Wake to Dream(74)

His steps were a warning in themselves. This was a fact Alice was learning, each heavy, booted thud a reminder that she was not alone. That he was coming for her.

He'd taken eighteen of those warning steps as he climbed the stairs towards her.

Eighteen beats that counted down her future.

Eighteen beats that cried out in their slow, foreboding tone, beware the monsters.

But would it be his monster that walked through their bedroom door that evening? Or would it be the man she loved returning home to rescue her from the loneliness that ensnared her when he wasn’t by her side?

His shadow darkened the doorway.

Alice took a deep, steadying breath and turned to see what part of her husband had returned home to her.

What she found shattered her heart, the splintered pieces falling to her feet and her arms reaching out to take the broken man into an embrace that would never quite make him whole.

His face a mask of guilt and remorse, self-loathing, shame and sorrow, Max closed the distance between them in several long legged strides.

They both cried as they held onto each other, both shedding the emotions and pain that left scars in places too deep to be repaired.

Picking her up so that her toes barely brushed over the surface of the carpet, Max walked her back to the bed, sat her gently on the edge and kneeled down before her to rest his forehead against the planes of her trembling knees.

“Forgive me.”

Alice’s hands moved to run her fingers through his hair. It was an act of the forgiveness he sought, a solemn moment where neither spoke, but the words still passed between them in the silence of the crossroads where they now found themselves standing.

Split apart or come together stronger?

What occurred in this moment would answer the question that had been running endless circles in Alice’s head.

He was such a proud man; too proud, too formidable to kneel to any person. But yet here he was, lowering himself to his wife, to a woman who was nothing close to the powerful person he’d somehow become. She was the meek one between them – her fear, her panic, her nightmares that only he could chase away – and yet in her helplessness, she’d become Max’ ultimate weakness.

Her hands absently tangled into the thick strands of his dark wavy hair, his hands coming up to rub along her calves, the touch so gentle in comparison to the way he’d handled her just hours before.

Lifting his head, tears shimmered in the icy chill of his blue eyes, regret a shadow that darkened the normally stark features of his beautiful face.

“I can’t help myself, sometimes,” he explained. “I lose my mind when it comes to you. I try so hard to keep that part of me away from you.”

Alice understood every word as if she’d spoken them herself. There was a part of her that he’d chased into the shadows, and if she were to return the kindness – the favor given in love – could she chase away the darkness that loomed over them both when Max’ anger raged?

“I forgive you,” she whispered, “I’ll always forgive you.”

They were too entwined for her to back away now, too closely knitted by the horrors of their youth and the serenity they found when they finally came together.

He was her protector, and she would become his.

It was the price she’d ultimately pay to love a man as damaged as the one that knelt at her feet.

“I know you have your secrets, your places that you haven’t shown me for fear of what they could mean…or do. But I made you a promise when I married you, Max, and I’ll never break it.”

Relief withered his shoulders, his body to relax at her feet. However, there was still that other side of him that lingered just beneath the skin.

Pushing up to his knees, he wrapped his arms around her waist, his lips trailing across her shoulder until he found that soft spot at the base of her neck. Her pulse fluttered against his lips and the violence inside him shifted until his was a shadow that covered her as she fell back helpless against the bed.

She wouldn’t stop him from taking what she’d always known was his, and a moan brushed over her lips when his hands explored the curves of her trembling body. The softness wouldn’t last, she knew that, but she enjoyed it for the brief moment he could give it to her.

There was fury in the way this man loved her, fury and violence in the way he held her down. One strong hand gripped her wrists to pin them to the mattress above her head, heat flashing in his eyes to look down on her when she was powerless and open to every desire inside him.

The fingers of his other hand traveled up her leg, pulling the white nightgown she wore up to the apex of her thighs, their grip so strong that she could feel the pulse of his heart on the tips. He left bruises on her each time they made love, but those small constellations of marks never deterred her from wanting him again.

Because where this man made her body jump with small pain and torment, he also made it sing.

He knew every small place that drove her crazy, every weakness that pulled a soft moan from the back of her throat. Made for each other, the two danced this sensual torture because they were two halves of a whole.

She needed the sexual violence he gave her. He needed the fear and submission she gave in return.

His hand gripped the nightgown, the cloth tearing as he pulled it away. What was left of the delicate material was dropped to the bed beside them and his mouth found the taut peak of her exposed breast, his teeth biting down until her body arched and begged for more.