Page 69 of Final Goodbye
While attending therapy, I had a pretty good handle on my anger, but if today proved anything, it’s that I wasn’t perfect and the rage I felt every now and then would pop through on occasion. The more time I spent around Paige, the more the guilt ate away at me. I felt like I was hiding this sliver of who I was—or who I used to be—from her. After what happened with Logan back there, I felt the need to be honest as the confession slipped off my tongue.
“I used to be an angry kid. That anger seemed to be expressed with my fists a time or two. Not my brightest moments,” I admitted.
“You never seemed to be a hot head when I knew you back in the day.”
“Yeah, well, you could say it was more of the years in between when we knew each other. My later high school years weren’t always pretty. I don’t know what got into me back then, but I seemed to solve problems with my hands instead of talking them out like a normal person. I may have gotten suspended a time or two, which led to my mom forcing me into anger management.”
I didn’t talk about my anger much outside of therapy, but it wouldn’t be the first time I divulged all of my secrets to Paige. My therapist mentioned it being in my best interest to reveal my past with her. She deserved to know and since all of this had come back up in my life, it had been weighing on me to tell her. Paige made me feel more comfortable in a way I hadn’t felt with anyone else before, and with each conversation we had, she took another piece of me.
“Did you find that the classes helped you with your anger issues?” she asked in a way that was genuinely curious, and not in a way that made me feel bad about my decisions.
“I did. I think naturally as I grew up, I also realized it wasn’t the way things needed to be handled, and I didn’t want Myles to see me as a bad influence. I apologize you had to witness me losing my temper today. I’ve tried to bury it every time I’ve been around Logan, but he found his way under my skin and dug too deep today to hold back. I just…” I took a deep breath before I admitted the part of this that was nagging at me the most, “The last thing I want is for you to compare me to Logan. Ever since he came into the bar that day and laid his hands on you, I haven’t been able to get it off my mind that you’d see similarities between us.”
“I’ll stop you right there, Declan. You and Logan couldn’t be any more different. You’ve used your anger to keep me safe and protect me while he has only ever used his to harm me and lash out. Since the beginning, you’ve made me feel secure in ways that no one else has been able to.” Her confession immediately calmed me, wiping away all the worries I’d built up over her knowing this side of me.
“You’ve never judged me when you’ve had every opportunity to do so. You see the good in me even in my bad moments. You could have left me after Myles confessed and I would have totally understood. But you stuck by my side instead. Thank you for staying, Paige.”
“I mean, for what it’s worth, watching you go Rambo on his ass was kind of hot, I’m not gonna lie.” Her infectious laugh had a way of making light of the situation.
I glanced over at her, unable to hold back the grin forming on my face as I put my truck in park. “Come on, let’s get inside. I need to ice my hand and text Myles. Mind if I ask him to come over so we can tell him the news?”
“You read my mind. But then we take a nap. I’ve never cried so much in my life and I’m fucking exhausted.” She sighed.
I slept like shit last night after everything went down so I would never deny a nap. “You got it, baby girl.” Before getting out of the truck, I turned toward her, reaching out my good hand to grab her jaw. I pulled her in for a quick kiss, looking deep into her eyes.
“I’m sorry you’re having to deal with all of this right now, Paige. Please, trust me when I say I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here for you no matter what. Through thick and thin. Through it all,” I reassured her with another kiss to her soft pink lips.
“I trust you, Declan. You’ve never given me a reason not to. You might just be the only person I’ve ever really been able to trust like I do. You have my trust and I…” She trailed off, sounding like she wanted to say something else of importance, but stopped herself before she could get it out.
“You what, baby?” She looked nervous conveying how she felt, but I would patiently wait for her to feel as comfortable as I did when it came to expressing my emotions to her. But then her pretty little lips parted, her feelings rolling off the tip of her tongue.
“You have my heart, Declan. I once feared coming back home. I never wanted to face Logan, I just wanted to move on from it all. I wanted a different life for myself. I didn’t know what kind of life, but I just never imagined it being here. Then I was forced to come back home because my dad died. I was faced with all the lowest lows I’ve experienced in life so far. But then I ran into you… and I can’t picture my life anywhere elsebuthere. You have been my high point in a series of lows, and you were right last night—with every tragedy, comes a new beginning.And I want to be your new beginning too.”
Life didn’t give me many reasons to cry but I damn near teared up when her emotions came tumbling out of her mouth one word at a time.
With every moment that passed between us, I knew I loved this girl.
I love this girl. My girl.
I fucking love her.
The words were on the tip of my tongue. Those three little words threatening to escape, one syllable at a time. Since self-control had been a practice of mine lately, I’d wait just a little longer to spill that phrase I’ve never used with any other woman before besides my mom.
Paige just found out her ex-boyfriend killed her father. And I didn’t want the memory of us exchanging‘I love yous’to happen on the same day. Maybe it would happen tomorrow, the next day or next week, but there was no rush. She was mine and I was hers; that wasn’t changing.
I wiped away the tears that betrayed me when I responded to her vulnerability. “You’ve had my heart since the moment you reintroduced yourself to me outside the bar that day. The moment we spoke, and you left in a hurry, I left needing to know more about the girl that used to babysit me. I’m done falling for you, Paige. I’ve already fallen as far as I can go. I refuse to tell you the exact words that express perfectly how I feel until this day is over. I won’t tarnish those words with a day like we’ve had today.”
One by one, her legs swung over mine until she was straddling me in the driver’s seat. With her sitting in my lap and gazing into my eyes, she cradled my face in her cold hands. Tears trickled down both of our faces and she didn’t need to say anything back for me to know she felt the same way about me as I did for her.
We locked lips in a passionate kiss, the taste of salt on her tongue lingering from her tears. It was hard not to get lost in her when our mouths touched, and her hands roamed up and down my body. My palms traveled up her shirt, meeting her soft, warmskin. My thumb grazed her tit, just below her bra line, when a soft whimper escaped her mouth.
The whimpers that escaped her shot right down to my groin, hardening my cock she was grinding over. Her hips moved over me at an increased pace as we both got lost in the whirl of emotions. The moment we were sharing took me right back to that first night. Her lips on mine for the first time, her clothed pussy grinding over my cock, me exploding in my pants like a teenager and how fucking good it all felt.
Fuck, she felt so good.
And she felt so good now.
I was lost in the wild thought of her when a sharp pain shot up my hand.
