If You Stay (Beautifully Broken, #1)(71)

Mila stares at me, her eyes glittering. “On one condition.”

I feel the breath freeze on my lips. “Name it.”

“I get to paint you nude any time I want.”

A chuckle rumbles through my chest and I grab her, crushing my lips to hers.

“Any time,” I mumble against her mouth. “You can do anything to me at all, actually. Nude or otherwise.”

She laughs and I lift her up. Her legs wrap around my waist…right where they belong as her fingers rake through my hair.

“Yes,” she tells me breathlessly. “Yes. I’ll stay with you.”

We tumble to the floor, grasping at each other, breathing each other in. Mila’s tongue slips into my mouth, her breath sweet and warm. Her hands clutch me, pulling me closer and closer.

Her legs are wrapped around me and I moan as she strokes me. Then my lips are on her neck, her collarbone, her breasts. After a few heated minutes, she pulls my face back up to hers.

With her forehead pressed to mine, she whispers, “I love you.”

I grin against her lips.

“I know.”

I quickly roll over with her in my arms and I hover above her before I slide my hand between her legs. She is panting within a minute and calling my name within two.

I smile again and as she pulls me to her, I enter her slowly and sweetly.

I groan from the sheer, raw pleasure of it.

The amount of love in this room is incredible; it is thick and almost tangible. It is mind-blowing to me. I’ve never made love to any other woman before. It was always f*cking in its most primal. It was never like this…so achingly sweet.

Until now.

With each stroke that I take, warmth swells in my chest until I feel I can’t contain it. I clutch Mila to me gently, not wanting to release her even for a moment. And when I am finally throbbing into her, I wrap her in my arms and we stay enmeshed together for what seems like forever, sticky and wet.

“That was perfect,” she tells me sleepily, her fingers playing with mine.

“You’re perfect,” I answer, closing my eyes. I don’t even worry about the fact that it’s a * thing to say. It’s the truth.

Mila snuggles into my side and lays her head on my chest. Eventually her breathing grows rhythmic as she slips into sleep and I hover on the edge of drifting off myself.

My last conscious thought is that Mila did what she promised. She chased my nightmares away. It’s because of her that I even went to see Dr. Tyler. If I hadn’t, I never would have remembered what happened to my mother. And if I hadn’t remembered that, I never would have fixed the hole in my heart.

I never would have been whole.

Mila did that.

I’ll never tell her because she would just wave her hand and tell me that I’m the one who fixed things, that I put in the work. She never takes enough credit. So I’ll just have to love her every day of her life as a thank you. It’s enough that I know the truth.

And I’ll never hide from the truth again.

It can’t hurt me anymore.





[page]Epilogue


Twelve Months Later



Mila



The letter that I hold in my hands is old and yellowed and precious. Tears blur my vision as I read it and I slowly wipe them away, careful not to smudge my makeup. I set it aside and look up at my sister.

“So much has happened this year,” I say softly. Maddy nods in agreement.

“Yeah,” she agrees with a laugh. “Who would have thought that I’d actually grow to love Pax?”

I roll my eyes. “How could you not? He’s amazing. He’s done everything that he promised he would.”

And he did. True to his word, Pax continued to see Dr. Tyler. He put in so much work on changing the way he handles things and communicates that I couldn’t be prouder of him, and our relationship couldn’t be more healthy or whole. He’s beautiful, inside and out. He completely gave up whiskey and drugs. The only thing he touches now is wine at dinner, with me.

“I can’t believe he gave up Jack Daniels,” Madison says wryly, shaking her head. “That blew me away. Especially when all of that legal stuff was going on with his mother’s killer. It was so stressful. But he never even blinked. He didn’t mess up once. I have to say, I’m impressed with him, Sis. Truly.”

I nod absently, thinking about how hard that ‘legal stuff’ had been for Pax to deal with.

Leroy Ellison is the name of the mail man who violated Susanna Tate. DNA evidence proved it within a 99.900% level of accuracy and Pax identified him in a line-up, in addition to describing the snake tattoo on Leroy’s hip.

Leroy is in jail now, awaiting trial. The Tate family attorneys don’t expect the trial to last long, since the evidence is conclusive.

“And then, for his grandpa to turn up and try to make amends… Pax had so much pressure from every direction. I thought for sure he’d slip up. But he didn’t,” Madison says, staring at me.

I have to admit, I had been a little nervous too. When William Alexander had showed up at Pax’s lake house and wanted to talk, I thought all kinds of shit was going to hit the fan. But he and Pax had taken a walk and talked through things.

And over the course of the past year, as Pax’s head became clearer and less clouded by his past hurt, he had decided to take an interest in the family company. He will someday take it over when his grandfather dies.