Erasing Faith (32 page)

“That’s not true…” I muttered weakly.

He paid me no attention.

“Truth number four: I didn’t give a damn about you when we first met. It wasn’t personal — I’d never really given a damn about anyone before. But from the moment you fell into my arms in Heroes’ Square and started talking a million miles a minute, you began to change me into someone different. Someone
better
.” His hands came up and he braced himself against the wall, his arms caging me in. Still, not an inch of his body touched mine. I pressed my eyes closed, hoping it would help me stay in control.

“Truth number five,” he whispered. A tremble moved through my entire body. “This is my last one, Red, so pay attention.” 

I somehow managed to open my eyes and look up into his, which were so full of passion and candor, I couldn’t doubt his feelings were genuine. I’d called him a liar, but here he was — finally telling me the truth. I had no idea what my own expression held in that long, breathless moment as I waited for his last confession.

He leaned closer, eyes locked on mine.

“It might’ve started as a lie, Faith, but it sure as hell didn’t end as one. I might not have been real to you, and that’s fine. But you have to know… you were real to me.” His voice dropped so low, I could barely hear him.
“It was real for me. It’s still real. The realest fucking thing I’ve ever felt.”

My eyes started to water and I felt pressure building inside my chest, like my heart was about to burst. I didn’t think I could take much more of this without falling to pieces.

His gaze scanned my face as he spoke.

“I was alone, for twenty-five years. And I didn’t give a shit, because I didn’t know what I was missing.” His eyes went soft around the edges when he saw mine filling with tears. “Then, this stubborn, beautiful fucking brunette came barreling into my life and shoved her way through all the shadows. She lit up my whole world, even when I told her not to. Even when I warned her to stay away. No matter what I did, I couldn’t shake her.”

I stared into his eyes for a long, frozen fraction of time as he waited for me to say something.

“She sounds a little overbearing,” I whispered finally, my voice breaking as the first tears escaped down my cheeks.

“Oh, she is,” he said gently. “It’s one of the things I love most about her.”

I felt my jaw drop a little as those words — words I’d been dreaming about hearing him say for years — escaped his mouth. A flood of fresh tears flowed down my face as I stared up at him with love and longing in my eyes, waiting for him to lean down and kiss me. When a few long seconds passed and he didn’t move, I finally realized that he wasn’t going to.

He was leaving it in my hands. Giving me the choice.

I was the one who’d have to close that final sliver of distance between us.

“I still think you’re an arrogant ass,” I said, stretching up onto my tiptoes.

“That’s okay,” he breathed across my lips. “You’re still spoiled brat.”

I grinned as I hurled my body forward and slammed my mouth against his.

A VOW

We collided, the impact of my body against his sending shockwaves through us both, like two planets crossing paths mid-orbit, causing casualties on both sides. An embrace of mutually-assured destruction.

His mouth crashed against mine, a kiss three years in the making, and it destroyed us both.

It was devastating.

Our lips clung and gasped and parted and devoured until I felt little pieces of myself stripping away like useless, crumbled debris. He kissed me and I wasn’t Fae Montgomery, the girl I’d fabricated from the tattered wreckage of my hopes and dreams. The facade I’d spent three years building split wide open and crumbed into dust until all that was left behind was me. The real me.

Faith.

His hands lifted me roughly, hurriedly, like he couldn’t find control enough to keep himself in check now that we’d finally collided. My legs wrapped around his waist and his body pressed mine into the wall so hard, ripples of pain shot up my spine.

I didn’t care.

When it came to loving Wes, pleasure and pain were always wrapped up in one. We hurt each other; we healed each other. Screamed and seduced, built and broke each other.

It wasn’t a normal kind of love.

It was unsafe. Undeniable. Unhealthy. Unforgettable.

It was a contradiction.

And it would take more words than there were stars in the galaxy to describe it.

Luckily, I didn’t need a definition. All I needed was this.

Faith and Wes.

Wes and Faith.

His arms around me, his mouth on mine.

His hips pinned me to the wall, as his fingers found the neckline of my t-shirt and tugged sharply. I heard a ripping sound and before I could even process it, my shirt had been torn clean down the middle and was fluttering to the ground in pieces. Flush against him in just my jeans and bra, I felt suddenly exposed — especially when he pulled his mouth from mine and stared into my eyes.

