The Regret Series Complete Collection Box Set: Lost to You, Take This Regret, and if Forever Comes (68 page)

“Please,” she whispered. Elizabeth was shaking, her nails digging into my shoulders as I rushed to fill her again and again, my fingers curling inside her warmth.

I dropped my hand from above her head and edged back a fraction to let my hand wander along her belly. Elizabeth sagged against the wall, her stomach tightening beneath my touch as I splayed my hand wide, cupping the protrusion resting between us.

“This is so fucking sexy, Elizabeth. Do you know that? Watching you grow round with my child. There’s nothing more beautiful than that. Nothing in this world more beautiful than you.”

I felt her start to tremble at my words. “Christian…please.”

Instead I slowed and raked my eyes down to where my hand was buried between her thighs. “Look at you,” I demanded through a harsh whisper. Both of us watched as I slowly worked her with my fingers, purposed and strong, teasing her with
release. But I refused to let her go. “Look at how perfect you are.”

She shook more, and she reached out again to grasp me around the neck. “Christian, please, I can’t take much more,” she begged.

I pulled back, my hands on her hips as I looked down at her. I strained between us, dripping with need.

And those warm brown eyes were gazing up at me, overflowing with trust, with all the belief she had in me.

I took her by the thighs and hoisted her higher, filled her hard and fast.

A jagged breath squeezed from her lungs and her nails cut into the rigid muscles of my back. “Ugh,” came as a grunt forced between her lips.

“Is this okay?” I begged through a grunt.

Shit
.

My control was slipping by the second. But there was no chance in hell I’d hurt her. I locked gazes with her, my hand coming up to brush away the hair sticking to her face as the water ran down it. “Baby…tell me this is okay because it’s been way too long since I’ve had you this way.”

Both of my hands moved to her ass, where I gripped her, balancing her weight, my fingers teasing along her flesh where we were joined.

She moaned and tightened her legs around my waist. “Ah…perfect…don’t even think about stopping.”

And I was fighting a smile, this girl, this woman who was so incredibly sexy, so perfect, the one who anticipated what I needed before I asked for it, the one who knew me.

I pulled back and rocked into her again, hard, demanding. Her back slammed against the wall.

“Yeah?” I challenged, another test, just because I wanted to hear her say it.

“Yes,” she said, giving me exactly what I wanted.

My hips jerked as I rocked into her. I filled her again and again. Relentless. Desperate. Because I would forever be desperate for her.

Incoherent pleas tumbled from her mouth, bled and blended with grunts scraping up my throat.

“Fuck…Elizabeth…you feel so good. Baby, I need more,” I grated as I pinned her with my hips. Shifting, I wound my arms under her legs, held her by the back of the thighs. I stretched her wide and sank into her deeper than I ever had, forcing the air from her lungs with every thrust of my body.

I held her bottom in my hands, quickened as I drove into her.

Her eyes locked on mine as she tipped her chin up to me, our connection unshakable, the woman I held in my hands representing everything that was good in my life.

“More,” she said.

She raked her fingers down my back, dragged them back up to anchor in my hair. And we were face to face, our mouths a breath apart. Short rasps of air escaped from her throat and she was staring at me as if I were her world.

The burn of pleasure tightened like a knot in my spine, pulsed as it begged to be set free.

“Christian…mmm…so close,” she mumbled, struggling to get me closer.

I gripped her tighter as I tilted, rolled my hips and rocked into her. “Come for me,” I demanded.

At my words, I felt it tear through her, ripping through her in staggered, palpable waves.

That was all it took, and I gave, snapped as I was hit with a pleasure greater than anything I’d ever known. It could only be found in Elizabeth. I throbbed and jerked as I came, my hips pinning her to the wall.

Gasping, I searched for breath as my chest collapsed against hers.

My fingers loosened their hold, and I gently wound my arm around her waist to hold her up. My smile bled soft as I looked at her. “That was…” I blinked, realizing there were no words. No words for this woman who was my heart, no words for the woman who held my soul.

Instead I brushed back the soaked hair matted to her face, gently tucked it behind her ear, and cupped the side of her face. I ran my thumb along the apple of her cheek. My throat bobbed heavily as I swallowed.

