“Yeah, that’s right,” I declare. “This is personal to me. I can’t lean on you, Darius. I won’t lean on any guy again.”
“Jesus Christ, Taylor,” he snaps, pushing off the counter, nostrils flaring. But when I look deep enough, I don’t see anger, I see frustration. I see only raw emotion when he adds, “I’m not like any other guy to you. I’m not like Shawn, and I’m not like the guy who went to jail.”
“I know you’re not,” I whisper, seeing him trembling.
He clenches his jaw, lowers his voice. “Do you not understand that this is fucking killing me?”
I part my lips to respond, but my voice is stuck behind my shock. I see this isn’t about me, it’s about him. He needs to help me, and the fact that I’m not letting him is ripping him to pieces. But it’s more than that shocking me shitless; he’s showing me something I can’t believe…emotions. Frustration, anger…he’s always so cool, so collected, and I’m spiraling out of control at seeing him this way.
He moves around the counter, eyes ablaze. “I let you go so you could find the life you deserve and for you to be happy.” His voice is deepening with each word, a vein protruding in his forehead. “I didn’t let you go to lose yourself and watch your life fall apart. If I wanted that, I would have kept you for myself.”
I lower my mug to the counter, simply unable to hold it any longer.
He takes another step toward me. “Five fucking years I’ve endured life without you because I hoped it would lead you to a better life. And it hasn’t.” He takes one more step, eyes narrowed on his target. Me. “Let me fix this, so your life can be what it should have been. A good one, without worries, without all this bad shit that you don’t fucking deserve.”
I’m staring blankly at him, speechless, coming to terms with the fact that he’s admitting to the pain he feels being without me. That he’s showing me more than I ever thought he could show me. I’m seeing Darius beneath the shields, and my world is collapsing around me.
Though now, with all this, and with the emotion raging in his eyes, I see everything so clearly. He thinks he betrayed me. He thinks he caused my misery. “What happened with
Shawn isn’t your fault,” I whisper.
He arches a brow in rebuttal. “Then whose fault would it be, Taylor?”
“Mine.”
“No.” He snorts, voice dry, and I see the disdain he has for himself where it comes to my current situation. “This happened simply because you’re you and you love in the way you do. Somehow you always meet men who can’t love you in the way you deserve to be loved.”
Of course he’s also talking about himself.
My heart is reaching for him and softening in ways that I didn’t expect. No matter what, I can’t get swept away in the sweet things he says to me. It would be so easy to fall into those words and into his strength, but that will only leave me heartbroken. Because Darius is right—I always fall in love with men who can’t love me in the right way. And Darius is the king of those men. “I don’t need you to save me,” I tell him adamantly. But as his eyes flare with the determination only Darius possesses, my strength is faltering.
He’s closing in on me, and every hair on my body rises as if commanded by him, every nerve ending awakens to the one man who owns me like no other.
When he grabs my stool, yanking it out from beneath the island, I gasp, my nipples puckering. Two strong hands slide across my face, as he steps in between my spread legs. “This is not about saving you,” he almost growls. “I know you can save yourself.” He thrusts his fingers into my hair, gripping tight, and I can’t stop the shudder that storms over me. “This is about saving me. I got you into this mess. Goddamn it, let me get you out of it. Let me make you feel better, if not for you, for me.”
His touch…his strength…my hero…God, he’s just so much, so intense, so everything.
There’s just me and him, and all the things he’s offering me. There’s nothing bad, no one pushing me one way or another. There’s just a man, begging for me to let him help me.
And I decide right then and there that there is a way for him to help me.
My lips meet his, and just like a switch that’s flipped by him, all my barriers crash and burn around me, as his lips, his touch, all of him, brings me back to me.
Chapter 5
Darius
When I breathlessly break the kiss, Taylor’s dark, hooded eyes suck me in, caging me in their warm depths. I’m not thinking repercussions when I brush my hands across her cheeks. I want to own her body for a little while. It’s selfishness, but it’s a truth I cannot turn off.
“If you’re hoping I’m the guy who will stop this because you might not be ready, I am not that guy.” I want to touch her now. Badly. I need to make her feel better. Or at least feel something pleasurable instead of something painful.
“Well, that’s good,” she rasps, stepping in closer, “because I don’t want that guy. I want you.”
I grasp her chin, locking her in my sights. “This is all I can give you.” With her, there can’t be misunderstandings. I can’t hurt her again.
“Darius, stop talking”—the way she wants me and needs me is written all over her flushed face—“and kiss me.” Then she removes her shirt, delighting me with a perfect view of cleavage and black lace.
I’m teased by her offer, her flowery scent, her available flesh, and her dark eyes. I don’t know this brave woman. She’d been shy when I was with her before, but I didn’t doubt that was because I had taken her virginity. Obviously the years apart have made her more uninhibited. Though as I look deeper, silently staring at her and watching her eyes widening, I still see my Taylor. Slight nervousness is speeding up her breath, and she’s standing unnaturally still.