11
Rafael
Isa’s eyes watered, tears flowing down her cheeks as she processed the fact that she was alone in the world in a way she’d never thought to be.
I’d spend my life proving to her that she was never really alone, regardless of what needed to be done with her family. The ragged sigh that left her lungs sounded like it was torn from her soul, like a chasm opened inside her until there was a hole where her family had once been.
I leaned forward, brushing my lips against hers in a moment of tenderness. Her breath hitched, caressing my mouth gently as she leaned into the contact.
Of all the kisses we’d shared, of all the times I’d devoured her mouth and taken her as mine,thiswas one of my favorites. Something in her shifted, something in me embraced her, and I poured every emotion I felt for my wife into the contact between our mouths.
She whimpered, sounding half broken as she raised a hand to my chest and rested her palm against her name carved into my skin.
The same way she’d carved herself into my heart.
Her lips trembled as her fingers slid over the jagged skin, her body shaking in my lap as I shifted us back into the center of the bed. I laid her down beside me, resting an arm over her waist as I finally detached my lips from hers and looked down at her.
She pressed forward, touching her mouth to mine again. Her lips still trembled, and the caution in her touch took my breath away. She knew as well as I did that our lives had changed. That her grief and her pregnancy had shifted something in our marriage.
She’d loved me before. I knew that without a kernel of doubt.
But in that moment, I became the center of her universe. The only thing in the world that she had to cling to, and for the first time Isa needed me as much as I needed her. The raw vulnerability of her touch clenched my heart in my chest, intensifying the overwhelming urge to protect her.
I’d spent so many weeks determined to claim her as mine, I never stopped to wonder what would happen once I’d accomplished that goal.
Now that I had, and I knew it with every tremulous touch of her fingers against my skin and every contented sigh as my fingers coasted over hers gently, all I wanted was to protect her. To take care of her in a way that she’d never known, in the way I should have from the beginning.
I hated that I’d needed to hurt her, but I wouldn’t change a moment of it if it led us to where we were now.
“Let me take care of you,” I murmured against her parted mouth. Her eyes opened, widening as they connected with mine. Whatever she saw in my gaze, I only hoped that it was an echo of what I saw in hers.
Acceptance.Love. Light.
Her multicolored eyes weren’t clouded with the nightmares that haunted her, only the openness of her grief as she nodded her head slowly. For Isa to concede that she needed to be cared for, that she needed me to take control for just a little while, I couldn’t imagine the enormity of emotion swirling inside her.
Standing from the bed, I pulled her into my arms and made my way to the bathroom. I set her on the edge of the massive tub, turning on the hot water and letting it fill as she watched me. I grabbed the bath oils off the shelf, pouring some into the water until the scent of roses filled the space.
Grasping Isa’s hands in mine, I tugged her to stand. Sliding one of the straps off her shoulder, I leaned forward and touched my lips gently to the skin it revealed as it hung down her arm.
Taking her chin in my hand gently, I tilted her head up until I could lean forward and kiss her again. Her lips parted for me, letting me sweep my tongue inside with gentle strokes that felt far too much like a first kiss.
In a way, I supposed it wasn’t far off. No matter how many times I’d been with Isa, no matter how many times I’d plunged myself inside her mouth and taken what I wanted, it was so rare that she offered herself.
Not just her body, but everything that made her the woman I loved with every breath in me.
When I pulled away, I lifted her in my arms and placed her into the hot water gently. She stared up at me in confusion, her perfect, white teeth showing with her rounded mouth as she realized I wasn’t coming in with her just yet. “I’m going to get you something to eat,” I explained, tucking her hair behind her ear. I hated to leave her, knowing that the rawness of her loss lurked just beneath the surface.
Turning on my heel and resolving to find something quick, I paused when the water sloshed and Isa’s hand grasped mine. “Please don’t go,” she begged.
“You need to eat,” I pointed out, even if the thought of leaving her when she wanted me to stay threatened to break something in me.
“I needyou,” she whispered, her voice catching on the confession. One day, Isa would get used to being vulnerable with me. She’d accept that there didn’t need to be fear in laying out her feelings and needs with me.
Because I would never leave her, and I’d never be like most men who might freak out if she became needy or clingy. The more Isa craved me and depended on me, the better that would be for my own obsession with her.
I tugged my hand from her grip, but only long enough to step into the bedroom and text Joaquin to bring something up for Isa to nibble on. Isa hung her upper body over the edge of the tub, watching me through the open door to the bedroom as if she couldn’t bring herself to settle. I watched her, knowing that I wanted nothing more than to sink into the water with her.
To hold her in my arms and feed her and care for her in the way she needed. The sensation was so foreign, so new and unexpected.