Page 37

Eden

Trust isn’t something to prove.

It’s something to earn.

Beau’s voice is like a chisel through glass, and the spell around us shatters.

Sounds and smells and the world rush back in—the house waking up, the screeching birds, Jasper and Lucky strolling past the apple tree.

It all springs back to life and makes me suddenly, awfully aware of where I am and what I’m doing and. .. and Dom .

Golden, glowing like fireflies, Dom’s eyes are stuck on me. They’re tracing over every inch of me—my face, my hands, the T-shirt pooled around my thighs, and the press of my legs against the porch. His wide, callused hand is white-knuckled on the swing.

But he’s not saying a word.

I duck my head, pressing my lips together to suppress a sob.

A wide palm touches my back, like I’m a horse to be soothed. “Hey now. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Tears scald my cheeks, and I lift my head to glare at Beau.

He’s on one knee beside me. The tanned column of his throat peeks out from the collar of his shirt, golden and gorgeous in the sunrise, and there’s more kindness in his face than I’ve seen since Cyanide.

He and Dom smell like the same spicy shampoo.

And it hurts .

It hurts to kneel in front of Beau, in the form he taught me in our room when everything with him was wonderful. It hurts that it’s not wonderful. It hurts that I’m feeling every porch splinter digging into me and not my soft rug and his hands adjusting my body.

I don’t want Beau to pack away his anger just because I’m upset. I don’t want this to rot because he has a big heart.

If I won’t be held accountable for my actions, how can I trust that they’ll be accountable for theirs?

“Tell him,” I demand of Beau, my voice too watery.

“Tell him it’s my mistake, not his. I’m the fuck up here.

You believe that, right? That’s why you’re not talking to me, isn’t it?

So tell him.” He’s too blurry, and I can’t help my sob this time.

“Tell him all of this is my fault. I trust him. I do. It was my mistake.”

Beau’s lips part. As he watches every expression cross my face, his brow crumples... and something pensive and curious sinks into his.

“ Damn it , Eden,” Dom snaps. He releases his death grip on the swing so abruptly it clatters against the wall. “No. I’m not doing this. If you want to whip your own back, then you do it on your own time.”

He turns to storm down the porch steps—maybe toward Ethel and Ida who are doing a terrible job of looking like they’re not eavesdropping—but Beau drags his eyes away from me to growl, “Quit it, you stubborn mule.” He points at the porch swing.

“You sit your ass on that chair. Now . No, shut up, Dom, I don’t want to hear it. You’re not running from this.”

Dom’s boots pause, and I wait for them to leave. For him to go .

But he doesn’t.

The porch creaks as he walks back over and sits heavily back on the swing.

I lift my glasses to swipe at my wet cheeks, infuriated that they’re betraying me.

This morning’s peace is wrecked—tossed into a whirlwind and pulverized—and I’m suddenly.. . vulnerable, here on my knees. Overexposed and lacking the fight I found with Jaykob. I’m not sure what I was hoping for here.

I sniff wetly and meet Beau’s eyes.

“Just tell him,” I whisper. “It’s okay. It’s really okay to hate me for hurting him.”

I do.

The morning light picks up all the fractures in his hazel eyes, and there’s a pained pinch between his brows as he shakes his head.

“Oh, darlin’,” he breathes. “I don’t hate you. I couldn’t ever.”

It surprises me. More than it should, maybe, but I’ve seen how he is—how he shut Dom out for weeks and how he’s been avoiding me, and after last night I just...

“Damn it,” I choke out as tears flood me again.

He doesn’t want me to leave.

He doesn’t hate me.

I pull back, gasping, as the relief of it hits me, and he raises his hands.

“Oh, no. No, no. Easy, pet,” he murmurs. “Easy. Come here. On your feet now. Come on.”

Tears drip off my chin, and I shake my head silently, but his hands run up my arms anyway. Testing. Soft. Giving me plenty of room to move away.

He edges closer when I don’t, and he pulls me gently to my feet. I press my forehead to his chest, curling into him despite myself.

“There you go, darlin’.” His lips press to the top of my head, and his hands begin a quiet, soothing rhythm up my back. “Breathe for me, come on.”

I hate that I’ve missed this. I hate that his kindness has a way of puncturing my anger until all I want to do is expire in his arms.

I breathe him in, drenching myself in him, needing to be marked by all the warm and subtle threads of Beau that Jayk erased from my sheets. Needing the sunshine on his skin and the heat of him against me.

Dom sits dark and brooding in his chair, watching us like a bottled storm.

Beau’s hand presses against my neck, tilting my head back, and his forehead finds mine.

