If Forever Comes (Take This Regret #2)(28)
Author: A.L. Jackson

I’d had the overpowering urge to shake her, to force her to snap out of it, because all I wanted was to see her smile again. I should have just sat by her side, taken it, endured it, even when the distance between us had seemed insurmountable.

I should have stayed.

I always knew, even though she never came straight out and said it, somewhere inside of Elizabeth, she believed I had let her down.

I had to admit now that I had.

I’d been so wrapped up in giving her perfection, I hadn’t been prepared to hold her up when devastation hit.

Chapter 12

Early June, Four Months Earlier

The incessant call of the alarm clock beeped from my nightstand. With almost a smile, I quickly reached out and silenced it. I was already awake. I lay on my back, staring at the shadows that rose then faded on the ceiling. Early morning threatened at the window. To my right, Elizabeth’s deep, even breaths bled into the silence, like a harmony that played at my ear.

The deepest sense of contentment blanketed me.

I rolled onto my side, careful not to wake her. Lost in the abyss of sleep, she faced me. Her blonde hair flowed out all around her, and a single lock dripped over her shoulder and brushed along her neck.

Peaceful. Perfect. Beautiful.

Forever beautiful.

I gently brushed my fingertips across the sharp angle of her jaw, then down to caress along the cap of her delicate shoulder.

Her lips parted, but she didn’t awaken.

As I watched her, adoration lifted one side of my mouth, and I trailed my fingers farther to her left hand that was fisted on the bed, tucked up close to her face. The diamond on her finger caught a glimmer of light that slanted in from the rising sun outside the window. It danced and played, a symbol of our forever.

Tomorrow, this woman would finally be my wife.

How had I ever become so favored as this? Maybe I could call it luck. But I knew better than that. This was redemption. Elizabeth had saved me with her forgiveness, had saved me with her honest heart.

She’d given me back my family, and together, we would grow it, foster it. Foster us.

Joy pounded steadily in my chest.

No, things just didn’t get any better than this.

I stared at her for a second more, before I reluctantly untangled myself from the comfort of our twisted blanket and sheets. I stood and stretched my arms over my head, wishing I could crawl back in bed with Elizabeth and wake her up the way I really wanted to. I’d woken up with an intense urge to bury myself in her, to get lost in her body for hours and hours.

Instead I’d lain silently at her side and just listened to her breathe.

She needed her rest. She was feeling so much better than she did in the beginning, but that baby girl still took so much out of her. Today would be nonstop with the last minute wedding plans…and tomorrow…I just wanted her to feel well, to bask in it, for her wedding day to be perfect.

That’s what I wanted it to be.

Perfection in Elizabeth’s eyes.

I already knew it’d be perfection in mine simply because in it, Elizabeth would finally become my wife.

Nothing else mattered.

Casting one last smile at her sleeping form, I forced myself into the alcove bathroom and turned the shower on high. I stripped off my underwear and waited for the water to warm up. Steam began to spill over the top of the walk-in shower, and I stepped into the heated spray. I lifted my face to the flood of water and scrubbed my palms up through my hair as I drenched my body.

Exhilaration traveled beneath my skin, an excitement that buzzed in my bones. I couldn’t wait.

After so long, I had finally made this right.

My senses prickled in awareness as I felt it…eyes tracing me from behind. Or maybe it was her smell that infiltrated my mind. Either way, Elizabeth’s presence engulfed me.

Slowly I turned to look over my shoulder, blinking through the droplets of water that clung to my lashes.

And she was there, my life. Half her body was concealed as she braced herself on the outside of the shower wall, peering in at me. Her head was tipped to the side. Waves of dark blonde dripped over one shoulder and brushed across the swell of her perfect, round breast.

A muffled groan rumbled from somewhere deep in my chest as my attention raked down to relish in every exposed inch of her luscious skin.

Completely bare, Elizabeth stood before me.

I swallowed hard. “What are you doing, Elizabeth?”

She was still thin, though her hips were just a little fuller, and distinct lines cut into the muscles of her defined legs. And her stomach. Was it wrong that I found that bump the sexiest thing I’d ever seen? She wasn’t all that big yet, but it was pronounced, a round swelling of her belly that fit perfectly in the splay of both of my hands.

She was watching me with something akin to lust, though that look harbored so much more than simple desire. In it was everything I felt when I looked at her.

Devotion and need. Adoration and this passion that would never let us go.

I grew hard, my body reacting to this temptation. I was all too happy to step into her snare.

“I woke up to an empty bed,” she murmured in the most seductive way, in a way that only Elizabeth could because it was only her voice that I recognized. “And I don’t get to sleep with you tonight…and…I just needed you,” whispered from her mouth. She gently lifted her chin and dragged her fingertips down the soft slope of her neck. Her fingers fluttered as they trailed down to the valley between her br**sts, beckoning me to look at her, to see her.

She was beautiful, unbelievably sexy. Every erotic flick of her fingers was enough to drive me mad.

My eyes made another pass over her body as she stood there, taunting me.

A rosy glow blossomed across her skin on my blatant perusal.

Uninhibited and shy.

This was where Elizabeth captured me, where I was her captive, because I knew she’d only been this free with me, that this was the trust we shared.

An edgy smile pulled at my lips, and I fully turned so she could see what she did to me. Water pelted my back as I faced her, my erection straining, begging for her touch.

“You need me, huh?” I said, the words hoarse with the hunger that steadily built within me. “I’m pretty sure it’s me who needs you.”

A surprised moan rolled from her, and she bit at her lip and looked up at me beneath the veil of hair that had fallen across one side of her face. A mist of steam dampened her skin as she inched into the shower. Goosebumps visibly flashed across her flesh. Brown eyes locked on mine as she approached, her eyes simmering in a slow blaze.

With her stare, the burn beneath my skin ignited, flamed, a raging fire that singed and seared. Just her gaze was enough to mark me.