Chapter Twenty-­Eight

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Cecelia

T obias cradles me in my clawfoot tub after hours of the most intense sex of my life. He's already hard despite our last exhausting session where our only words were softly delivered ‘I love yous' between pleasure-filled moans, grunts, and desperate breaths. We've wasted ourselves with our greed while attempting to heal each other with our bodies, lips, and needy hands. When he lifts a warm, soaked rag and runs it along my shoulders, I tilt forward, giving him access, my hands braced on his muscular thighs.

"Do you think we're cursed?" I ask, and he stills the rag, mulling over my question before running it down the center of my back.

"I think we're our own worst enemies at times, and we've allowed too many outside forces to rip us apart. Me especially."

"Star-crossed," I whisper.

"I don't disagree."

"What about the other outside forces? Where the hell were our fairy godmothers when we needed them?"

He grunts in agreement. "They did a terrible job."

"Cupid?" I ask.

"He shot one too many arrows into you."

"Well, he's fucking fired too. Did no one show up for us? "

"Non."

"The saints?"

"Not one," he whispers, running his fingers along my stomach as I lay back to rest on his chest. "Not Lady Luck, not Father Time, none of them."

"Assholes," I harrumph. "Who else is supposed to be looking out for us?"

"Well, there's God. But I think I pissed him off before I was born."

His statement tugs at my heart. "No, you didn't, Tobias. Just remember, Job was a favorite, and He took everything from him, his riches, his family, everything he had before He plagued him with disease to prove a point to the devil. He put him through hell, so maybe it's not so great to be God's favorite."

"Well, in that case, maybe I am a favorite."

I run my nails along his legs. "You're my favorite and the best man I've ever known."

His fingers still.

"After all I've put you through, you believe I'm a good man?"

I turn in his arms and straddle him, and he laces his fingers at the small of my back, his brows creased.

"You're an incredible man. You revealed your true colors when we were together before. In recent years, your actions were mostly due to pain, and you're still in pain, my love. I'm not going to start pointing out all your flaws because fuck that, I have my own, but the core of you is made of pure gold, and nothing you ever say or do will convince me otherwise."

Wordless, he cups the back of my head, running his palm down my soaked hair.

"You say you don't like my perception of you, Frenchman, but my perception isn't skewed. I love all parts, all sides of you, good and bad. This thing between us is still new. We aren't going to come out perfect straight out of the gate. But all of you gets all of me, my stubborn King, always ."

His eyes roll down my body, warming me from the inside. "We may not be perfect, but you are. "

"No, I'm not, but I'm over the fact that I'm not going to get my way with you at times. Tantrums need to fall to the wayside at some point for what's important."

He bites his lip briefly. "Is it weird to say you sound like Sean?"

I shrug. "Is it weird to say Sean sounds like you?"

He glances down. "Is it weird that people sit in bathtubs full of filth, thinking it makes them clean? I can see scum floating on the top of this water."

"No, you French prude, but baths are good for a woman who was just bent like a pretzel and jackhammered until she nearly passed out. And don't knock my housekeeping skills."

"I'm not, Trésor." He rubs his thumb and pointer finger together in inspection. "You have absolutely none."

"Or maybe you're just too high maintenance."

He lifts his hips, running his erection along my center, hitting my clit just... so.

"Maintenance appeals to me very much." His eyes flare, and I shake my head with a grin as he traces my nipple with his finger, bringing it to a stiff peak.

"Tell me something I don't know, Frenchman."

"What do you want to know?"

"Anything I don't know, which is apparently a lot ."

He gathers the hair on the side of my neck and bites down on the skin of my shoulder before soothing it with his lush lips.

"Talk, King. I'm going to look beaten at work tomorrow."

"You're not going to work tomorrow."

"We'll see."

"One day. You haven't taken a single fucking day for me since I got here."

"What will we do on this day?"

He pulls at my hips again, and I groan. "Tobias, I can't."

"Then let me." Even in the water, I feel myself slicken as he rubs a finger along my clit before curling it inside of me.

"We didn't use a condom," I point out. "All four times." His finger stills before he pulls it away, bracing both hands on the side of the tub.

