Don't Speak (A Modern Fairytale, #5)(114)

“Then I’m gonna call you Daddy instead of Oscar,” said Ava Grace, her small arms looped tightly around his neck. “Is that okay?”

“Better’n okay,” he said, his voice gravelly with emotion as he tightened his arms around his family. “That’d be perfect, baby.”





Chapter 24


Since the morning, Ava Grace had probably called Erik Daddy about a hundred times, even managing to insert it three times into a single sentence. The truth? He didn’t think he’d ever get weary of hearing her little voice say it.

Tucking her into bed that night, they rehashed the fun day they’d had together: running on the beach, eating hot dogs at a café in Hatteras, visiting Laire and Ava Grace’s new condo, checking out her new elementary school, and dining on grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner, courtesy of Kelsey.

With Laire on one side of her and Erik on the other, they read a bedtime story together, watching as their daughter drifted off to sleep. They kissed her good night, then tiptoed to Erik’s room, leaving the door to Ava Grace’s room cracked open just enough to hear her call out if she needed them.

Holding Laire’s hand, and with an alacrity that should have surprised him but didn’t, he switched gears entirely as he stepped into his dimly lit, quiet room.

As much as he’d loved every minute he’d spent with Laire and Ava Grace today as a family, his body now had a separate agenda altogether. He’d waited a long, long time to be alone with his woman again, and with no more lies and secrets between them, he was finished waiting.

He wanted her.

He needed her.

And he intended to have her in as many ways as she’d let him before morning.

He sat down on the bed, holding her hand, looking up at Laire, who stood before him. She wore a slight smile on her face as she raised her free hand. It was fisted, but as she opened her fingers one by one he recognized the necklace he’d bought her so long ago at the Elizabethan Gardens.

“You kept it,” he said, taking it from her hand and staring at the intricate design of overlapping hearts.

“I was tempted to throw it in the fireplace many times, but . . . I couldn’t.” Her eyes were dark and languid as she dropped his hand, lifted her hair off the back of her neck and turned around. “Put it on me?”

His heart sped up at the sight of her swanlike neck bared to him, at the quick mental image of making love to her while she wore nothing except this necklace. Standing up on suddenly shaky knees, he leaned his arms over her shoulders, each half of the clasp between his fingers, and fastened the necklace around her throat.

Before she could let her hair fall back, he bent his head quickly and pressed his lips to her soft, warm skin, closing his eyes as she gasped quietly. She leaned her head to the side, giving him better access, and he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her back against his chest and inhaling the sweet womanly smell of her.

“I missed you,” he murmured, sliding his lips along her throat, behind her ear, stopping to kiss and nibble, and reveling in the feeling of Laire back in his arms.

“Me too,” she sighed, covering his hands with hers.

“Last night,” he started, pausing, not wanting to jeopardize the moment with indelicacy. “You said you hadn’t been with anyone . . . but me.”

“That’s right,” she whispered, her fingers tightening over his.

He kissed her shoulder, then leaned his head up, turning her around in his arms.

Her face tilted up, her clear green eyes searching his.

“Only you,” she said, licking her sweet lips nervously, then braving a little grin as she lifted her chin.

He nodded at her, the rush of love in his heart so pure and strong, it warmed his body like a blanket. “Only me.”

“I didn’t want to be with someone unless I loved them as much I loved you.” She looked down for a second, then raised her head and nailed him with her eyes. “So I waited.”

The truth bubbled up inside him like an unstoppable force. “Me too.”

At first she gasped, then she flinched, her brow knitting as she stared at him in disbelief. He could tell that she was holding her breath because her breasts pushed against his chest without drawing away.

“Breathe,” he whispered.

Huge tears welled in her eyes as she sucked in a ragged breath, still staring up at him in shock. “W-what?”

Suddenly his eyes burned and he blinked at her, every moment he’d tried to force himself to bed another woman rushing back to him. He’d failed. Every time. And part of him had wondered if he’d ever be capable of an intimate relationship again . . . or if Laire had ruined him for every other woman in creation.

He shrugged, still holding her tightly in his arms. “No one was you.”

“You haven’t been with . . . anyone?”

He gulped over the lump in his throat and shook his head. “Got close a few times but . . . couldn’t.”

Her face crumpled and she leaned forward, resting her forehead on his chest, under his chin. “Are y-you . . . l-lying?”

“No, baby,” he said gently, rubbing her back as she cried. “I didn’t just love you as a kid or as a summer fling or as anything that was temporary. Don’t you see? I loved you as a man, in every season, forever. And when I lost you, I lost . . . everythin’. There was a hole inside me the size of a crater. And . . .” He paused, flinching as he recalled the depths of his agony before reminding himself that now, here and now, the woman of his dreams was back in his arms. “. . . and nothin’, nothin’ on God’s earth, could have filled it but you.”