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“One more night, Sabella,” he whispered, so hard, so desperate for her, he wondered if he could survive it. “Give us one more night.”
Sabella stared back at him. Anger and hurt and fear all clashing inside her, raging inside her. And mixed with it was the need. The fiery hunger she wondered how she had lived without for six years.
“You bastard!” she sobbed.
“The worst bastard,” he whispered, and kissed her lips, the tears from her eyes.
She sniffed, her hands lifting to grip his wrists as her lips softened, felt his kiss, and needed more. She needed so much more.
“Take me home, Noah,” she whispered. “Please, just take me home.”
She wasn’t going to cry any more.
Holding on to Noah as they rode to the house, her head buried against his back, his heartbeat against her cheek, she tried to sort out the future. The near future. The far future. She tried to sort out her emotions. They weren’t that damned far from the house.
She lifted her head as they pulled up to the house and waited until he helped her off the Harley then swung free himself.
“Where’s your key?”
Her husband.
He’d always made certain he checked her small apartment after bringing her home while they were dating. After they married, he always went into a room or the house first. He’d always been protective.
She handed him the key and watched as he opened the door, going inside cautiously before turning back to her. She walked into the house and waited in the large entryway and living room while he went through the place.
She pulled his jacket tighter around her, breathed in his scent, and promised herself again, no more tears.
Was she going to throw him out, hang on to her anger, or give him one more night? And every other night she could steal before he left? Because the next time he left—she stared around the house. The next time he left, she knew exactly what she was going to do.
It was the only way to survive the loss.
She was standing in the living room, staring at the mantel, at the pictures. Their wedding picture. Their faces close, his wild blue eyes dominating the picture. His dark skin against her paler cheek, his expression quiet, confident.
She walked over to that picture, her fingers playing with the wedding band that she slid back onto her left hand. She wasn’t a widow. She was a wife. She would always be his wife, no matter what name he used. And wasn’t that pathetic? No wonder he hadn’t wanted to come home. He’d had a wife who presented no challenge, no defiance. A wife who only knew how to love him.
Noah stepped into the bedroom, checked the closets that still held his clothes, the large bathroom he and Sabella had planned together.
When he went back to the bedroom he stood in front of the small table by her bed and stared down at the picture of them together.
Sienna Grayson had taken that picture just after they married. He was touching her cheek, the broad gold band of his wedding ring bright and new on his finger.
Reaching into his jeans, he pulled the ring free, rolled it between his fingers then stared down at it. It wasn’t new anymore, but it was still bright, and warm.
He gripped it and pushed it on his finger, his fist clenching as a furious, agonized grimace twisted his lips and he fought the raging need to tell her. To own her. To be the man he knew she missed. The man she loved. Because the man who had come from the ravages of hell wasn’t the same man. And the life he would lead now, after signing on with the Elite Ops, wasn’t a life she would want to be a part of. A life he couldn’t resign from. Nathan Malone could have left the SEALs. If Noah Blake tried to leave the Elite Ops, then he would simply disappear and never return.
It was a life of always lying. Always hiding. Hell, he’d thought he could do it. He’d thought it would be best this way. But with his wedding band branding the flesh of his finger, he wondered how things could have been different. Tried to imagine something different, and he couldn’t. Because he was still the man he had been turned into. And though Sabella was different from the woman he remembered, she would never accept anything but the man she had loved.
She was stubborn. Determined. She thought she knew what he was, who he was, and she was wrong.
He slid the ring from his finger, stared down at it, then shoved it back into his jeans. It was his talisman. His lifeline. His lifetime reminder of what could have been.
Sabella turned away from the mantel as Noah came down the stairs, his gaze finding her instantly before his eyes slipped to the pictures behind her.
She watched him pause, saw the somber sadness that flickered in his eyes for just a second.
“You made a beautiful bride,” he said softly, standing before her, his legs braced solidly beneath him, those black riding chaps emphasizing the heavy bulge in his jeans.
God, he was so thick and hard. And she ached. Ached as though it had been years since he had touched her rather than mere days.
