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I didn’t speak. We didn’t really have to speak to communicate at this point… I’d known him for so long. I knew the doubt and the fear that was raging in his mind. I knew the overwhelming instinct to protect me was battling with his need to please his father, for what might be the final time.
I knew he was tearing himself in two.
I knew how much I loved him, and how much he still doubted that, even though I wore his ring. Even though I now bared his name.
My heart ached for him.
I reached for the hem of his shirt and lifted it, warning him with my eyes what I was about to do. He didn’t ask me to stop, so I pulled his shirt off, leaving his chest exposed.
Over the years he’d picked up some scars that marred his perfect skin, but they didn’t detract from his beauty. He hated the things he had to do; I knew that too… he did it because he loved his family.
I slowly removed the rest of his clothes, kissing the spots of skin I left bare as I slid my hands up his body.
It wasn’t meant to be sexual, I just needed him to know he was cherished. That he wasn’t alone in this world. That I wasn’t going to let him withdraw from me. We were a team, and he needed to rely on me as much as I relied on him.
He let out a shaky breath as I raised up on my tiptoes to cup his cheeks and pressed my lips against his. “Everything is going to be okay. I promise.” I repeated the words he’d said to me when I’d lost my parents. “I’m here.”
He gazed down at me, blinking as if he couldn’t quite wrap his brain around that fact. I’d make him believe it one day.
The room had filled with steam so I pulled him into the shower with me and waited for him to start his routine, but when he just stood there staring at me, I realized he needed me to help.
My poor rogue.
I reached for the shower gel and dispensed some onto my hands. I kept my eyes on his as I worked it into a lather and pressed my palms to his chest.
I wasn’t ever going to complain about doing this.
Despite moving into his mid-thirties, Aidan still had the toned body of a fighter. He was still the most attractive man I’d ever laid eyes on, and the fact he was all mine… well, I was a lucky woman, and I wasn’t about to forget that.
My hands slipped lower as I soaped him all over, grazing his cock, but he caught my wrist.
“I better do that part or else we will never get to bed,” he said, his gravelly tone curling around those words.
Hmm…
While he finished the job I’d started, I grabbed the shower gel again and lathered up my own body, but as my hands swept across my skin, I could see what it was doing to him.
I raised a brow.
“I’m still fucking alive, aren’t I?” He grumbled, turning away so he could make his show of virility calm down.
He was indeed.
Grieving and confused or not, I was still pleased I could have that effect on him.
I chuckled under my breath. He was still in there. Things would be okay. We’d only been married a day and had been put under as much strain as some marriages saw in a lifetime, but I had faith we could get through it.
We finished our shower and curled up in bed. I tucked my body around his, rubbing gentle circles into his skin to try and release some of the tension in him.
I wasn’t sure who fell asleep first, but when I woke the next morning, he was gone and the bed was cold.
I patted the empty mattress, my eyes scanning the room as my heart stalled and then suddenly picked up again, speeding painfully.
No, no, no.
My thoughts were immediately catapulted back to the day they’d found Molly’s body. The day I’d had to drug him and get him out of town to stop him going off and getting himself killed.
With panic leaping around in my chest, I dashed around, searching every room for him. “Have you seen Aidan?” I yelled at one of the guards who was passing through the lobby. It took everything in me not to grab him by the collar and shake him.