“I can’t wait to call you my wife. You’ve been Elizabeth Ayers for far too long.” My words were coarse with intent. “I’m going to give you everything, Elizabeth. Anything you want in this world, it’s yours.”

Her smile was almost sad as she looked at me. With trembling fingers, she reached out and traced my bottom lip. “That’s all I want, Christian. All I want is to forever be yours.”

~

Christian ~ Early June, Four Months Earlier

Wracked, broken sobs beat into my chest where her face was buried. I stood at the side of the bed, bent over her as I cradled her head in the crook of my arm. My other arm was mashed between us, our hands clasped, clutching, searching for anything to ease this pain.

My head spun with confusion. A disordered chaos rained down like a raging storm, a flood sent to ruin and destroy.

Elizabeth clamped down on my hand as she wept. She pressed her face deeper into my shirt. Her mouth gaped open as she cried out, “No.”

Dizziness swept through me. It amplified the shock that clung like a torpid haze to my muddled mind. A sharp stab of sickness twisted my gut, so strong it almost brought me to my knees.

No
.

Elizabeth’s doctor’s voice broke through. “I know you don’t want to do this, Elizabeth, but I need you to. Just one little push, okay? All we need is one tiny push and it’ll all be over.” Dr. Montieth coaxed her, the woman’s tone sympathetic as she persuaded Elizabeth into succumbing to what she didn’t want to do.

“I can’t,” Elizabeth wailed again. Her tears soaked through my shirt as she wept against my chest. She squeezed my hand so tightly it constricted the blood flow, her fingernails cutting into the skin at the back of my hand.

I tightened my hold on her. I would give anything to stop this. Would give up my life, would give up my soul.

No
.

Desperately I searched inside myself for a way to give her comfort. I wanted to tell her it would be all right. I tried to say it, but the lie only wedged in my throat.

It wouldn’t be all right.

Instead I begged, “Shh…baby…shh,” through a choked whisper at her ear, completely helpless. Utterly and completely helpless. Powerless to do a goddamned thing but stand here and watch our world fall apart.

“Yes, you can, Elizabeth. I need you to do this for me,” Dr. Montieth prodded. Her voice was both soft and firm.

Elizabeth screamed as her body gave in. She cried out into my shirt that was drenched with her tears. I clutched her by the back of her head, held her closer, let her sobs tear and rend and destroy as they sliced though me.

Cold slipped through my veins as an anguished stillness seized the room.

Breaths were held in the second my heart broke.

God, I’d dreamed about this moment since the second Elizabeth and I had stood in her bathroom with that test, while joy had consumed us as we’d hoped for this future. Pages upon pages had been dog-eared in that fucking book I kept on my nightstand, the one I’d studied as if it were the Bible, so I’d be familiar with every detail. I wanted to be prepared to support Elizabeth, wanted to be prepared to welcome our little girl into this world.

But I never could have been prepared for this.

Absent were the cheers of encouragement. Absent was the rally of support. There was no urgent thrill and there was no joy radiating from these walls.

Instead, stifled air bore down from above, smothering, suffocating, a silence so thick it echoed from the cold, sterile floor.

It was penetrated only by the deep, agonized cries that ripped from Elizabeth.

In it was chaos, mayhem in my mind. Because I could make no sense of this.

Because it was senseless. Wrong. Unimaginable.

Part of me didn’t want to see, the other couldn’t look away. My hold was fierce as I clutched Elizabeth, keeping her
face hidden in my chest as if I could shield her from the cruelty that played out before my eyes.

And there were no shrill cries that welcomed her into this world.

There was just an unbearable stillness and the most excruciating pain I’d ever experienced in my life.

On a disposable blue pad, Elizabeth’s doctor held our lifeless child in her hands.

Blood stained her, covered her whole, this little girl that already held my heart. My vision blurred. She was so small. God, she was so small. So thin. The cord that was supposed to have sustained her life, but had instead snubbed it out, was still connected to her belly, still connected to Elizabeth.

Vomit pooled, and I forced it down as I stumbled through the fog that tumbled and whirled. Somewhere within myself, I fought for coherency, screamed at myself to wake up, because this had to be nightmare. There was no possible way that this was real.