"You're on birth control. I saw it in the cabinet. You take it religiously."

I nod.

"So, is this conversation necessary?"

"Isn't it?"

His jaw ticks, but his question comes out pained. "Have you been with anyone since me?"

I shake my head. "No, Tobias, no, of course not."

I pose the same question without words.

"Cecelia," he sighs. "No, fuck no. That night I took you so roughly... and the weeks after you left, I couldn't even look at myself."

"I thought as much, but—"

He shakes his head, cutting me off. "Even when I was a bachelor, I never really indulged much in women," he confesses. "And I had plenty of chances."

"With lingerie models," I add dryly.

"And one French movie star," he chimes in with a wink.

"Fuck you, King," I move to get off his lap, and he pins me easily, a satisfied chuckle coming from his lips. "There's my jealous bébé."

I wrinkle my nose. "It's not healthy for either of us."

"It's who we are and how we feel when it comes to each other. And so we really don't give a fuck, do we?"

I hang my head. "We're going to end up in couple's therapy, and with our tempers, we probably need it."

He pinches my chin and lifts it. "I'm addicted to you and have been since the minute I touched you. In the past... sometimes I would go... a very long time without any human contact at all. I was so focused for so long, it wasn't a priority for me—until you. One hit of you and I was like a fucking fiend. Now I'm positive that I was waiting for the right woman, for you. And it's a good thing I saved what little patience I have for you , or I'd be a dead man. "

"Har, har. And you think you're so easy to deal with?"

"Non. I'm the devil you chose."

"And who am I?"

"You're the angel who constantly stabs me in the ass with my own pitchfork."

"Okay, you've avoided my question long enough. Tell me," I insist, running my palms down his muscular arms. Because I can. Because he's mine.

"Something you don't know?" The glint in his eyes dims. "Shelly almost had me committed, and there's no punchline. I went fucking crazy when you left, when I let you leave."

"I wanted to hate you."

"I tried my best to make sure you did, but you called my bluff, stubborn-ass woman."

Neither of us smiles because the pain of that truth hurts too much.

"You were so much safer in that life, Cecelia."

"I wasn't happy. I would have never been fulfilled."

"Nor me. I totaled my Jaguar the day you left my office, left me, left Triple Falls."

"What?" I jerk back in his arms as he lifts some water and cups it over my shoulders.

"When they lost you—" he shakes his head—"fucking idiots, I knew you'd done it purposely and had no intention of being found. I had nothing to go on. You ditched your cell phone, everything. You even left your Audi in impound. I knew I was fucked the second they called, and I think I blacked out because I don't remember the minutes that led up to the wreck. I just went... fucking crazy."

"And you totaled it?"

He nods.

"I'm sorry."

"You gave me every chance to stop you." He rests his head back on the lip of the tub. His eyes fixed on the ceiling. "God, Cecelia, I've never in my life been so fucked up. Just thinking about that phone call." He lifts his head, his eyes demanding even with his plea. "Promise me you'll never do that again."

"Tobias—"

"I'm begging you, Cecelia. If we fight, if we are at our worst, no matter how angry you get, this is all I'll ask of you. Our biggest fights are going to be about security, I know it. But please just let me protect you for my own sanity, my own peace of mind, even if you feel you don't need it. I can't take it. I can't fucking take it." He looks so damn beautifully tortured, his features twisted with pain, his lashes darker from the dripping water. If this life is really mine, if in time Tobias proves his intentions sincere, I can't imagine a better way to live.

I press my forehead to his. "I promise."

He grips my jaw and backs away an inch, still intent on getting his own way. "Always?"

"Yes, you pig-headed sonofabitch."

"This promise above all others," he insists, "above everything."

"I promise you, Tobias."

"Merci." There's nothing but relief in his tone.

"And what about me protecting you?"

He draws his brows, and I scoff. "Maybe I don't like your perception of me. Sometimes I see the reflection in your eyes, and I know you still see the na?ve nineteen-year-old you met. You obviously forgot who you came back for." He rakes his teeth over his lip as I grip him firmly in my hand, digging my nails a little into the silky skin covering his cock. "It's past time I remind you." His eyes flare and follow as I lift my hips and slowly sink onto him.