“Whatever you were going to say, I don’t want to hear it, Pip. You are not weak and what happened wasn’t your fault. I’m so fucking sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me but this right here…” He pulls me closer, molding my body to his. “This is where you belong.”
“I don’t want to hear you apologize either, then. You didn’t do anything wrong and as painful as it was… I think I needed to be away from you or I never would have learned how to handle my issues on my own.”
He blows out a breath. “I should have come looking for you when I got back… I just let my damn pride get in the way and it cost us everything.”
“It’s not…”
He silences me with another kiss and I melt into him, my entire body rejoicing as his hand slips under my t-shirt and presses against my back. My skin tingles with need and I slip my fingers into his hair and grip a chunk of it just like I’ve been dying to do since he got here. Growling, he trails kisses down my neck and I drop my head back, releasing a moan. I can’t believe I ever thought this feeling, this connection between us was gone and dead.
“Fuck,” he rumbles, his hands all over my body and he pulls me into him, clinging to me like he can’t get me close enough. “I missed you so much, baby.”
I nod as a few tears slip down my cheeks. “I missed you, too, Wyatt. So, so much.”
“I’m never letting you go again. We’ll do whatever we have to do to fix this but I refuse to live another second without my wife,” he vows and a few more tears slip from my eyes as I nod. I don’t want to lose him either. I’m scared as hell to try again and I know we’ve both changed over the past ten years but I’m ready to give this relationship a real shot. I just hope it doesn’t break me.
Chapter Sixteen
Wyatt
An alarm pierces the silence followed by a groan and a slapping sound that I can only assume is Piper smashing the offending object into a thousand pieces as the noise cuts off and I reluctantly peel open my eyes. A mass of red hair fills my vision and I smile as my gaze trails down the curve of her naked body as it calls to me, tempting me from the other side of the bed. Images of the hours we spent wrapped up in each other last night, making up for lost time, fill my mind and I bite back another groan. Scooting across the mattress, I pull her closer and press the front of my body against her back. She wiggles, rubbing her ass against my cock before she finds a comfortable spot and lets out a contented sigh. It’s the most glorious fucking sound in the world and I want to hear it again.
Immediately.
As I’m sinking into her…
Shaking my head, I blow out a breath and push the thoughts from my mind. As much as I would like that, I also can’t bring myself to wake her up just yet. She looks so damn peaceful like this, something I don’t think I’m used to yet. In a lot of ways, my woman is the same that she has always been - fun, sexy, sweet, and a whole lot of sassy - but in the past, there were always ghosts in her eyes and a struggle on her face like surviving each day was a challenge. When she looks at me now, I see this newfound strength shining in her eyes and not only do I find it sexy as hell but it also makes me so damn proud of her. She lived through hell but she came out stronger on the other side.
She’s a goddamn phoenix.
It still kills me to think about how hard it must have been for her when I deployed, though and I shake my head as guilt crashes down on me. I close my eyes as I press my lips to her shoulder, breathing in her scent. War is brutal - a kind of ugly that I can’t even begin to describe but Piper was at home, fighting a war of her own and I hate that it never even occurred to me. I knew about her issues but I was a stupid kid and too wrapped up in my own fears for our time apart to realize what she would be dealing with. I can picture her in that little house on base, seeing the man who killed her parents and seeing me dead, scared out of her ever-lovin’ mind and all alone. My chest aches and I shake my head again like I can somehow deny the pain. From the moment we met, I was her protector. When she was with me, she never had to be scared of anything because I always had her back and I hate myself for just walking away from her.
The morning after we got married, I woke up before she did and I laid in bed with her in my arms as the realization crashed down on me that I had to find a way to take care of her. Not only that but I knew Piper deserved the moon and stars so I had to find a way to give it to her. I didn’t have the money for college so when I saw an ad for the military, it seemed perfect. It guaranteed me a regular paycheck, health insurance, and a house for the two of us. I thought it was perfect but if I had known what it would do to her and everything it would cost me, I never would have enlisted. Piper was and always will be the most important thing in my life.
Opening my eyes, I prop myself up on one arm and stare down at her face, thinking over everything she told me last night and the pain in my chest grows. Over the past week, I’ve gone through a hundred scenarios of what happened back then to make her leave but I never considered that I was the one at fault. The last time I walked away from her, most would consider what I did noble and brave but it was just a means to an end. It was about Piper and giving her the whole world which is what she deserves but now, I can’t help but think that maybe I don’t deserve her. How could I when I just abandoned her without considering that it might be too hard for her to handle?
I imagine her living in her car - dirty, hungry, scared, and I grit my teeth as I fall back to the bed and roll to my back. Fisting my hair, I close my eyes and drag a breath into my lungs. Why the fuck did I leave her? It was such a dumb shit move and it doesn’t matter what my motives were because I almost lost her forever. Hell, I don’t even know that we’re really back together but like I told her last night, I’ll do whatever it takes. There was always one thing I was sure about in my life and that was Piper so I can’t let her walk away from me again.
Releasing my hair, I ball both of my fists and pound them into the mattress at my sides, wishing I could put one of them through a wall. Maybe then I would feel better. A knot forms in my throat and I try to swallow it down but it refuses to budge as my mind wanders to what happened the night Piper’s parents died. Years ago, she told me the basics - a man broke into her house, looking to rob them and instead he killed her parents but she has never revealed any of the details to me. It didn’t matter how many times she woke up screaming in the middle of the night or how often I caught her stroking the scar down the side of her neck, she still wouldn’t tell me. Thinking over everything she shared last night, I can’t help but wonder if that led to her breakdown when I left. She mentioned that she never learned how to deal with the trauma of that night and as I roll my head to look at her, I wonder if she’s able to talk about it now. Hell, I wonder if I would be able to handle the details of that night. Seeing the scar on her neck is enough to send me into a rage if I think about that man hurting her.
Scrubbing my hand down my face, I blow out a breath. There is still so much we have to talk about and I still have a few questions about what happened when she left me but all of that can wait. Right now, my only mission is to convince Piper to go all in with me again. Last night, when I told her I wasn’t ever going to let her go again, behind the happiness shining in her eyes was a little bit of fear, a slice of hesitation, and it killed me. I will do whatever it takes to erase those feelings. It doesn’t matter if I deserve her or not because if the last ten years has taught me anything, it’s that losing her is not a fucking option. With renewed determination, I roll to my side and slip my arm around her waist, pulling her back into my body and she sighs again, a soft smile stretching across her face. I press my lips to her shoulder before moving up her neck and drawing a moan out of her as I kiss behind her ear.