All of this and more flashes like lightning through me until his voice breaks through my memories.
“Listen to them both, Rosanna,” he says roughly. “They’re telling you the same thing. The same fucking thing. Darkness will never fall without the press of my lips upon yours, or your body knowing the comfort of my touch.” He kisses me desperately, fingers tightening around my wrists as if he can force me to listen through sheer will alone.
“Though I’ve captured your body, you’re the one who’s taken my fucking heart, kitten. This is what it means to be a Shay. It’s not about how you got here, but it’s about the love we have for each other. And I know you fucking love me.”
Every word is a sledgehammer to the wall of my heart, breaking down the lies I told myself and revealing the truth.
I love him.
God help me, but I do. I do love the damn man.
Why am I doing this to him? He loves me. He loves Ana and Eli.
Not once has he done anything to hurt me.
But I’ve hurt him with my coldness.
With my silent words.
I fall still underneath him as he looks down at me with brokenness. “Say it. Tell me you love me. Fucking say it,” he begs, holding me tighter.
With a weighted heart, I whisper, “Let me go.”
He blinks twice, a hint of shimmering liquid pooling in the corner of his eyes as he struggles to form words. “I...”
Connor doesn’t get it.
“Let go of my hands.” I wiggle them through his loosened grasp. When I’m free, I push his chest, urging him to roll to his back. Shame, complete and utter shame fills me as my hand rests over the red marks I can’t see in the dim light but know they’re there just the same. Marks made in my anger when the man has never lifted a hand to me in his own.
I’ve done him wrong. Lips trembling with regret, I cup his cheek with shaky fingers and softly kiss him. “I’m so sorry, baby.”
Tears drip from my eyes and onto him as I move my mouth hesitantly over his. His hand wraps around my neck to pull me down, but I break away to make amends, smoothing a path of kisses from his collarbone to his pecs. From one nipple to the other, and then down his hard stomach that fell prey to my cruel fingernails.
Over and over, I whisper how sorry I am between every kiss. When I’ve apologized to every inch of his torso, I straddle him and sink onto his cock. Unsure of what to do with this tamed kitten, his hands hover in the air, not knowing where to rest. I grab them and pull them to my leaking breasts, hissing when he squeezes one too hard.
Connected as closely as a man and woman can be, I lean forward until my lips meet his. In this position, the urgency of his thrusting is slower. Gentler. Perfect. “I love you,” I whisper into his mouth, tears salting the words.
His big body stills under me. “Say it again.”
“I. Love. You.” A kiss follows every word. “I love you.” I slowly ride him, letting the emotions of the moment carry me closer to another high. “I love you.”
One of his hands wipes away my tears while the other tangles itself in my hair, gripping it at the base of my neck. “Look at me,” Connor rasps, pulling my eyes to meet his as his hips still beneath me. “I fucking love you, too, Rosanna, with all that I am. And I’d have done everything Isaiah said. All of it and more, if that’s what it would have taken for you and those babies to be mine.”
“I’m so sorry, Connor,” I sob out, remorse stabbing my heart. “I hurt you. I’m just as bad as Si—”
“You’re nothing like him. You were scared and confused.” The vehemence in his voice shocks me. Then he flips us over and slowly slides into me again, burying his face in my neck as my name leaves his mouth in a rough groan. “Don’t you ever fucking go without speaking to me again. That hurt me more than you know.”
“I won’t,” I softly cry. Cradling his head to me, I run my fingers through the short length of his hair as I whisper to my gentle kidnapper how much I love him.
In answer, his mouth drops hot kisses against my neck and shoulder, accompanied by his teeth. I hiss out my pleasure, hands moving from his hair to his muscled arms, gripping them for stability when he begins to rock into me with growing urgency.
And when my release happens, I choke on a breath as he bites my shoulder and shudders through one of his own, giving his very essence to me.
“Always mine, kitten,” he rumbles over my cheek to take my lips with his kiss. “Always and forever.”
Chapter twenty-six
Rosanna
