If Forever Comes (Take This Regret #2)(49)
Author: A.L. Jackson

It was a whisper, enough to weaken my knees with the rush of relief, still stoked the fury for what she had given into.

My fingers weaved through her hair, and I barely tugged her back, her jaw lifting as I brought my mouth to her ear. “Is that what you want, Elizabeth? Someone else to touch you?”

A tortured whimper escaped her throat. “No.”

Slowly I turned her around and pushed her up against the wall beside the door. Her back hit it with a thud. A whine rose from deep within her, escaped as agony into the room, something akin to the torture eating me alive. Brown eyes flashed to mine, and she lifted her chin, rigid, this broken girl who looked at me with bitterness and need.

I fluttered my fingertips down the slope of her neck. Every ounce of the pain she’d caused me squeezed into the words that I forced from my mouth.

“Tell me you don’t love me anymore.”

She clenched her jaw.

I erased all the space separating us, flattening myself to her as she shrank against the wall. Still she said nothing.

I curved my fingers around her neck, my thumb pressing under her jaw as I forced her to look at me. “Tell me you don’t love me anymore, Elizabeth.”

A strangled sob broke loose from her, bounced around the strained tension of the tiny room.

I gripped her face between my hands. My mouth descended on hers. Her lips were chapped, pouty and full, all wrong and perfectly right. And I wanted to erase it, expunge the ass**le from her lips, delete the past.

Elizabeth kissed me desperately as she clawed at my neck, fingers sinking deep, cutting me more as she struggled to bring me closer.

More f**king pain.

“Tell me…tell me you don’t love me.”

Her hands fisted in my shirt, and she hit me, pounded my chest. “I hate you,” she whispered hard, tortured, her fingers curling into the skin at my jaw.

She kissed me harder as she locked her fingers in my hair.

We lit. A frenzy took us over as we gripped and clutched, as she bit and hit and begged.

The anger we’d left unresolved the day I’d walked out pulsed between us, a force that neither of us could stop.

My kiss was demanding, urgent as I consumed her. Hers, desperate.

I ripped her shirt over her head. “Tell me to stop,” I pleaded. My body strained, clashed with the fury of what she’d done, the pain she’d caused, collided with the grief that devoured Elizabeth.

Another sob.

My arm wound around her waist, and I dropped us to our knees and laid her on the floor. Her chest heaved as tears streamed.

She tore at my skin, claimed it again. “I hate you.”

I caged her, raked my nose up her jaw and to her ear. “Tell me you don’t love me.” It came harsh, acute and severe.

She slapped me across the face, before her fingers locked on the back of my neck, pulling me back to her. She forced her mouth against mine, and I lost it, kissed her and kissed her, tore at her clothes, desperate to feel her against me. I needed her. Oh my God, I needed her. And yet she’d hurt me, cut me so deep, I didn’t know how to see, had no clue how to make sense of any of this except I refused to let her go.

My pleas changed as I ripped the panties from her body and fumbled with the button on my jeans. “Tell me to stop, Elizabeth. Tell me to stop," I ordered as I shed my clothes.

“Don’t you dare stop.” She raked her nails down my back, drawing blood, her body begging for mine. “Don’t ever stop.”

I slammed into her.

I cried out in pleasured relief.

And I f**ked her. I f**ked her and f**ked her, because I was angry. Angry she’d let that bastard kiss her. Angry that I had let her slip away. Angry that Lillie had been stolen from us. Angry that I hadn’t been strong enough to hold her together when she’d fallen apart.

And she was crying, crying as I claimed her. Marked her. Took back what was mine. I felt her convulse around me, her body gripping my c**k as she came. Still, she cried, she cried and raged and pounded out all of her pain against my chest.

Her name crashed from my mouth as I poured into her. It was agony. It was ecstasy. I collapsed on her, my chest to hers.

Elizabeth went limp below me, but she was clinging, weeping against my skin. “Why didn’t you love her?” Fingertips bored deep, cutting into my spirit. “Why didn’t you love her?” she asked on a muted sob.

I held my weight on my forearms as I sank my nose in the warmth of her neck. I ran my fingers through her hair, kissed her jaw, whispered at her ear. “I loved her, Elizabeth…so much…I loved her so much.” It was low, ragged, a promise for the one who would forever live in our hearts.

A little girl who had touched our lives.

A little girl who had torn it apart.

A trauma we could not sustain.

And she wept. Elizabeth wept, and I just held her.

Finally I got to my knees, gathered this broken woman in my arms, and climbed to my feet. Elizabeth wrapped her arms around my neck. I hugged her to me, kissed her forehead as I carried her upstairs.

“I love you, Christian.” I felt her words more than heard them.

“I know,” I whispered tenderly at her skin, all of mine held in the simple acceptance of what she had said.

With my foot, I nudged the bedroom door open. Crossing the room, I gently settled her in the middle of the bed. Elizabeth looked up at me with all the torment she had been unwilling to show, her eyes open wide, the darkness in the depths revealing how deep her pain really went.

My movements were measured as I climbed down beside her. I tugged her twisted sheets over us as I turned to my side and pulled her into my arms.

There was no resistance. Her arms were crossed between us as I held her whole, my hand at the back of her head while she cried out months of misery into my chest.

I held her, supported her the way I should have, even when she’d pushed me away.

“I’m so sorry,” I finally managed to murmur. I ran my fingers through the length of her hair. “I’m so sorry for everything. For everything.”

She curled her hand into the skin at my chest, fingers anchoring deep. “Don’t leave me.”

Exhaling, I somehow managed to pull her a little closer. I would never let her go.

“Never, Elizabeth. I wasn’t going anywhere. I was just waiting for you to come back to me.”

In all of this, that had been my greatest mistake, my biggest failure. Leaving her alone when she needed me most.

Another sob echoed from her mouth. “It hurts,” she whimpered.

“I know, baby, I know.”