Page 64 of Give Me Strength

“And you?”

“I prefer women too,” I tell her, a small smile tugging at my lips. “Just one, in fact.”

“Lucky girl,” she mutters under her breath.

“I think it’s more accurate to say I’m the lucky one.”

A shudder runs through her, ricocheting off me. “Just one?” she breathes.

My lips find her ear again, and I take it between my teeth. “A certain ballerina who keeps me up at night.”

The familiar blush I have come to crave makes an appearance. It slowly creeps down her neck and spreads across her shoulders. “I don’t mean to.”

“I don’t mind.” My voice drops to a whisper. “I don’t mind it at all.”

She reaches for both of my arms and wrap them around her torso. Then she does the same, resting her arms on mine, our fingers intertwined.

“Since Rachel was a ballerina, and I am one too,” she begins, and I immediately don’t like where this is going. “When you look at me, do you see her?”

Yep.

I don’t like it. The shiver of apprehension that slithers down my spine confirms it. But I can’t lie to her. Not about this.

“Sometimes,” I admit, because it is the truth.

And truths don’t always have to be pretty.

I feel, rather than see, her eyes squeeze shut, and it’s not long before her breaths come out in soft pants.

That can’t be good.

I give her fingers a gentle squeeze. “Ash.”

A beat passes, then she squeezes back. Then, as much as I don’t want to break the skin on skin contact, I turn her body around, so she’s facing me.

As I suspected, her eyes are still squeezed shut, and tears slip past her eyelids and trickle down the sides of her face.

Fuck.

Leaning in, I cup her cheeks with both hands and press my lips to the corners of her eyes. Over and over until the flow of tears subside. Then I tuck a few wayward strands of hair behind her ear, brushing her cheekbone with the pad of my thumb. She leans into my touch and I lower my lips, gently brushing them against hers in what is meant to be a chaste kiss. Instead her lips part and her tongue brushes across mine, demanding access. So I give her that, taking her mouth in a slow, sensual kiss.

I love the way her lips look puffy when we part. She bites her lower lip to stifle the lustful moan that escapes, and it takes everything in me not to crush my lips to hers a second time. Her eyelids eventually part, and as she stares into my eyes, a look of pain and lust and hurt and wonder and something I can’t quite put my finger on filter through her expressive green eyes in rapid succession, each one morphing into the next.

I realize I am totally screwed, and not just because my cock pulses painfully between my legs. I reach down, palming her stomach as my thumb traces her words of her tattoo.

You are beautiful.

You are worthy.

You are enough.

I know what phrase belonged to whom — the first two, that is. Rachel and Hannah switched phrases. It’s one thing thing to have a daily affirmation for yourself, and it’s another to read it off the body of your soulmate.

Growing up, Rachel’s mother berated her constantly, telling her she would never amount to anything because in her twisted, perverse mind, her daughter’s sexual preferences dictated her worth to society, hence the phrase You are worthy. And Everett Crane, curse his soul, thought that attacking his wife’s looks would keep her in her gilded cage like he wanted, while he picked up and left anytime he wanted, hence the phrase You are beautiful.

Both women fought like hell to overcome their respective demons, and just when they were about to ride off into the sunset to live out their happily ever after, Clement fucking Blackwell stole that from them.

And as for the third phrase…

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