His right hand traced the ridges of my ribcage and I inhaled at the sensation of his fingertips on my skin. I flinched when he reached the patch of scarred flesh from my bullet wound — not in pain but in shock at the sheer intimacy of it. His fingers were unbearably gentle as they explored that most vulnerable part of me, that permanent insignia of our past.

His touch was an apology and an assurance.

“Never again,” he whispered fiercely, his lips against mine. “I will never put you in harm’s way again. That’s a promise. To my dying breath, I will protect you.”

“No one’s dying, Wes.” I brushed my lips against his. “But if you stop kissing me now, I might.”  

His lips were curved in a smile when he kissed me again. I worked my hands beneath the hem of his t-shirt and started to lift it over his head. Our mouths broke apart as the fabric slid past, and I threw it to the floor next to mine. My eyes, half-lidded with desire, returned to his, then dropped to take in the sight of his bare chest.

I felt my lips part as the breath was stolen from my lungs.

A sound — part sob, part sigh — escaped my mouth as I lifted a trembling hand to touch the thin black rope around his neck. Until my fingers made contact, I’d nearly convinced myself I was seeing things. But as my fingers traced the woven strands, I knew the cord was real.

So was the thin, white loop of rope hanging from its center.

His wedding ring.

“You kept it,” I whispered through a tear-clogged voice. “All this time?”

He bent his head so he could see into my eyes as I skimmed one fingertip around the faded white cord. His tone was gruff, but his eyes were soft. “Of course I kept it. It’s the most precious thing I own.”

Tears began to leak from the corners of my eyes and he wiped them away with his thumbs.

“I love you,” I admitted, looking up at him with a watery gaze. “I always loved you — even when I hated you.”

A long, suspended second passed as we stared at each other.

We both moved at the same time, shifting forward and sealing our lips together. Sweetness and patience were forgotten as desire reared its head once more. Need, sudden and unstoppable, claimed us. Our careful words and caresses were abandoned as hands worked at buttons and zippers, stripping each other bare. Wes kicked the pants free from his legs and somehow managed to peel off my jeans and underwear without once setting me down.

He didn’t wait for permission — I didn’t want him to.

In one long stroke, he drove into me, slamming my entire body against the wall with the brutal force of it. I cried out as he filled me, my head falling back against the wall and my legs wrapping tighter around his waist when he began to move. My nails clawed savagely into his back as he thrust, each harder and faster than the last, and I felt myself starting to fly into pieces.

Our savage pace was unsustainable — too brutal to last for long — but it was impossible to go slow. We’d waited too long, suffered too much to get back to this place. Now that we were here, there was no way to savor it.

With each movement of our hands, of our bodies, of our lips, we goaded each other into a breakneck rhythm that made my heart beat so fast I thought it might simply give out. I could feel Wes’ pulse, pounding just as quick beneath his skin, and knew he was right there with me.

“Faith,” he growled, his head buried in my neck.

I didn’t respond — I couldn’t. I was too far gone to form thoughts, let alone words.

My mouth fused against his once more and together, we climbed higher and higher until we reached the limits of the sky itself. And there, at the edge of infinity, our pleasure peaked in one single, unified moment and we both gasped at the sheer power of it.

This, here — it was perfection.

***

Eventually, we drifted back down to earth together, wrapped so tightly in each other’s arms I wasn’t sure which limbs were his and which were mine. Skin slicked with a sheen of sweat, hair damp from exertion, I dropped my forehead against the hollow of his throat and listened to the beat of his heart as it slowly returned to normal. Neither of us moved or said anything — we just stood there, intertwined, and breathed each other in and out.

Utterly exhausted, my eyes drooped closed. I couldn’t help myself — a muffled laugh escaped my mouth and broke the quiet.

Wes raised his head. “Something funny, Red?” he asked, his voice a little rough around the edges.

“Mmm,” I murmured, my lips brushing the skin of his neck. “That was so beyond worth the three year wait.”

***

He carried me to the bed and never once loosened his hold as he settled in against the pillows. And for a long time we simply lay there, me curled happily against his chest, with our arms wrapped around each other. I listened to the beat of his heart beneath my ear and he ran his fingers through my hair over and over again, soothing me.

“Do you miss the red?” I asked after a while.

