Page 51 of Merciless Promise
With his admission of the truth, I should’ve felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders, but I knew he still hated me despite it. “When did you come to that conclusion?”
“Yesterday. The day before. I don’t know. After our blow-up the day of the miscarriage, I left and was determined to find the proof to back up what I’d always believed. In searching for that, I did receive some answers. Only, they were not the ones I’d expected to get.”
“I told you that it was an accident.”
“I know, and I’m sorry I never believed you. When I’d heard that Princeton was on life support, I’d dropped everything to sit at his bedside. As I begged him to come back to me and our family, he instead just wasted away minute by minute and day after day, until his heart finally gave out. In that moment, I vowed to rip the heart out of the one responsible for this, and?—”
I clapped my hands. “Well, you’ve succeeded. Congratu-fucking-lations! Knowing that someone had lost their life at my hands had weighed heavily on me my entire adult life. I willaccept and endure that, but I will not apologize for his death, because the truth is that he destroyed something within me that night as well. He’d killed any innocence I had left, and I refuse to feel sorry that he’s gone where he can never hurt me or anyone else ever again.”
“The man he was that night...It wasn’t who he truly was. Princeton?—”
“I knew him, Kingston. I went to school with him for years. He thought he was above everyone because his last fucking name was Brannington. The girls flocked to him, the teachers catered to him, and no one dared to ever refuse him anything until me. I’d fought back against his self-entitlement and denied him, then he’d tried to rape me. For a while, I thought he might even succeed. Right now, I can’t muster up any words that’ll help you, nor do I want to. I’m mentally exhausted.”
With that, I started up the stairs, but the next few seconds happened in such a blur. I went from ascending them on my own, to lying back against them as Kingston covered my body with his, effectively trapping me underneath him. My eyes met his, and there was something I’d never seen swirling in those blue depths of his.
“I’m the one who needs to apologize to you. For Princeton, and more importantly, for me. I’ve harbored so much hatred for you over the years, and it was a switch I couldn’t simply turn off. And I wanted to because God knows how good it felt to be with you, but I could never allow myself to trust you. On anything, andI was wrong. I’m saying I’m wrong.”
“I never thought I’d hear those three words come out of your mouth,” I whispered.
“And they’re not even the three words that matter.”
He reached down and stroked my cheek until I turned my face into his palm. “Which words are you talking about?”
“Love, Ekaterina. God knows I’ve tried so damn hard not to, but I fucking love you!”
Between the sincerity I saw in his eyes and the truth I heard in his words, more tears began to fall, and I started to sob. Just like the girl my father had always accused me of being, I started to cry instead of telling him that I also loved him.
He leaned in and started trying to kiss my pain away, but I needed to cry this out. For years, I’d wanted someone to tell me that they’d believed me. Hearing it from anyone would’ve been cathartic enough on its own, but to have those words come from him of all people, crushed me in a deeper, yet better, way.
“And I’m sorry about the baby,” he said as he pulled his head back. He then began to kiss along the shell of my ear before taking my lobe between his teeth and giving it a sharp tug. “And I’m even sorrier that I’m not going to let you go to sleep. Not now, or for hours.I...need...you...”
I clutched the sides of his face in my hands, then pulled his head down toward mine. “I need you, too.”
“Is tú mo ghrá,” he rasped moments before fusing his mouth to mine.
I needed no translation as I had looked up those very words a few times, wondering what it would sound like to hear them directed at me. Kingston loved me. It was crazy to think about, especially since we’d just been at one another’s throats. It was always like that for us, and I suspected it would remain that way as well.
We’re like water and oil...fire and ice...love and hate...
We were basically two sides of the same but different coin, and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. While there was still plenty of fight inside of me, I gave it all up. Surrendering to Kingston and the kiss, I lost myself in the moment, at least until he pulled away. I watched him kneel on the steps, then yank his shirt off.
“I need you naked now,” he said to me, and I’d finished shedding mine at the same time he did his.
“Fuck me, Kingston,” I said to him as I stared up into his now navy eyes. “Please.”
So many things were racing through my mind, but those thoughts were outweighed by the crushing need to possess her. I’d just confessed to loving this woman I’d spent six years hating. It was all too unbelievable until I held her in my arms and pressed my lips to hers. There was only one thing better, and not wanting to rush it in this moment, I decided to insert two fingers into her instead of just sticking my dick in her.
She gasped out loud, the sound going straight to my balls and causing them to draw up tightly against me. Ekaterina would one day be the death of me, but if it were to happen, doing what we were doing now, it would be one hell of a way to go.
I leaned in and attacked the spot where her neck and shoulders met. I bit, tongued, and kissed along her flesh while positioning my fingers to the one spot I knew would make her come soon. As I worked on bringing her to the edge, I moved lower to her breasts.
I had one hand free to massage, pinch, and squeeze one of them, while I assaulted her other with my mouth. She was squirming now and mewling out sounds that resembled a purr.My puisín. I would never get tired of touching her...fucking her...loving her...
“Oh God, Kingston,” she cried out as her entire body tensed.
She was breathing heavily now as she tried her best to reach an orgasm. I wanted to make her climax, but not this early on. Maybe I just wanted her to suffer. Whatever it was, I slowly withdrew my fingers, earning a strangled cry from her lips.
“Noooo!”
