Page 52 of Some Saviors Can Break You

“That’s not me, honey. If I wanted sex, I know where to go to get it. What I want from you goes so much deeper. You’re amazing, you know that? Beautiful, compassionate, smart, strong, I admire you, and I'm attracted to you. I want you, Florence. All of you. Your heart, your soul, and yeah your body, but only when you're ready to give it to me. You know what?” He tipped her face up so she was looking at him.

“What?” she whispered, mesmerized by the affection she saw shining from his eyes.

“You are worth every ounce of effort I'm putting into winning you, and worth every ounce of effort I’ll put into our relationship, into you. I can see in those pretty baby blues of yours that you don’t think you're worth it, but you're wrong. You’re worth everything I have and more. What those men did to you was despicable, detestable, it makes me want to do things I didn't even think I was capable of. But it doesn’t affect the way I see you, it doesn’t change anything, you're everything I've been searching for, and I want you more than I've ever wanted anything in my life. I wish you could see yourself as I do. You’re like a warrior, ever since you were a little girl with blonde braids, blue eyes, and freckles.” His thumb traced across the smatteringof freckles on her nose and cheeks. “A warrior who’s conquered more in her life than most people ever have to. A warrior who isn’t fighting a war on her own anymore. I'm here, princess, all you have to do is believe it. Let me fight with you.”

Eli had been honest with her from the beginning, he’d told her he was interested, and despite her many attempts to push him away, he hadn't budged. He had fought for her, supported her, spoiled her, and he was still sitting here in her bed, holding her in his arms after learning every sordid, dirty detail of her life.

Ever since she was eight years old she’d felt dirty. The kind of dirty that nothing could wash away.

At least that’s what she’d thought.

“Kiss me,” she said, taking Eli’s face between her hands and drawing it down to meet hers. Each time he kissed her he wiped away a little of the dirt that marred her soul.

10:34 A.M.

Eli kept see-sawing between soaring to the heights of the heavens because Florence had finally opened up to him, stopped fighting what was between them and let him in, then plunging to the depths of Hell as he thought about what had been done to her.

Knowing that she had been hurt made him want to rage, scream, beat his fists against the wall, rip something to shreds, and destroy something so that his feelings didn't consume and then destroy him.

How had Florence lived with this for almost two decades?

He’d known for a couple of hours, and he felt like he was losing his mind. He had never thought of himself as a violentperson, but knowing that Florence had been violated twice, both times when she was so young, both times without someone to be there and hold her hand and absorb her tears, made him want to kill the monsters who had taken something from her she could never get back. She’d lost her innocence, a part of her soul, her ability to trust others, and yet despite all of that, she had triumphed. She’d escaped the life that would have been so easy to fall into, she hadn't followed in her mother’s footsteps. Instead, she’d blazed a bright trail through life as a respected and decorated cop who risked her life to keep others safe.

Eli found himself in awe of her.

In his life he’d suffered loss after loss, losing his brother, then his sister-in-law, his mother, and then his father. Each time he’d had to stand beside a coffin watching it get lowered into the ground, knowing that he’d never get to see or speak to that person again, a little piece of him had gone with them. But through all of that, he’d always had his family, even after his father’s death he’d had his nephew, he’d had connections, people he could go to when the loneliness became overwhelming.

Who did Florence have?

A brother who didn't even know half of what she’d gone through, and who seemed to have spent more time with his friend’s family than he had looking out for his little sister.

Florence had no one.

At least she hadn't until now.

“Please tell me you are not looking at engagement rings.”

“Okay, I'm not looking at engagement rings,” Eli told Elliot with a grin.

“Then why are you on a jeweler’s website with engagement rings on the screen?” Elliot asked, peering over his shoulder at the laptop open on his desk.

“Because I'm looking at engagement rings,” he replied, stating the obvious.

“You’re asking Florence to marry you?”

“Not today, but yeah, in the near future.”

“You’ve only known her just over a week.”

“So?”

“So don’t you think that’s kind of soon?” Elliot walked around to the other side of the desk and pulled out a chair, dropping down into it.

“I'm not known for waiting, hanging back, and taking my time. When I see something I want, I go after it.”

“Only Florence isn’t a thing, she's a person. A person who has been a lot more hesitant at going out with you than you were about going out with her,” Elliot said.

“She’s had a rough life, absent father, drunk mother, lots of Mom’s boyfriends in and out of her life, some bad stuff happened when she was a kid, she has trust issues. Trust issues that she overcame this morning when she opened up to me.” He wasn't going to betray Florence’s trust by going into details, but he wanted his friend to understand that just because Florence had had doubts, it wasn't because she didn't feel the same way about him that he felt about her.

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