Through the haze, I blinked down at my baby girl as they cut through her cord.

The nurse took her away while Dr. Montieth continued to work on Elizabeth, to birth the aftermath of our destruction.

And Elizabeth. She just cried. She just cried and cried and wouldn’t stop, and I had no idea how to stop the pain.

I kissed her on the crown of her head. “I love you, Elizabeth,” I whispered into her hair.

She clung to me a little tighter.

I glanced at the clock. It was just after two a.m.

It’d felt like seconds, like ages since this morning when it’d started with the promise of our future.

How had it ended this way?

Just like that.

Over.

Elizabeth had called me a little before noon. I’d answered with a smile, laughing with Matthew as we picked up our tuxes. But Elizabeth…the fear in her voice had struck me silent. She’d whispered that she was sure something was wrong. Hoping to assuage her fear, I told her not to worry and to call Dr. Montieth. Still, something inside me had quaked.

I knew I should have been gentler with her this morning, knew I’d been rough and demanding.

Knew if I’d hurt her I’d never forgive myself.

Dr. Montieth had told her to drink some orange juice, to lie down for a while and then to call her back if she still didn’t feel Lillie move after half an hour.

That half hour had passed, and Elizabeth had called me, frantic, begging me to come home. I was already on my way.

We went into the emergency room where they sent us up to the maternity floor. Dr. Montieth had met us. She’d come into the room with the normal smile on her face. She had laughed a little, teasing Elizabeth that she was always worrying, her casual demeanor something that always set us both at ease.

Until I saw her face.

I saw it, the grim set of her mouth as she held that little probe at Elizabeth’s belly, as she searched and searched and searched for a heartbeat that she told us later had probably stopped beating during the night before.

She thought it was a cord accident, although she said we couldn’t be one hundred percent certain.

But in the end, it didn’t matter because it didn’t change the fact that our little girl was gone.

Dr. Montieth had given us our options. Elizabeth could be induced or she could go home and wait for her body to naturally
go into labor. But the one option we wanted wasn’t viable, the one that would give us the chance for this baby to live.

Neither Elizabeth nor I could bear the idea of going home and knowing that our child was gone.

And eight hours later, we were here.

Broken.

Elizabeth continued to cry, and I tried to breathe—tried to breathe for her as I hovered over her, hugging her to me, but it felt impossible, because there wasn’t enough air for the both of us. Not enough for any of us.

My head pounded, throbbed and splintered, blinding, so severe I couldn’t see.

Finally, Dr. Montieth finished the torture, but the torment had only begun.

Thirty minutes later, one of the nurses came back in. I edged back and stood at the head of the bed to give her room, so she could come to Elizabeth’s side. Sympathy was written in every line on the woman’s face, her voice subdued as she bent her knees and got to eye level with Elizabeth. “Would you like to hold her now?”

Through her tears, Elizabeth frantically nodded. “Yes.”

She’d already decided this. Elizabeth wanted to see, to be given the chance to hold our baby girl.

“Okay, I’ll be right back.”

A few moments later, she returned. Lillie was completely wrapped in a blanket, her face covered. The nurse gently laid her in Elizabeth’s arms.

An unrecognizable sound squeezed from Elizabeth, a pain so intense, it ricocheted around the room, reverberated off the walls, slammed into me. She cradled her on her shoulder, rocked her as she cried out toward the ceiling, as she cried out toward the heavens. It transformed into a desperate whine as
Elizabeth slowly began to unwrap her, as she kissed her face and her fingers and her toes. Elizabeth felt her, touched her, a frenzy taking over Elizabeth as she tried to memorize every inch of the little girl we would never really know.

I moved to sit in a chair beside Elizabeth’s bed. I rested my elbows on my thighs with my hands dangling between my knees. I just gave Elizabeth time, because that was the only thing I had to give.

Elizabeth’s mother came and went, touched my cheek as she passed.

Hours passed, and the sun slowly rose on what was supposed to be our wedding day.

And still I reeled, my thoughts unable to catch up to this savage reality.

All off it… I dropped my head toward the ground and buried my face in my hands. I could bear none of it.