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“And you? Where would you have been?”
Kat’s shoulders jerked. “Oh, I don’t know. I wasn’t gifted like Raffi or Gabri. And I never had a chance to dream anything up for myself. That all got shut down.”
“It’s not too late to dream.”
“How sweet. You are a secret romantic, Mr. Masters. Truthfully, though, I don’t mind what I do right now. Helping women and girls learn to stand their ground…that’s enough for me. But sometimes I start to think about an alternate universe where it never happened. Raffi never had to give up her scholarship. I taught Gabi to drive. Helped her shop for a prom dress. Watched her graduate from high school. Celebrated when she got into college. It just makes me so…oh, shit, not again. Here I freaking go again.”
She dissolved once more, against my chest.
I wound my arms around her, and tried to keep her all in one piece with the strength of my embrace.
CHAPTER21
Kat
Ifelt so strange, when I woke up. In a good way. Floating, clean. Empty. As if a load of smothering garbage had been hauled away with a backhoe. So much open space.
Thinking about Gabri and Raffi still hurt, but the pain was different today. It wasn’t like that old pain that almost made me black out. It was an ache of grief, but there was a piercing sweetness to it that swelled in my chest, and made my eyes well up with tears.
Which would get problematic, for sure. Crying every time something reminded me of my lost sisters? Please. Every damn thing reminded me of them. Ice cream, birdsongs, a cloud, a color. I’d been keeping myself armored up for fourteen years, and suddenly here I was, out there in the open, stark naked. Blasted open, no roof, no door.
I had finally cried for my sisters, for the first time since it happened, and I had done it in Ethan’s arms. I’d finally dared to let myself feel just how much had been stolen from me. Not only my sisters, a family, an identity, a life embedded in other lives, but all of it, even the smaller, seemingly unimportant things. A childhood recognizable as such. A normal American girlhood, with all the moments and the milestones. I hadn’t had any of those rites of passage everyone else took for granted. There wasn’t a human being alive who would ever wish me a happy birthday, not on my original birth date or my fictitious one. It was just safer that way.
I didn’t want to live that sterile, lonesome kind of life anymore, but neither could I pull Ethan into the danger that stalked me. He had his own family to protect.
I could take care of myself. I could take responsibility for myself, but not for him, too. That was outside my scope. And there was no way to be this man’s lover without the world noticing. Everyone looked at him. Even without his genius brains and his mojo and his money, all eyes were on him just because he was so damn beautiful.
I had to pull up my big girl pants and do the painful thing that was best for everyone. Joanna, Danica, the girls. And Ethan. Even if they all felt hurt and betrayed by me leaving, they would still be alive to feel it, right? Not crumpled up on the floor in a pool of blood. Eyes empty and blank. Gone from this world forever.
Oh, lucky me. My heart had come intensely alive just in time to break into bits.
Whining didn’t help, but living in the moment, enjoying every last crumb of joy I could get—well, I couldn’t say it would help, per se, but why not make more sweet memories? As many as possible, to sustain me.
I’d treasure them for as long as I kept body and soul together.
The sky was lightening. I pushed the tears, the grief back in my mind. Not confined, not forgotten, but not for right now. This moment was for me. For all time.
I rolled on to my side, facing him, and placed my hand over his heart. Memorizing the sensation. Burning it into my mind so it would be part of me forever.
I slid my hand down, savoring every inch of him, every hair, the shape of his muscles and tendons, the jut of bone, the heat, the rough, the smooth. Over his belly, and then lovingly, teasingly lower. His cock was high and stiff. He opened his eyes, and looked at me. “Good morning,” he croaked.
“Hey,” I whispered.
“Oh, my God,” he said, as I grabbed his cock, stroking and squeezing.
I lifted myself onto my knees, and clambered astride him. Holding his thick, gorgeous shaft just where I needed it as I swayed over him, stroking my pussy with his warm, broad cockhead, sliding him over and around my clit, nudging him inside my warm, slick opening…and then slowly sank down onto that beautiful, stiff cock.
He surged up and into me, and I sighed and moaned at every delicious pulsing stroke, feeling it slide and stir and caress me.
We found our rhythm quickly, the perfect dance, rising, falling. Him, thrusting up, me sinking down, squeezing him inside, sighing and panting. I splayed my hands over his chest, he dug his fingers into my hips, and we gave ourselves up to it completely. The sweetness, the wildness, the perfect, raw, live-wire intensity of it.
We exploded together, and I couldn’t hide from the truth any longer. I loved this guy. I was cooked. In the middle of this hellacious shitstorm, I had fallen in love, and at the same time, concluded that I had to turn my back on him and run. Oh God, it hurt.
“What?” Ethan looked alarmed. He stroked my back. “What’s wrong? Did I do something wrong?”
I wiped the tears away, and pushed myself upright. “No. You’re awesome. I—”
…love you. I love you. I love you. Oh, my love.
