Someone forever made dirty by the things that had come before. Someone looking to have all of it erased, washed away.

He wanted to know that she could still want him. He needed to know that.

And she kissed him like she always had. It was a relief. It was salvation.

He pulled away from her for a moment, and looked in her eyes. And saw Esme, as she ever was.

Every version of her that he had known. Every way that he had loved her. She was looking at him like she was seeing the same thing.

Like every life they had ever lived was reflected there.

She saw the adoration that had been there since she was a girl. The hero worship. She saw desire, and he saw sorrow. And right then, it was all right. All right that she felt that too. Because it meant that she listened. That it mattered. And that it hadn’t undone anything that they had built. Only added depth to what was there.

She knew him.

She knew his deepest shame. She knew what no one else in his life did.

And she was there.

“Save me,” he whispered.

He didn’t know why those were the words. But they were. He felt like only her touch could wipe everything away. Make everything new.

He was, continually, having experiences with her that made him feel like it was his first time. And it did again.

He stripped her clothes away from her body, and everywhere he touched was marked with clay. Everywhere he touched was altered, changed.

And it was okay.

It felt like it was okay.

She kissed him, deep and long, took his clothes off slowly, reverently. Like it was a sacred act.

Sex had been many things to him. It had been pain and pleasure, it had been his choice and it had been something forced upon him. But it had never been this.

It had never been something so beautiful it was nearly sanctified. It had never been something with the power to heal. Something with the power to change him. Until her.

With Esme he could be every part of himself. He could be the man who needed control—because of course when he had begun to choose his partners, control had been important to him. His control. His preferences. But he did not need to hang on quite so tightly now. With her, for the first time he felt like he could let go.

And so he did.

She was beautiful, naked, and they were on the floor again. But he supposed that was one thing that was true about the two of them.

He lay back, and she moved over the top of him, taking him into her body, her hands resting on his chest as she rode him, as she gave herself to him.