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I finally felt that elusive emotion rip through every inch of my body until my heart was pounding and I didn’t want this experience to end. Only when I couldn’t stand another moment without letting Patriot know how much this meant to me, I straightened up. My arms wrapped around him and my head lowered to his back as I squeezed so tightly that he began to slow down, reducing the speed of the bike until we rolled to a stop on the side of the highway.
Patriot lowered the kickstand and then hopped off, spinning around as he pressed up against me. The helmet was unbuckled and lifted over my head as he noticed the tears that shimmered in my eyes.
“Sunshine?”
“I finally felt it,” I exhaled, trembling with relief and gratitude.
“Felt what, baby?”
“Freedom,” I whispered, lifting up on my tiptoes and placing a light kiss on his lips.
“Damn,” he growled with a slight groan. “Do that again.”
“What? This?” My head lifted and I pressed my mouth to his, surprised when he picked me up and spun us around, deepening the kiss.
When we separated, he was breathing fast, his eyes as hypnotic as the ocean’s waves in the deepest part of the sea. “I’ve been waiting forever to kiss you.”
“You have?” I teased, nibbling on his lip.
“Yes. Fuck, you make me so happy.”
His confession brought a flush to my face. “Truly? Even when I’m a bitch?”
“You’re never a bitch, my sunshine. Sometimes the past likes to darken your glow but I’ll always be here to help you sparkle again.”
I didn’t deserve him. Not at all. The girl who stood before him was a confused, abused, emotional mess. She struggled with the multiple years of rape and sodomy, torture, and addiction to drugs. She was fighting to find her way back but some days she failed more than she succeeded.
Was I the right match for him? Or even good enough for him and all that he deserved? I wasn’t sure.
“I can see those wheels turnin’ in your pretty head. If I didn’t want you, Naomi Lyla Peters, I wouldn’t be here right now sharing one of the best moments of our life together.”
“One of the best?” I asked, letting hope sink a little further inside my heart.
“Yep. We got a lot more comin’. Trust me, baby.”
Trust. He never showed me anything that hinted he wasn’t worth the effort.
“I’ve had a lot of people let me down,” I admitted, allowing some of the past to surface and not rejecting the vile things I experienced. Every time I didn’t shove those memories away, I felt a little more exposed but also stronger.
Nothing was more frightening than opening your dark closet of horrors and flipping on the light for others to see what lurked within.
“I know,” he whispered as he placed a sweet kiss on my lips, “but that’s not me. I’m a Marine. We keep our word and we don’t run when shit is hard. I’m right here and I want to be here.”
“That’s what’s so amazing.” Shaking my head, I buried my face in his neck. “You’re everything I could ever hope for and I’m terrified something bad will happen.”
He set me down and cupped one of my cheeks. “I get that’s gonna be hard for you. When it gets to be too much reach out, talk to me. Maybe the problem is that you keep it all shoved down deep inside and then it fights until it bursts out. No fun for anyone when that happens. I’ve done it plenty of times to relate.”
“Have you?”
“When I first met Grim, I was angry and broken and I hated the whole fucking world,” he admitted with a chuckle, “but he saw through me and accepted that I had a lot of shit to work through before I was gonna be okay.”
“That’s awesome.”
“What I’m sayin’, sunshine, is that I see you and I accept that there’s gonna be a lot of rocky days before we work it all out. I’m in it for the longest ride.”
My lips lifted a little in a hint of a smile and he must have been pleased because I was hauled upward again, spinning as my arms released, opening wide, and I felt that same thrill racing through my body. Only this time I was in Patriot’s arms when it happened.
“Fuck, Mimi. You’re so beautiful.”
