"Aiden..." I shake my head, eyes fixed anywhere but the gorgeous man next to me.
His hand grips my chin tightly, just enough to make me avert my eyes to his.
"You know you want this as much as I fucking do. I want you to be mine. I want to be the...
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Fluttering kisses on her silky skin, I'm tempted to say fuck it and stay with my girl for the rest of the night. Hold her against me like she thinks I will. But I know I can't. Revenge can be an ugly thing, especially if you're on the receiving end. I'm not, rather the contrary, I am the one delivering the blows this time. The final blow. So I can't genuinely detect where all of my sudden worry is coming from.
Perhaps it's the perception etched into the back of my mind, a persistent reminder that I no longer am by myself. Sleepily oblivious girl in my arms, the cause hidden behind my apprehension. A feeling nonexistent before my Avery became mine. Long eyelashes cast over high cheekbones, though they aren't as visible as I'd wish they'd be in the pitch black darkness swallowing our bedroom whole. Fuck, I want to see her, I fucking need to see her one last time before I leave for the night.
Instead, I've been dead set on cataloguing the way her skin tastes under my lips for the past hour or so. Taking what I can get and appreciating every second of it. Her tiny body is exhausted from me fucking her earlier, nestled into my side as her every breath comes out evenly, carrying a peacefulness that somehow rubs off on me, calming the racing of my heart just a little. My arm reaches backward and blindly grabs my phone off the nightstand.
The time on the screen makes me realize that I'm drowning in guilt. A bottomless sea of it. I fucking despite what I'm about to do; leave her without any kind of notice, do all that I'm about to do behind her back and then come home and pretend as if I were here the entire night, right by her side. Though it's for the best, I keep trying to convince myself. She's been through enough as it is, and it's no fucking secret that I'm dreading for her to find out that I'll be colouring my hands red.
Again.
That's why I'm trying to keep it under wraps for the longest time possible. My sweet girl will be fucking heartbroken when the identity of the man who wanted her dead surfaces, a man she's trusted with her and her family's life since the beginning of it.
It isn't lost on me that Ry yet has to come to terms with everything her brothers and I do. I can see it every time I tell her that I'll be gone for the night, but this... this isn't the same thing. This all comes back to her, and knowing Avery the way I do, I can tell that she'll feel responsible for what's about to play out on our behalf. A responsibility that definitely isn't her's to take.
She'll give forgiveness to those unworthy of it like always.
"I love it when you do that." Unconscious mumble takes me by surprise. The hairs on the back of my neck rise as her sleepy voice replaces the complete silence around us and the loud thoughts whirling in my head. It takes me a moment to get back, relax my body around hers and realise what it is she's talking about.
I hum lowly against her temple, "you do?" Lips kiss the crown of her head a second time, relishing into the feeling as much as I can. My girl throws a leg over both of mine, clutching onto me like a fucking monkey, the way she said she would. I love it. Could actually stay like this for the rest of my fucking life.
