Wicked Burn(82)
Author: Beth Kery

Niall stared down at the bed. “I’m not a bloodthirsty person, Vic. I’m glad I’m not the one who has to decide Manning’s fate. I’ll accept whatever punishment the law passes down. But I will tell you one thing. I was relieved yesterday when I got that letter.”

“You were?”

Niall nodded, her head still lowered. “There’s been so much violence . . . so much hatred. I’ll do whatever is required to ensure that Manning never sees the light of day again for the rest of his life. But I just want all the violence to stop.” She swallowed painfully. “I just want my little boy to be able to rest in peace.”

She eventually broke the prolonged silence that fell between them.

“I wanted to tell you about Michael, Vic. Not just about his murder. Everything. He was such an amazing little boy,” she said with a small, desperate laugh. “I . . . I’ve really hated the fact that I haven’t been able to talk about him for so long. He deserves so much better than that . . .”

Vic’s hand cupped her jaw, gently urging her to meet his gaze. Niall complied with his unspoken request despite the fact that tears flowed from her eyes and a choking sensation in her throat prevented her from continuing.

“Give yourself time, Niall. It’ll come. It’ll come because you want it to, not because it’s required.”

Niall nodded and waited for the painful sensation in her throat to fade. “I wanted to tell you about Stephen, too. But every time I tried, I just . . . couldn’t.”

“I think I know why you didn’t want to tell me. You were afraid I would judge you. Evan Forrester wasn’t the only person I ran into at Toulouse, Niall. I spoke with Kendra Phillips as well.”

He nodded when he noticed the surprised widening of her eyes. “Unlike Forrester, Kendra would never run on at the mouth about you. But I think she saw what a mess I was and took pity on me. She told me what she knew about Michael’s murder and Stephen’s breakdown during Matthew Manning’s trial. She explained how your parents condemned you for divorcing Stephen. You were afraid to tell me about your past because you didn’t want to be judged again.” He paused for a second as he caressed her. “I have a suspicion that your ex-husband laid some kind of a guilt trip on you, too, didn’t he?”

Niall started. “How did you know that?”

Vic winced slightly at her question, and she realized that she’d just unintentionally confirmed his suspicion. How had he found out the truth? She’d never told anybody about how Stephen regularly ranted at her that the person killed that day should have been her. She’d never revealed how she’d discovered that Stephen projected onto Niall his own misguided guilt about not being there on the day that Michael was murdered.

“I don’t know why I thought it, exactly. Maybe it was from all those nights holding you while you slept. It was like you carried the burden of the world when you dreamed, baby,” he said softly.

Their gazes remained locked for several long seconds. “I’ll never forget the look on your face that day when you saw how I reacted to the truth about you being married. It was like I’d just confirmed all of your fears about revealing the truth to me . . . like you accepted the judgment I passed on you. God, I’m sorry for that, Niall. You have no idea how much. I had no right to pass judgment on you.”

His thumb tenderly caught the tear that skittered down her cheek.

“I’m sorry, as well,” she admitted. “I shut you out after that night because of my own guilt. It’s sort of hard, when you’ve been surrounded by so much misery and grief for so long, to think that it’s possible to deserve something as wonderful as the way I felt about you . . . the way I feel about you,” she added in a whisper.

She felt his softly caressing thumb go still.

“How do you feel about me?”

Niall rolled her eyes in mock exasperation, causing several more tears to course down her face. “I’m in love with you. What’d you think? That I just fall into bed with every guy who gives me a Scotch and grunts ten words at me?”

Vic grinned slowly. Heat fanned out from her lower belly to her sex. Her nipples pulled tight next to the cool sheets. God, his smile was deadly. Niall suspected he knew precisely what effect he had on her when he tugged firmly on the sheet and blanket and they fell around her waist.

“It must have been at least twenty,” he said as his light gray eyes leisurely traveled down her naked torso.

“If you include your dirty talk in bed later on,” Niall teased, but her voice had gone husky at the impact of his gaze. Her lower lip fell away from the upper one and a puff of air slipped from them both when Vic reached up and shaped her breast to his curving palm.

“Well, we can’t forget that.” Niall noticed that his voice was just as hoarse with desire as her own.

“Vic?” Niall said sharply when she saw his dark head begin to lower to her breast. She ached for him, but still . . . “Don’t you want me to explain the rest of it . . . the parts that Kendra doesn’t know?”

“I want to hear anything you want to tell me, but I want to make something clear to you first. We’re not here like this right now because I’ve forgiven you after what I learned about you today.”

Her brow crinkled in confusion.

“There’s nothing to forgive. I went after you this morning because I knew I’d been wrong to judge you in the first place. I was going to apologize for the way I’d been acting before I ever talked to Forrester or Kendra. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

His face tightened with emotion ever so briefly. “Thank you, baby. Thank you for walking into my apartment that night and giving yourself so unselfishly to me. Thank you for doing the same thing every damn time I look into your eyes.” He grimaced slightly as he watched his hand caress her shoulder. “I don’t deserve you, but if you’ll have me, I’m yours.”

“I’ll have you,” she said so quickly that they both smiled when their eyes met.

“Then so be it,” he mumbled before he dipped his head and kissed her so sweetly and so hotly that Niall felt literally dizzy with desire.

“Now you decide, baby,” Vic mumbled next to her lips half a minute later. “We can talk and then make love, or we can make love and then talk.”

“Make love and then talk,” Niall said decisively. “And make love in between . . . and afterward?” she finished tentatively.