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There’s a beat of silence as she nibbles her lip. She wants to say something, so I urge, “Whatever it is, Princess, say it.”
She shifts her body toward mine. “What are you going to do now?”
“Are you asking what I plan to do to our families?” She nods, her eyes pinned to mine, breath lodged in her lungs as she waits. I give it to her straight. “I’m going to destroy them all.” When she does nothing but continue to stare at me, gently, I ask, “You okay with that?”
Slowly, she nods. “Yes.”
“You’re okay with me ruining your family?”
“I’m okay with you ruining the people who spent years hurting and tormenting me, yes.”
“And the Laurier name?”
She juts her little chin. “They never had a right to that name. My grandmother was a queen. She was kind and brilliant and everything they aren’t.” Tears of emotion sparkle in her eyes. “Watching Ophelia do what she did broke her heart. She was so disappointed, I don’t think she ever spoke to Ophelia again, not even the day she died.” She sniffs. “I still hold the Laurier name. I plan to work my butt off to do as I know she would have wanted me to do, and head Laurier Lines. So, they’ll drag the name through the mud, sure. But I won’t let them bury it. I won’t let them tarnish everything Grandma worked for like that.”
I don’t tell her she won’t hold the Laurier name long. I don’t tell her that, soon, I’ll make sure she proudly wears the name my mother gave me. Instead, I simply say, “Laurie Laurier would be proud of you.”
Finally, that glistening tear in her beautiful eyes falls. It streaks like glass over her face, and I can’t help myself as I catch her face in my hands. My thumbs wipe away the emotion before I touch my lips to hers in a kiss, I desperately want her to feel in the bottomed-out depths of her soul.
I want her to feel me in all the hidden parts of her, because somewhere along the way, without even trying, she burrowed deep into me.
Against her soft lips, I confess, “I love you, Olympia Laurier.”
Her lips tremble in a moment of hesitation before she confesses, “I’ve always loved you, Tav.”
I don’t think. I just lift her into my arms and carry her to my room. Our bed.
It’s time I worship my woman.
twenty-eight
Olympia
When Tav sets me down on my feet in his room, his big hands roaming up the bare length of my arms, I shiver a shiver that moves through my whole body. The violence of it is entirely owed to the fact I’m nervous. So, so nervous.
Instinctively, I suspect that tonight is the night.
Am I ready for this?
Of course, I’m ready for this. I’m turning twenty in no time at all, and I’m about to lose my virginity to the man I’ve been madly in love with for forever. How can I not be ready?
But what about all that water under our bridge?
“You said the water under our bridge is murky and toxic.”
Something sad moves through his eyes. “It is.”
Tension spreads from my core into all of me. Hurt, raw and impossible to defeat, follows in its wake. “Oh.”
“Gonna take some work for us to flush out the toxins.” His hands come to either side of my neck, and he holds me tenderly as his eyes search mine. “We’re gonna have to pluck out the weeds, but baby, we’ll have clean water under our bridge if it’s the last thing I do.”
God, I do love him.
And maybe, just maybe, this fantasy I’ve suddenly fallen into is real.
“Tav,” I breathe his name like a prayer. “Make me yours.”
A low sound rumbles in his chest. “You’re already mine.”
