Page 34

Chapter 33

Dane was quiet on the drive back to the hotel. It was only ten minutes, but it seemed like hours as the silence pressed down on us like a thousand-pound weight.

I slid my hands beneath my thighs so he wouldn’t see the tremble there. Tilting my head against the cool window, I kicked off my shoes and attempted to sort through my feelings. That asshole’s fetid breath and the feel of his hand on my shoulder had incited a panic that I hadn’t felt in a long time. After being kidnapped once, the thought of someone taking me or hurting me again only added to the overwhelming pressure.

But Dane had been there. He’d saved me. Again. Despite his promise to not kill anyone, he’d been willing to do that to protect me.

I mean, I’m glad I stopped him from committing homicide. We certainly didn’t need police involvement in our lives, them poking around and possibly finding out we were living with false identities. But Dane was going to push aside his newfound moral compass and do whatever it took for me to feel safe.

And I’d never loved him more.

I just didn’t know how he was feeling about it. He was obviously not doing well because he’d hardly spoken. What if he decided I was too much damn trouble?

Once we reached the hotel, I padded through the lobby on bare feet, and as we rode up the hotel elevator in even more oppressive silence, the fingers of my right hand twisted my wedding band around and around my ring finger. I wished he’d at least touch me.

The walk down the corridor of the eighth floor felt like marching to the death chamber. The muted lighting from the brushed metal wall fixtures lit our way, but I might as well have been walking in darkness.

Dane unlocked the door to our room and led us inside, and just as I opened my mouth to ask him to please talk to me, he surprised me by pushing my back against the door. His brown eyes were darker than I’d ever seen them, almost coal black as he caged me in with his arms and stared at me for an uncomfortably long time.

Then he dropped to his knees on the entryway floor and leaned his head against my stomach, his hands sliding down to hold my waist with a ferocious grip.

“Eden. Please, baby, don’t leave me.” His words sounded like they had been pried from his chest with a rusty crowbar, the tone both harsh and pleading. Leave him? What the hell is he talking about? Before I could voice that question, he raised his head, and I was shocked to see tears swimming above the rims of his eyelids. “I love you, Eden. I love you so much. Please forgive me.”

Those words and the rawness of his pain buckled my legs until I was kneeling in front of him, my hands going immediately to his face. His fingers clutched onto them like a drowning man would grab a life preserver.

“Dane, what are you talking about? Why would I leave you?”

His chest rose and fell in rapid huffs. “I promised you I wouldn’t kill anyone.” He gritted his teeth so hard I could hear the scraping grind before he whispered, “And I almost did tonight. I wanted to hurt him so fucking bad for touching you. For scaring you.”

Oh. My. God.

The tips of my fingers dug into his cheeks, and I pulled his face closer until our noses were a mere inch apart. “To protect me. You were protecting me, Dane. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Wrinkles formed across his forehead, and his eyebrows pinched together. “But… but you said you didn’t want to be with a Mafia thug, and that’s what I acted like tonight. I turned back into Damiano.” A single tear slipped over his bottom lid and trekked down onto my hand. “He’s still inside me.”

“Oh, baby,” I said softly, kissing the tip of his nose like he always did to me. “Of course he is, and that’s not a bad thing.”

Dane made a scoffing noise in the back of his throat. “I hate him.”

“I don’t,” I said simply, and his eyebrows lifted in shock. “Damiano saved me first.”

“Eden,” he started, and I could hear the argument in his tone.

“I love you too,” I told him before he could finish. “I love both sides of you—Damiano and Dane—because both of you have saved me in so many ways.”

My breath whooshed out of my lungs when Dane grabbed me and crushed me against his chest. With our height difference, my knees no longer reached the ground, so I lifted my legs and curled them around his waist.

“I should have told you. I should have said I loved you that night in the sauna. I’m so sorry, baby.”

“Shhh,” I soothed, resting my cheek on his shoulder as he buried his face in my neck. “I already knew. What you said to me that night was so much more than three little words. My god, Dane. You have no idea how much you touched my soul with what you said. You bared yourself to me.”

“I meant all of it,” he wept, dampening my flesh with his tears as my own dripped onto his shirt.

“You don’t have to tell me for me to know that. You told me with every night you held me on the veranda… every cupcake… every nose kiss.”

When he pulled back to look at me, there was the slightest hint of a smile on his face. Then he tapped my nose with his lips. “You deserve to hear the words anyway. I love you, Eden.”

“I love you too, Dane.”

And then our mouths crashed together in a mind-bending fusion of desperation and adoration. We were in a frenzy of tongues and lips, teeth, and hearts. Dane held the back of my head and tilted it a little to go deeper, and I felt his kiss all the way to my toes.

Our heartbeats pounded a staccato rhythm against each other’s chests as we slowed into a more sensual slide of mouth over mouth. I loved this man with every cell in my body.

