Page 76 of The Vow

“Stop—” I tried to turn away—to pull away—but his head dipped to mine, bringing with it his personal brand of gravity that made my eyelids lower and my jaw grow slack.

“I haven’t told you that you are the reason my heart beats.You are the reason my lungs breathe. That finding you, being with you, is the only reason I’ve survived the last fifteen years?—”

“Youleftme,” I seethed in reminder, anger knocking my teeth together. “Why would I want to know these things? Why should I care what you want from me? You have no right to the vows you broke.”

In the middle of a crowd—in the middle of a storm—I’d always register the vibration of Damon’s low growl above all else. The way it made my bones tremor and my blood fizzle. The way it heated my body and warped my thoughts.

Gray eyes pierced mine with their steel-tipped stare. The intensity of this man could be as strong yet as invisible as a gale-force wind, knocking me to the ground when I could never even see him coming.

“I’ve broken a lot of things, Robber. I’ve broken laws. I’ve broken promises. I’ve broken treaties. I’ve broken moral and ethical codes. I’ve broken my oath to this country. Everything I’ve broken was to protect you, and none of which compares to what I would break or who I would break if any harm ever came to you.”

No.The spill of my heartbeats, first coming in a torrent of anger, now slowed to a dripping desperation.

“Except when that harm is you,” I charged, ignoring the storm warning that flashed over his features. The pull of his jaw. The pinpoint scrutiny of his pupils. The quivering bow of his lips. I ignored it all and forged on. “You broke me, Damon. You lied to me, and then you left me for another woman.”

I was playing with fire. I’d thought remaining broken for so long made me stronger—made me all sharp edges and lethal points. It had. But it also made it far too easy for vulnerability to slip through all my cracks. Especially in the face of his confessions that overdosed with aching honesty.

“Goddammit, Robber,” Damon swore, his tall body shuddering against mine, another reminder of just how close he got in spite of all my defenses.

“Don’t,” I warned, breathing hard. “Just let me go.”

“You want to know what I haven’t told you?” he demanded instead, holding me tighter. There was no room between us. Not for anger. Not for lies. Not even for breath.

His hand on my waist roamed up my side, shivers pulsing to my skin as it slid over my shoulder and onto the column of my neck.

I should’ve said no. It was the last weapon in my arsenal, but I was too weak to want to use it.

So, instead, I answered, “I don’t want to hear another lie.”

Cupping my cheek, Damon dragged his thumb over my lips, causing them to draw apart.

“I vowed to protect you, Robyn. I vowed to cherish you. To honor you. To be faithful to you. And to love you, for better or for worse.” His head drifted to mine, his voice taking me in a chokehold. “So, call me a liar. Call me a criminal. Hell, call me the devil, I don’t care. But know this: I’ve never broken any of my vows to you. I’ve never been unfaithful to you. And all these years, I have never loved anyone but you.”

His declaration was the sweetest, sharpest knife as it gutted me. To be able to believe him. To be able to sag into his arms and dissolve into his kiss. To be able to want him without the moorings of our past…I wanted just one more moment to know what that felt like.

So, when his mouth came for mine, I didn’t stop him.

His lips claimed mine in a hungry, fervent kiss. One that didn’t care about the sharp bite of my words or the pointed lash of my tongue. Damon didn’t care how many times he came away cut and bleeding by my jagged edges, he kept coming back for more. Back for me.Just like he promised.

His mouth plied mine open, his tongue sweeping inside to a far too eager welcome. Heat danced on my skin. It pebbled my nipples and arrowed an ache between my thighs. Two weeks, and I’d resolved that the night in his bed was a moment of weakness, but I was wrong. Wanting him was a chronic illness of which I’d never be cured.

The room dissolved into molecules of space and sound, the only thing solid and real and whole was him. And his mouth that claimed mine. I didn’t know if I believed him. I didn’t know what to believe. The only thing I knew for certain was I didn’t want to stop kissing him.

My arms wound around his neck, holding him closer. Two weeks, and all I wanted was to feel this again. The heat and power of him. The sweet possession. The inferno of desire.

I was weakening for him. No, I was weakened. Wholly. For him.

Day by day. Year by year. I’d built a mountain of loathing of my estranged husband. An Everest of enmity. One I swore would be too tall for him to climb—too tall to consider the attempt.

And I was right.

He didn’t try to surmount it or dismantle it. He came in like dynamite. One spark of our former fuse, and the whole thing blew up in my face.

“Damon.” I drew back, panting.

“I will prove it to you, Robber. I promise I will,” he murmured, his nose brushing mine with a flutter of sparks that caught my breath. “But right now, I need you to trust me.”

And just like that, the bubble he held me in shattered.

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