“Your hair could be purple, it wouldn’t change the way I feel about you.”

I giggled, picturing myself with magenta locks — not a flattering image. “I had to change it. It was too hard to look in the mirror and see it without also seeing you.”

He resumed his long strokes through my hair. “I know. But the hair was only part of the reason I called you Red in the first place.”

I pivoted my face so my chin was planted against his pectoral and looked up at him, eyebrows raised in question.

He brushed back a strand that fell across my eyes. “You reminded me of Little Red Riding Hood, lost in the forest, making friends with a wolf. Thinking she could redeem him, even though he was dangerous. A lost cause.”

I snorted. “And I suppose you’re the irredeemable Big Bad Wolf in this equation?”

He shrugged, a grin playing out on his lips.

“Well, is there a version of the story where the silly girl and the evil wolf end up together?” I asked, my eyes warm on his face. “Because that’s the only ending I’m interested in.”

His eyes flashed and abruptly, I was dragged up his chest so my face hovered above his. And then, he was kissing me. This time it wasn’t hard or bruising — it was soft. Tender. Full of love.

When he released me, I fell back against his chest in a daze. It took a little while to recover my senses, but when I felt my brain return to my body, I looked up at him with questions lurking in my eyes.

“Can I ask you something?” I whispered.

The way he looked at me made my heart turn over. “Anything, Red.”

“Why did you…” My voice trembled into silence. I took a deep breath, cleared my throat, and tried again. “Why did you leave before I woke up?”

I felt his chest deflate beneath me as he expelled a sigh of pain. His eyes pressed closed for a long moment, and when they opened they were full of remorse. I barely recognized his voice when he began to speak.

“First, I need you to know that I’ve regretted that decision since the second I made it. I never should’ve left without saying goodbye, without making sure you were okay.” He swallowed roughly. “They weren’t sure you were going to make it, at first. I told myself I couldn’t sit there and watch you die, which was partly true. But really… Well, I could barely bring myself to walk away from you while you were unconscious. If I’d had to say it out loud, to watch your face as I told you I’d betrayed you…” He shook his head swiftly in rejection. “I’ve survived a lot in my life, but knew I wouldn’t survive that. So I took the coward’s way out. I left.”

He looked down at me with a thin film of moisture over his eyes. Seeing my strong, self-contained man nearly brought to tears… it floored me. Wes was not someone who cried easily — or ever, for that matter. I’d guess this was as close as he’d come to it in a long, long time.

“I know it’s unforgivable, Faith. But you have to know that I’m sorry. If I could go back and change it, I would.” He cleared his throat and seemed to regain control over himself, and I knew his tiny show of weakness was over. “I don’t blame you for hating me. I hate myself for doing that to you.”

“It’s not,” I said simply, looking into his eyes. “And I don’t.”

“What?”

“It’s not unforgivable.” I shifted in his arms and my hands slid up his chest to cup his jaw. I made sure to look into his eyes when I spoke again. “I
forgive
you, Wes. And I don’t hate you. I’ll never hate you.”

His arms tightened around my body and he dropped his head forward, burying his face in my hair.

“If the man who shot you wasn’t already dead, I swear I’d put a bullet in his head,” he muttered darkly.

My heart began to pound. “What?”

“Istvan Bordas,” Wes said, lifting his head to look at me. “He’s the one who shot you, Red.”

“I know that,” I said, my eyes wide. “But he isn’t dead.”

Wes looked at me funny. “He died in the fire at Hermes. My men found his charred remains in the wreckage.”

“Well, I hate to break it to you, but your men were wrong. He isn’t dead — I saw him four days ago at the airport. It was kind of hard to miss him, considering he was shooting bullets at me and all.”

“That was Bordas?” Wes growled, anger suffusing his every word.

“I mean… I’m pretty sure.” I shrugged. “He looked different. There were… scars. Burns, on his face. But it was definitely him.”

“Fuck,” Wes cursed, his eyes distant. “He’s the one doing the hits.”

Thoughts of Margot filled my mind and I pressed my eyes closed in sudden pain.

“Hey.” Wes shook me softly until I looked at him. “Don’t worry. We’re safe out here. No one will find us. And, if they do…” A cold glint filled his eyes. “They won’t touch you ever again. That’s a vow.”