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Her hand settled over his on her belly. “I’m right here with you.”
He pressed his cheek to the side of her head and looked at their reflection in the glass. He loved the way they looked together and especially the way she leaned into him, like she needed the contact as much as he did.
“How was your call with Drake?”
It shouldn’t have surprised him that she’d ask about his buddy after the way he’d lost his shit today, but he wondered if her quiet intensity meant she was having second thoughts about them. “Drake told me that Adria is having a hard time right now grieving.”
“As are you,” she pointed out.
“He thanked me again for trying to save Juliana.”
She reached up with her free hand, held his arm, and pressed back into him like she could wrap him around her. “You did everything you could to help.”
He slipped his other arm around her and held her close. “I wish I could have done more.”
She didn’t say anything, just nodded, because she understood how he felt, but also that there was nothing else he could do. She was gone. And he was here.
And as lucky as he felt for still being alive to spend the day with his daughter and hold Shelby in his arms, he still felt like he didn’t deserve it. But that didn’t mean he’d give it up either.
The mixed emotions made it all so muddled.
“I’m sorry about what happened today.” He didn’t know what else to say. He hoped the episode didn’t make her change her mind about letting him spend time with Eliza.
“You don’t need to apologize. I know it’s not your fault. You’re doing what you need to do to get better. That’s what counts.”
“It feels like it is taking forever to get to the place where the good days outnumber the bad.”
“But you will get there. Don’t give up on that. And know that when you have a bad day, I’ll be there to help support you. I’ll do whatever it takes to help you get better.”
And that’s what sucked the most. Even she saw him as damaged.
He pressed a kiss into her hair, then tried to explain his wild emotions. “I want to be who you thought I was the night we were together. Not this. Not what I’ve become with a shitload of regrets and nightmares about what I’ve done. I want to hold on to you and let go of my baggage, but it feels like I can’t get close enough to you fast enough, and I can’t escape the past at all.”
She turned in his arms, wrapped her hands around the back of his neck, and stared up at him. “You are the man I was with that night. Strong. Kind. Thoughtful. Determined. And sexier than any man should be allowed to be.”
He couldn’t help his grin or noticing the blush rising on her cheeks.
“You will unpack the past and put it away as you settle into your new life and accept that you can’t change the past, but you can move on and have the life you want.”
“I want you.” It always came down to that for him. “But every time something happens with my fucked-up mind, I feel like you could slip right through my fingers, and I’ll never get to have that future. I spent all that time in rehab healing, so I could get to the point where I finally believed it would happen. And now that I believe it, and you said you want me, I want us.”
“I’ve wanted you every day since that night,” sheconfessed, going up on tiptoe, her body sliding against his. She held his gaze as he held his breath. “I’m not going anywhere, Chase, because the only place I want to be is with you.”
He crushed his mouth to hers, knowing how hard it was for her to admit that to him because of her past. He rewarded her vulnerability and trust with a deep kiss that he hoped showed her how much he appreciated and cared about her. “Promise me,” he demanded against her lips, needing her to make that vow and keep it.
“I promise.” She tilted her head to a better angle and took the kiss deeper, sliding her tongue along his as she clung to him, telling him with her whole body that she was right here with him.
He hooked his hands at the backs of her thighs and pulled her up to straddle his waist, bringing her soft center to his hard cock. She immediately tightened her legs around him and rocked against his hard length, moaning at the sheer pleasure of the contact.
He loved that sound and wanted to hear her do it again, so he planted his hands on her ass and rubbed her up and down his length.
She broke the kiss on a sigh, then demanded, “More.”
That required fewer clothes and a bed before he went all caveman and laid her out on the floor, stripped her bare, buried his dick in her lush body, and pounded away until they both found the release they needed.
Chase spun around and headed for the hallway with his hands full of Shelby and her lips pressed to his neck, that wicked tongue of hers sliding along his skin.
Suddenly she stopped. “Your back.”
