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‘I know... I just... I just wish that that was enough for them. That I was enough for them.’
There was a raw feeling in his chest. ‘You’re enough for me,’ he said before he could stop himself. ‘You always have been.’
She said nothing, staring at him, her expression unchanging, her blue eyes full of something he didn’t understand, but it was fierce.
Then a tear slid slowly down her cheek.
Rafael felt as though someone had stabbed him.
‘Mi princesa,’he said softly, hoarsely. ‘Lia, did I hurt you?’ He reached for her, unable to stand that look on her face, and drew her into his lap.
She was so small and delicate, yet she burned so hot.
His chest felt tight, his throat dry. He touched her cheek, felt the wetness of her tears. An ache spread out inside him, deep and intense. The same ache that had filled him when his mother had told him the truth about his father and what he’d done to her.
He didn’t like it. He didn’t want it, yet it filled him. Pain for another person, because they were hurt.
Because you care.
The cold he’d felt out on the terrace was back, winding through him, a chill that went bone deep. He didn’t want to care. Caring hurt, caring made you vulnerable. If he had any kind of sense, he wouldn’t be holding her like this. He’d be keeping his distance, changing the subject, making himself hard and cold.
Yet he couldn’t let her go. She was in pain. She hurt and he wanted to know why.
‘What is it?’ he murmured. ‘Did I say something I shouldn’t?’
Mutely she shook her head. Then, before he could say anything else, she flung her arms around his neck and pressed her face to his throat.
For a minute he sat there, stunned. No one had ever put their arms around him like that. Not as if they wanted his comfort. As if he had something to give that was more than money or power, or an example to set.
His heart beat furiously, the ache pervading every part of him.
He wasn’t sure what to do next, not when this was so outside of his experience.
Except, no, that was wrong. An instinct that he didn’t even know he possessed told him that he knew exactly what to do. So, he obeyed it, wrapping his arms around her and gathering her close, holding her.
For long minutes they sat there like that, the softness of her gathered against his chest, close to his heart. And his chest was so tight he couldn’t breathe, some immense emotion pressing against it. An emotion so strong, so vast, he couldn’t fight it.
He let it pulse through him, hot and intense, because in this moment it didn’t matter what he felt. She was the most important thing in his universe and he would never,everhurt her.
Then she turned her wet cheek and her mouth burned against his skin.
And the flames took hold.
She was so sweet, so unbearably sweet.
He felt as if he was melting, frozen pieces of himself warming up and thawing, the feeling inside him escaping, permeating every part of him.
He slid his fingers into her hair and held on tight, devouring her mouth as one by one the checks he had on his control began to fall. And he let them go. He couldn’t stop this need, couldn’t fight it.
She was on her back on the couch, his shirt ripped from her body before he knew what was happening. And for a second, he found himself in the depths of winter again, frozen with a sudden terror that he’d done something she hadn’t wanted, that he’d been so overcome with need he’d missed some cues.
But then she reached for him, her blue eyes glowing with heat, clearly unbothered by his intensity, the way she’d always been unbothered by it.
‘I need to be careful with you,’ he heard himself say in a voice that didn’t sound like his. ‘Lia, you must tell me if I’m too much.’
‘You’re never too much,’ she murmured. ‘Never.’ Then she pulled him down.
And there was no stopping after that, no holding back either.
