AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My heart tilted in my chest, but I schooled my face.
“Are you still going to help me escape?” I asked. “If I'm done with you?”
I threw those words back at him, curious how he would respond.
He looked as if he wanted to beg me to stay, but then he swallowed the words and nodded. “I promised. And I'm always going to keep my promises to you from now on.”
I was tempted to make him go through with it, just to test him. “Cain would kill you.”
He pulled a face. “I feel like I came pretty close to death already, after he caught up to us. And unlike you, when I had my near-death experience….I deserved it.”
I reached up and brushed away one of the teardrops that clung to his lashes. “I miss her too. So much. I can’t blame you for going crazy with grief.”
“I should have been the one that you could talk to,” Stellan said. “For us to remember her together.”
“From now on,” I said, my voice coming out thick.
Stellan’s face brightened. I realized I had started crying too, my tears matching his. The two of us shared a kiss that was salty and bitter. It was a tentative kiss. It didn’t have the fire of our previous angry couplings… but it had warmth and passion of its own.
When he pulled away, he said, “I love you, you know. It's okay if you're not ready to say it back to me yet. But I hope I'll prove it to you in time and you'll come to really believe it.”
I smiled and kissed him back. He was right, I wasn't quite ready to say it. But when I looked at the way he gazed at me, the worshipfulness in his eyes behind the sheen of tears, I believed he meant it.
And I believed I was going to forgive him.
Chapter31
Aurora
Stellan kissed me deep and slow. His tongue moved against mine and my arms wrapped around him, fisting at his hair as I gave him everything. We were both breathless as he briefly pulled away, slipped off the edge of the pool and stepped between my thighs, nudging my knees apart so he could stand between them. His fingertips rested lightly on my jaw as he brushed his mouth against my lower lip, then kissed the corner tenderly.
His white shirt was soaked to his body now, revealing the hard lines of his chest and shoulders. I ran my hands over the cloth clinging over his chest, then began to unbutton it.
His hands glided up and down my thighs through the sopping dress. His touch raised goosebumps on my skin.
He kissed one side of my jaw, nibbled on my ear, and murmured, “Aurora...” into my ear. He nuzzled my throat, then came up on the other side and kissed the erogenous zone just behind my ear. My toes curled. “Delilah...” he murmured.
I'd threatened to kill him if he used that name again. My eyes flew open. And then I looked at the way he was looking at me, his gaze soft, his expression tender. For him, I'd always be both Delilah and Aurora. The sweet, reserved girl I'd once been, and the brasher, more dangerous version of myself now.
And that wasn't a bad thing. Deep down inside, I'd always be both girls. Maybe Stellan was the only one who knew that side of me. And maybe... I didn't want to entirely lose the girl that Sophia had fallen in love with, and Stellan had too.
Because they’d both been special—and Stellan still was—and the girl they’d loved was probably special, too.
I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his, and his mouth twitched in the faintest smile against my lips. Some of the tension fled from his broad shoulders.
I pulled away long enough to murmur, “You were a little worried I was going to stab you, weren't you?”
“Well, it does seem to be a temptation people experience.”
I grinned at him for a second before he caught my chin with his two fingers and leaned in to kiss me.
Another long, slow kiss, and then I said, “We'd better call in Remington. You know he's dying.”
“One can hope.” But he raised his voice and called to Remington.
Remington strolled back into the area, his hands shoved in his pockets. “You both survived.”
“It was touch and go for a while there,” Stellan admitted. “Admit it, Remy. You wanted us to have this conversation at the pool so she'd have a chance to drown me if she didn't like what I said.”
