His head turned up, his eyes pleading with her. He was so gorgeous, her big bad Dom in a supplicant position, on his knees for his sub. “I can let go of the twenty-three-year-old idiot who didn’t realize just how much he could love you. I can. He’s gone. I can let go of the man who was so tied up in his own guilt that he didn’t really see you for years. But I will never let go of the eighty-year-old man who will hold your hand until the day he dies. I will fight for that old man. I will never let go of him.”
Tears blurred her vision, and she knew she was at that fork in the road she’d been terrified of for so many years—that place where she had to finally decide where she was going to go and whether the road would include the love of her life.
And in that moment, she saw him, really saw him for the first time in years. She saw him without the filter of her own pain. She saw him as that young man who had reached for her, who she’d learned with and grown with. She saw the Alex who had been sitting at her bedside when she woke up, his eyes haggard and guilt in every line of his body. She saw the Alex who had given in to her for five years, placating her, giving her only what she told him she needed while his eyes begged her for more. And she saw him as the old man he would be, lined and weathered and still so beautiful to her eyes. He would be there if she let him. He would reach for her hand, their lives so entwined that there was no way to disentangle them.
They had made a mess of things, but he was still here, still reaching out for her. And if she was brave, this time he might never let her go.
If she was really brave, she would make damn sure of it.
“I let him in.” She closed her eyes as she said the words, the horror of that day washing over her again.
Alex’s arms tightened, an anchor keeping her in the present. “Why would you do that, angel? I left two guards with you. They should have opened the door first.”
Alex wasn’t the only one who felt guilty. “I thought it was you or Warren. Tommy even told me not to open the door, but I was so sure that I knew who it was. I just wanted to see you. I was scared. And then I was even more scared when Evans was there. I tried to slam the door in his face, but he kicked at it and I ended up on the floor. He had two of his men with him, and then I heard glass breaking and two more came in from the back. I got Tommy and Leon killed.”
She could still see them as they fought. They managed to take one of Evans’s men but there were too many. They had died in a cascade of bullets, and the last thing she had seen before Evans had shoved a needle in her neck was Tommy, so young. He’d just joined the Bureau and she watched his eyes glass over as he died.
“Eve, you can’t blame yourself.”
Oh, but she could. Every time she ran a hand over her scars, she remembered the two men who had died trying to protect her. None of them had taken it seriously. Not even Alex, really. He’d left a six-pack of beer to pay his buddies back for babysitting his wife. Warren had been the one to insist on the guard. Alex had been so sure that Evans would come after him.
“I should have been more careful.”
“He had four men with him, maybe more. He would have gotten in whether you opened the door or not,” Alex said gravely.
She felt hemmed in. She usually loved to be tied up, felt safe. Though now she realized why she loved it. Because Alex never took his eyes off her when she was tied up. He wouldn’t turn his back on her. She’d gravitated toward more and more hardcore play because it focused Alex’s attention on her. But now it was starting to bother her. She couldn’t move. It felt like the walls were closing in and she was alone. She didn’t need his ropes. She needed him.
“Keep going. I know he raped you.”
“I want out.” She couldn’t be in the rope anymore. She couldn’t. Tears were streaming down her face.
Alex paled, and he was on his feet in a second. He reached into his kit and had a knife in hand. “I’m sorry, angel. I’m so sorry. I won’t make you do this again.”
He cut through the ties that bound her in quick, economical movements, and she was free within seconds. He took a step back, pain plain on his face, but she couldn’t try to soothe him. She needed him.
She threw herself into his arms, wrapping her body around his. She wasn’t satisfied with just hugging him. She jumped on him, curling her legs around him and burying her face in his neck. This was home. She breathed in his scent. This was what she’d missed for so many years. The tears came easily now. She wept into his shoulder.
“He hurt me.” The words didn’t even begin to describe what had happened, but there was more truth in those three words than anything she’d said to him before. He’d hurt her. He’d hurt her so badly, she’d gone into a shell and was only now starting to come out of it.
“I’m so sorry.” He moved with her in his arms. “I love you so much.”
Now that she was being honest, she couldn’t stop herself. “I didn’t want to die. I just wanted to get back to you, but after a few days, I started to wonder.”