Forsaken Duty (Red Team #9)(79)

“Your wabi-sabi isn’t as pretty as mine. I’m sorry.”

He smiled. “Scars are what they are.”

She looked into his eyes. “Do you feel lighter?”

“I do.”

“I do too.”

He sat up and brushed a bit of hair behind her ear. “I love you.”

She nodded. “I know.” She couldn’t say it back. He’d only just let the dark out of her, and the light he’d let in was overwhelming. The connection they had at that moment made her aware that her inability to say it back hurt him. She felt his pain as keenly as he did. She rose up on her knees and settled over him, joining their bodies.

He hissed a sharp inhalation. His thighs tightened under hers. He caught her waist and looked up at her. He’d given her the grace of coming to him in her own way and time. She didn’t want to love him. She didn’t want to be so vulnerable. But trying not to was just living a lie. She did love him. She always had…even when she hated him.

She caught his face and leaned down so their noses touched. Her body moved over his. He was hot and hard inside her. “I can’t say I love you, Owen, as if it’s something new…because I never didn’t love you. Always. From the very beginning, when you would visit us. You were light in a world I instinctively knew was very dark. You are golden to me, like the light you let in with your wabi-sabi.” Holding his face, she kissed him. “I love you. But those words don’t even begin to cover what I feel for you.”

He smiled up at her. “I know.”

She touched her palm to the center of the gold lines she’d made, right over his heart. Owen was the only man who’d ever made love to her. The others had abused her body. It wasn’t even sex she’d had with them. It was something else, something dark and twisted and cruel.

Owen took over their lovemaking. He wrapped a hand around her hips, holding her as he pumped into her. With his other, he caught the back of her neck, bringing her face to his for a kiss so deep and endless that she lost herself in him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and gave herself over to the feeling of being part of him, no longer two separate beings but the one complete person they made together. All the years lost between them slipped away, replaced by something deeper and richer than any human who’d ever lived had ever known, or so it seemed to her.

An unfamiliar warmth spread through her, fanning out from where Owen entered her, deep inside her, reaching her heart and stopping there. She cried out as a wave of energy took her over, something she hadn’t felt since the last time she was with him. Her arms tightened around his neck, holding on for fear she would float away, out of his control, out of hers.

And then the very thing she feared happened. Waves of feeling took her over. Distantly, she could hear herself mewling, hungry for more of the infinity she glimpsed. She writhed against Owen, her body demanding something from his. More. Everything. All of him for all of her.

She wasn’t certain how long her orgasm lasted. Seconds or minutes. It took everything from her. She cried when it was over, weeping into his neck. “I don’t know who I am, Owen.”

His arms were tight around her. He wasn’t letting go, and that made her feel safe. “Laidy, we can find out together.”

“Don’t let me go.”

“Never. I got you,” he said.

“I wish I was brave like you.”

“I wish I was resilient like you.”

She pulled back and looked down at him. Everything he was, everything she was to him, was laid out in his eyes. More beautiful than any gemstone, what she saw was truth.



The next morning, Addy stood in Owen’s bathroom, staring at herself. The night before had been like a rebirth of sorts. She still felt lighter inside than she had in years. Probably since the first night she and Owen were together ten years ago.

Owen came into the bathroom. “What are you doing?”

She looked at his reflection. They were both nude. The gold metallic lines on both of them were still bold. She studied the two different patterns on them, seeing two different stories of survival. “Look at us.”

He did. His face was somber. “How do you feel this morning?”

“Phenomenal.”

He smiled. “Really?”

“I do. You let the light inside me. There can’t be dark where there’s light. And it’s all over my face.” She laughed. “Cecil would hate this. He was always careful to keep from marring my face. Or when he did, he kept me hidden. I can’t hide this. And I don’t want to hide it. I was going to shower, but I don’t want to wash it off yet.”

Owen stepped closer and pulled her into his arms. “You aren’t upset that I did this?”

“No. Your wabi-sabi worked wonders for me.”

He smiled, then kissed her forehead.

“I need to go wake Troy up for school.”

“Okay. Will I see you for breakfast?”

She nodded. “You will.” She kissed his mouth, then threw on her robe and left his room. In her room, she dressed in her new casual clothes and put on a soft pair of moccasin flats. She washed her face and hands carefully so that she didn’t disturb the ink, then brushed her teeth, brushed her hair, then went over to wake up her son. She pulled the drapes wide, letting in the morning light. She felt as bright as that light.