“What?” I asked when I felt him smiling against my lips.

“I love you,” he said again, a soft laugh breaking through. “I’ve been so scared to say it, but now it seems so easy. I love you, Eden Osbourne, my wife.”

Dear god, help me. My heart…

I pulled back a little and smoothed his hair away from his beautiful face. “I love you, husband.” His grin widened at that. “I’m sorry for how I acted early on. I was scared, and didn’t know what to do with all my feelings. You were the closest target, but I want you to know I was never afraid of you.”

A shadow crossed his face. “I killed four people, Eden.”

My fingers twisted in his long hair. “For me. You did that for me, even before you knew me.”

“I think I started falling for you the first time I saw you. In that video with your middle fingers held up.” Then his fingers drifted over my cheek like he could still see the bruises left in the aftermath of my defiance. “I have zero remorse, Eden. I’m not good enough for you.”

“Don’t start that shit. You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” I teased before turning serious again and telling him my truth. “I’m glad Ethan and Felipe are dead. I didn’t really know the guard or Guido, but they would have caused us harm, so I’m not sad they’re dead either. That means, if you’re a bad person, so am I.”

Dane pushed to his feet with me still wrapped around him like a koala. “You, my sweet, are not a bad person. You are the best, kindest person I’ve ever met.”

“Even when I call you Dillweed or Dark Lord?”

He arched one eyebrow. “I rather like when you call me Dark Lord. In fact, you can call me that in bed.” Easing me to my feet, he said, “Stay right here for a second.”

I watched his back as he walked across the room and rummaged in the pocket of his small suitcase. Then I watched his front with equal attention when he returned. He was a gorgeous specimen of man, coming or going.

“What’s in your hand?” I asked, focusing on the fist Dane held against his thigh as he approached me.

“So impatient,” he scolded playfully, though I could read the wariness in his expression as he took a long pause before speaking again. “Eden, I know you didn’t ask for any of this. Neither of us did. We didn’t have much choice but to be a married couple.”

I felt my eyebrows furrow together. “So, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying…” He swallowed hard and then wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. “I’m trying to say that I know we were put together by circumstances, but I want you to know that I like being married to you.”

My eyebrows returned to their normal position, and I tried not to look too giddy. Dane had told me before that he’d never wanted marriage, so this felt like a big freaking deal.

And then he opened his hand.

My eyes almost bulged out of their sockets when I saw the perfect, cushion-cut diamond ring in his palm. “Dane, that is… beautiful.”

“I thought you’d like it,” he said, lifting it between his thumb and forefinger and handing it to me. “Read the inscription.”

I took the ring and turned it until I could read the words on the inside of the platinum band.

In the light and in the darkness… I choose you.

My hand went to my throat, and I attempted to control my breathing. Those were the most beautiful words I’d ever read. “Dane…” I whispered, unable to say much else.

We had a tiny tug of war when he tried to take the ring from me, but I finally relented. He smirked as he dropped to one knee, and I had to lean back against the door for support.

“I know we’re already married, but I wanted you to have this ring so you’d know every single day that I choose you. ” Tears streamed down my face as my beautiful man stared up at me with earnest eyes. “Eden Osbourne, will you please choose me too?”

I nodded vigorously as I swallowed the lump in my throat and finally found the ability to form actual words. “I choose you, Dane Osbourne.”

In two seconds flat, he had nestled the ring onto my finger beside my wedding band, and he was lifting me once again. His mouth closed over mine with a gentle suction before he breached my parted lips with his tongue. Our kiss was gentle and loving, and I felt like I’d just gotten engaged to the man of my dreams. Except I was already married to him. Kind of illegally, but whatever.

Dane carried me into the bathroom and set me on the pecan-colored countertop. Then he wet a washcloth, and with his tender touch, cleaned my face. It seemed somehow even more intimate than when he cleaned between my legs after sex. When he was done, I took the cloth from him, rinsed it, and proceeded to wipe down his cheeks with the same care.

“Let’s go to bed,” I told him, laying a soft kiss on his lips. “Give me a minute, and I’ll be in there.”

After he left, I removed my brown contact lenses and then pulled the terry cloth sash from the white robe on the back of the door, wrapping it a few times around my wrists. When I got into our bedroom, my heart swelled when I saw my turtle nightlights scattered around the room, giving off a soft greenish-yellow glow. I didn’t know he’d packed them.

Dane was looking out the tall window at the city, and he turned when he heard me enter the room. His shirt was unbuttoned all the way, giving me a tempting view of his toned chest and abs.

“You know how you said you wanted to tie me to the bed and break me?” I asked, and his brow furrowed as he nodded. I pulled a hefty supply of air into my lungs and lifted my bound wrists to show him. “Then break me.”