“You don’t kneel like that, Eden,” he tells me, his voice roughen at the edges.

“I—”

His grip tightens. “ No . You hear me? You don’t do it to make a point. You do it when it fills you. When it makes you more, not less. You...” He sighs, and his eyes travel over my face. “Do you remember your lessons?”

Delicate heat fills my cheeks.

I remember giggling on my knees beside our bed while Beau grinned down at me, correcting my form.

Almost every night, after my painful journaling and the awful memories that accompanied it, Beau distracted me with comforts and sex and laughing lessons—from “Primal 101” and “Submissive Fundamentals” all the way to “To Brat or Not to Brat: The Delights and Dangers of Funishment,” as he called it.

He played professor for “The Art of Charming Your Soft Dom with Role Play and Affirmations,” and yes.

. . in the last nights before Cyanide, we had begun “High-Protocol Basics: How to Ruin the Rule Sticklers.” With jibes and eye rolls, he walked me through every formality he’d clearly never cared about. For Jasper. For Dom. For me .

Do I remember ?

I exhale against his lips, my chest aching. “Every second.”

The colors in his eyes fracture further, and the pad of his thumb traces the corner of my mouth. “Kink isn’t supposed to be a gotcha, darlin’. It’s a tool, sometimes useful—in getting things out, or working things through, but... it can’t fix fundamentals.”

My throat pulses.

I pull back from Beau, wrapping my arms around my waist as I stare out at the sunrise. It’s crude and beautiful, flaring over the dark forest.

Lucky breaks free of Jasper from under the apple tree, laughing, and his eyes light on me. He grabs Jasper’s arm, and I smile softly, aching at the transparent joy in them.

“Trust isn’t something you prove, Eden. It’s something you earn.” Dom’s words are heavy behind me; for all their gentle delivery, they have the force of an anvil.

“So let me ,” I insist quietly, watching as Jasper slips Lucky’s hand from his arm and tucks it inside his.

“You’re not the only one who needs to earn it.”

That catches me, and I turn back.

Dom is sitting on the swing, braced on his forearms. He’s drenched in scarlet and the gold in his eyes is intentand intense, but I was right. The wistfulness is back.

His voice is the deep rumble of shifting earth when he says, “I’m sorry for shouting at you, pet.”

This time, he doesn’t take back the endearment, and my throat burns with unbearable relief. With joy .

He wants this.

Beau lets out a long, shuddery breath. His gaze is far more hesitant when it meets mine. “I... I’m mad at you. I’m mad about so many things, and God, Eden, I could just shake you.”

A hard, disapproving sound punches out of Dom, but God. I breathe in sharply, smiling, and the early morning air is fresh and bright in my lungs.

What a relief it is to finally hear someone say it .

He’s stopped trying to run. Beau has stopped trying to run. The three of us are here now, and this thing between us is beating like an injured heartbeat. If they’re talking to me, if we can try. If there’s even a chance ...

My heart expands, pressing painfully against my ribcage, and I throw myself at Beau. His eyes widen an instant before I wrap my arms around his neck, and he catches me up, swinging me into his chest.

My lips press against his ear as I whisper, “ Thank you. ”

His mosquito bites are livid and raw on his neck and arms, and I resolve to give him the lavender after all. Lavender in his hair. Lavender oil. All my lavender, if he wants it.

He squeezes me back, almost painfully, and his huffed laugh is choked. “For being angry with you?”

My hands slide down his arms as I pull back to look at him. “For being honest.”

He sobers at that, his mouth tightening a little, but he doesn’t unleash any of the things he could say right now.

I feel like I’m trying not to spook a wild horse—one which will bolt at a wrong word. So I hold my tongue, too, and bury everything else I want to say.

I miss you. I’m sorry. I’m mad, too. Please talk to me.

It seems to work. Beau takes a deep breath, and nods, accepting it with that same strange, thoughtful expression on his face.

Then his gaze dips—and those brows shoot up.

“Is that my shirt?” he asks.

Beau walks us backward until he sits beside Dom, settling me on his lap like it’s where I belong. My feet naturally fall into Dom’s lap, and Dom looks down at them like they’re something strange and unexpected.

Beau tugs at my clothes, and I blink.

His . . . shirt?

I look down, finally remembering pulling Beau’s old shirt from one of my drawers this morning. Back when Beau was living with me, I wore his shirts to bed most nights, and when I found it in my drawer this morning...

I shouldn’t have put it on. It just felt like the next closest thing to having him with me.

I really hadn’t thought about him catching me in it, though.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I stammer, heat flooding my cheeks.