Page 32 of The Ruthless Guardian

I close the tabs on my computer and walk to the kitchen, putting my arms around her waist from behind and kissing her cheek. “You are amazing, do you know that?”

Her hands continue spreading mayonnaise on the bread in front of her as she asks, “What makes you say that?”

“You survived. You made it out of all the shitty situations you found yourself in. You know you don’t have to be alone anymore, right?”

Abandoning her butter knife on the cutting board, she rubs her hands along my forearms and leans back against my chest. “You’re going to want your own space back eventually.”

“No, I won’t. I don’t want to be in any space that you aren’t in. I don’t want to let you leave here ever again. I don’t want space. I want you to be with me every day. I could never want anything else.” If I wanted to get rid of her, I would’ve done it already. I would have sent her away with Pres and let him figure out how to take care of her. But just the thought of her being apart from me kills my stomach.

“You can’t know that for sure. People change. Their decisions change. You might wake up tomorrow and decide you can’t stand me.”

“Then I’llsit, because you aren’t fucking going anywhere, Phoebe. You said that yourself, and I’m not letting you take that back.” Not even when she finds out what really happened to my parents, which I know I need to confess to her very soon. “The fire started in the kitchen,” I say, so that there are words coming out of my mouth that I hope will quiet the ones in my head. “Something was left on the stove.”

Her belly expands against my hands as she takes a deep breath. “I remember my dad always going behind my mom to check the knobs on the stove. He did it every time she left the kitchen.” Phoebe leans her head against my arm and lets out a shaky exhale. “I thought it was normal, but I’ve always been super careful about stoves since I was a kid. Do you think I knew?”

“Maybe subconsciously a part of you connected the dots. If you were used to seeing your dad check, maybe you knew that it could have caused a fire. Probably not as a little kid, though, but it’s possible as you got older you recognized something was off in your memories.”

“What if I had noticed and said something to stop it? If I had just pointed out that there was-”

I turn her in my arms and look down into her teary eyes. “You were a child. It wasn’t your job to keep anyone else safe, Phoebe. You can let go of the guilt. It’s not your cross to bear. You have been through so much that was unfair and you made it out. Your parents should have lived, but sometimes, shit just happens. It’s unfair and it’s not right, but it just happens.”

“If I could have changed it-”

“Then my sister wouldn’t have had a chance to know someone as wonderful as you. I think that if her soul is out there somewhere, she’s watching us and smiling. We’re going to serve the justice she deserved. We can’t right the wrongs, but we can do our best.”

Her hands rise to her face, moving to wipe away the tears, but I block her, shaking my head.

“Don’t hide it. Give it all to me, baby. Let me see your sadness and your hurt. You don’t have to hide anything from me.” My thumbs swipe over the dampness on her cheeks, and she squeezes her eyes closed, forcing more of the pent up anguish to drip down her face.

“It hurts so much every time I think of them,” she whispers, opening her eyes to look up at the ceiling. “They were happy and perfect. They loved me so much and I…loved them. My Aunt Sofie was wonderful. She tried her best but I was just so fucking mad. I didn’t understand why my parents weren’t coming back. I thought that they… left me on purpose.” Sniffling and sobbing, she drops her forehead against my chest.

“Nobody would ever willingly leave you, baby. Anyone that ever gave you up was insane. You’re perfect, and I don’t ever want you to think of yourself as less than that. You’re amazing and strong and beautiful. You deserve so much better than what you’ve been given, but we’re going to change that, okay? I’m going to make sure you get everything you can dream of.”

She cinches her arms around my waist and soaks my shirt with the evidence of the devastation that she’s experienced in her life, and I wish my arms alone could heal every ounce of that for her. “Everyone leaves.”

“Not me. If you ever feel uncomfortable here, like you need to move, tell me. I’ll figure something out, because you’d have to kill me to separate yourself from me. We’ll build safehouses all over the country if we have to, but first, we have to find and kill someone that deserves every bit of pain that’s coming to him.”

Shaking her head, Phoebe tilts her head back to look at me again. “I told you already. I’m not going anywhere. I feel safe with you.”

Chapter Twenty-five

Phoebe

Sunlight filters the curtains, waking me up to a world of comfort. Josiah’s arm has cinched around my waist, holding me tightly against his body. Before, he always woke up before me. He would sneak past me on the couch attempting to let me sleep longer.

Now, every morning he stays in bed with me, holding me close until I wake up. His paranoia probably makes him feel anxious when I’m not near him. So when I was on the couch at least he could see me during the time before I woke, but while I’m in the bed, if he’s downstairs, I’m too far away and out of sight.

“Do you think today will be the day?” I whisper, stroking my fingers up and down the hair on his arm that’s around my waist.

“I don’t know.” He kisses my cheek and his hand moves lower. “Not if we don’t get out of bed.”

“What would we do if we stayed in bed all day?” I love teasing him. He has a voracious appetite for sex and it flares up every time he touches me, which is increasingly often. If I tease him, it tends to make him a little hungrier even, and I like when he acts like he’s starving for me.

“Hmmm. I’ll come up with something.” His hand skims lower until he reaches the waistband of my pajama pants and slips his hand down against my skin. “Fuck, you’re so wet already,” he groans, running his fingers along my slick pussy. “Your body knows who it answers to.”

Whimpering, I shift closer and angle my hips trying to get him to add more pressure in his light circles around my clit. “Please.”

“What’s that?”

---