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I don’t want to hold him back in any way.

I want him to thrive.

“I love racing,” He admits, and I nod.

“We can fix this. You can say I kissed you, trying to comfort you.” He’s watching me closely, and I keep rambling, “You can tell them that I’m no one to you. That I...” His big hand covers my mouth.

“You’renotno one to me,” he growls. “You’re my everything.” He doesn’t remove his hand, keeping me silent, and honestly, I’m grateful. “I was saying, I love racing, but they’re going to have to get on board with the fact that I’m loud. That I like to put on a show because I’m good at it.” He drops his hand and looks into my eyes. “That I have a boyfriend I’m in love with, and I’m not giving him up for anything. I’m not going out there and pretending this isn’t very, very real.”

My lips part slightly as I listen to him. He doesn’t want to hide me. He doesn’t want to hide us. He’s choosing me.

“I love you.” It’s all I can seem to manage to say at first. “I don’t want you to be quieter or less confident. I want you to be the real you, loud and cocky as you are. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you to hide any part of yourself.”

He smiles. “I don’t think I’ll be purposely crashing anyone into a wall anytime soon,” he says very seriously.

I nod, thinking about Sebastian and Axel. “Good.”

“Let’s go back to your place. Try to get some rest, okay?”

“Okay,” I say slowly, my eyes on the exit with all the reporters. “How do we get out of here?”

He takes my hand in his and starts toward the door. “With our heads held high and your hand in mine.”

And that’s exactly how we walk out to the car, hand in hand, with our chins raised and not answering one single question.

They can wait.

CHAPTER26

ROYAL

“So the naked rule?” Soren asks, lying in my arms in his bed. Both of us are totally naked and sated after mutual blow jobs—him finishing in my mouth and me finishing off inside his glorious ass.

I’m exhausted from the night, but as soon as we got back to his house, all I could think about was celebrating Sebastian and Axel being alive and the fact that I no longer have to hide my love for Soren.

I’d have preferred to tell Axel in person, but he has enough going on right now. We’ll talk about it later.

“Ask me anything you want,” I say to Soren. Naked or not, I trust him 100 percent not to report anything I don’t want out there. Although, at the moment, I can’t think of anything.

No, I don’t think the world needs every detail about my life. But now, I don’t know. I don’t feel the shame I used to about the way I grew up. I know it wasn’t my fault. “You wanted to make Axel happy when you met... Does that mean you were already kind of happy?”

I smile and tuck his body against mine, reveling in the warmth coming off his bare skin. “Yeah. I had Dorris.”

“Dorris?” he asks, and I smile, just hearing her name.

“By the time I was fourteen, I’d already bounced around so many foster homes. I was mouthy and loud. I know you can’t believe that.” He smiles, and I kiss his temple before I continue, “Anyway, I had a clean bill of health. I’d been cancer-free for years at that point. But I was pissed. So damn mad that I caused trouble everywhere I went. I gave them all hell. The good and the bad ones. I didn’t want to give them the chance to not want me.”

I hate those damn memories. But for some reason, I want to tell Soren all of it. I want him to know my full story. “Royal,” he says sadly, cuddling up to me even more and hugging me close to him.

“I remember lying in hospital beds and dreaming of a time when I’d have my own family. How I’d protect them. How I’d never leave.” A small, sad smile crosses my lips. “How I’d have a bathtub.”

“What?” he cries, his tone amused as he looks up at me, surprised by the ridiculous dream.

I nod. “All the kids on television had their parents giving them a bath with lots of bubbles. I have no idea why that stuck with me, but I wanted that. I wanted it so goddamn bad. A parent who cared enough to get me bubbles and toys for something as mundane as taking a bath.”

He doesn’t look so amused now, his eyes wide and full of unshed tears. “You deserved to have that. I’m so sorry you didn’t.”

A tear falls from his eye, and I wipe it away with my thumb and cup his cheek. “I have you now. I have so much more than anything I could have dreamed.”

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