Page 40 of The Pursuit of Happiness (Satan’s Angels #2)

I hear sheets rustling and arms wrapping around me and holding me to a firm chest. I instantly feel relieved when I feel the familiar hardness of his body against mine, his warmth seeping into me and comforting me against the chill.

I breathe in his scent, which has become so familiar to me in only weeks.

He holds me against him until my tears start to slow, until my breathing slowly starts to regulate.

He speaks after minutes have passed. “I would never see you as anything but fucking perfect, Aria Kane. That tape does not define you and it does not define us. There is not one thing in this world that could ever make me stop loving you.” I freeze when I hear it. I stop breathing at his admission.

Slater just told me he loves me. He just told me he loves me and that nothing could make him stop loving me. I slowly look up at him and find him worried, almost as if he’s not sure how I’ll react. “You- You love me?” My voice comes out a broken whisper.

He nods, never once removing his eyes from mine. “I’ve loved you since I met you, Kane.”

“You’ve loved me since the club,” I whisper to myself now.

Sly brushes hair from my face and shakes his head, “No baby. We met before the club.”

I sit up straighter, “What?” I would remember Sly. I would remember meeting him.

He strokes my face with his thumb, lovingly and so tenderly as he gives me a weak, pained smile. “We met three years ago at The New York City Annual Ball.” His voice is low, weak.

I try my best to remember that night but there’s only black surrounding that night in my mind, much like the night at the club.

Brody, Ivory, and I had been doing so many fucking drugs at the time.

We were snorting everything in sight and drinking on top of it.

We blacked out at almost every function we attended and carried on like that for years, destroying our memories and our bodies. We were like walking zombies back then.

“I saw you that night, you were at the bar ordering some kind of drink and at first I just saw you from behind and I froze. Nate was there and he had asked me what I was looking at. I pointed to you and said, ‘my future wife.’ He laughed me off and thought I was joking but I was dead serious. It was like every single other person in that room had vanished and the only thing I could focus on was you and I hadn’t even seen your face yet.

All I saw was that gold dress you were wearing and the butterfly tattoo on the back of your arm.

Then when I saw the angel wing tattoo I started to piece together who you were and you had turned around, confirming my theory.

“When you turned around, it felt like my heart had leapt right out of my chest and crawled on its hands and knees to you. One look at you and I was gone. It was immediate love at first sight for me. I needed to have you. Rogan and Miles showed up and asked what I was staring at. Nate answered, ‘His wife apparently.’ I ignored their laughs and took off to you.”

He gives me a sad smile, “I approached you and you could barely make eye contact with me, let alone stand up on your own. You were drunk and high on whatever it was you’d been drinking and taking.

I introduced myself, I asked you out, I told you how absolutely fucking beatiful you were, but you didn’t look interested in the least. I tried to roll with the punches and then you formally rejected me and told me you didn’t date and that you weren’t interested.

You walked away from me and I watched you completely forget who I was along with my face as you found your friends. ”

I feel rage at my past actions, regret too.

I feel so much regret for how I used to treat my body.

For how I used to act. The drugs were always a temporary solution to satiate my lust for happiness.

They left me feeling just as empty after as I did before I took them.

They never fixed anything and they always damaged parts of my life.

To think I could’ve been with Slater all those years ago and I didn’t even remember his face because I was that fucked up…

I’m disgusted with myself. I could’ve had it all years ago and I was too high to even notice.

“I’d seen you at other events after that and I always wanted to try again, but I didn’t want my pride to take a hit like that again after you rejected me the first time,” he looks embarrassed.

I reach up for his face with my hand, “And I did it to you again at the club,” I whisper, realizing how awful I really was to him that night. The guilt starts eating me alive.

He nods, a small smile on his lips. “Yeah, you did. It hurt worse that time because you weren’t high.” He tries to laugh it off, but I shake my head, frowning.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

Sly tilts his head at me, “Don’t apologize. You gave me a chance that night at the club. It only took you three years.” He looks amused but I don’t find any part of this story funny.

“You wanted me for that long and I was so rude to you,” I frown.

He kisses my temple, “I’m not mad.”

“I am.”

“Don’t be,” he says soothingly. “We’re here now.”

I groan, “The tape. I was so mean and bitter after that tape. I was horrible to you. I’m so sorry.” I remember how awful I was and cringe.

He continues caressing my face with his thumb, “You had every right to be angry with me. You were drugged and recorded against your will. You were violated and you didn’t know me well enough then to know I wouldn’t do that to you.”

I give him a confused look and pause, hoping he’ll catch the mistake he made, but he doesn’t. “Sly, you were violated too. You were drugged too. It wasn’t just me.”

He shakes his head, “It was different for you. They were ready to high five me because I have a nice dick but they were quick to slut shame you and destroy you in the media for doing the exact same thing I did.”

My mouth gapes at how perceptive he is. He was aware this whole time. “So if you knew you got off easy, why did you agree to work with me to do damage control?”

He gives me a sympathetic look, “Because I felt guilty that I played a part in your public destruction. I felt bad I was in the tape and that I didn’t suffer as badly as you did. I agreed to work with your band and to fake a relationship with you because I wanted to help.”

This man. This man before me is so unbelievably selfless. So loving. “You agreed to be in a fake relationship with me even though you had real feelings that I at the time did not reciprocate? Why would you do that to yourself?” I ask, though I think I already know the answer.

He tilts his head and smirks, the signature Slater Nicks smirk that has the power to save the world. “Because I love you and I was willing to walk through fire to help fix your reputation.”

“I rejected you so many times after that,” I cringe at how horrible my actions of the past were. Especially because of the way I feel about him now.

He laughs, “Yeah, you definitely made me work for it.”

I don’t laugh. I don’t smile. I just look at him and wonder how I became lucky enough to be loved by him. All this time he loved me even after I rejected him and treated him so poorly. He was still willing to move Heaven and Earth for me after all I’d done. “Sly?” I whisper.

“Yes, Kane?”

“My entire life has always felt like an endless pursuit of happiness. Like I’ve been chasing it forever, but the finish line was never in sight.

” I try my best to let him see inside my heart as I speak.

“I finally saw the finish line when I met you. You have been my pursuit of happiness. I’m such a fool for not seeing it sooner.

I love you, Sly,” I confess, realizing how much I mean those words as I lay myself bare.

His face freezes and he pauses for a moment. I think for a second I may have broken him, but then he whispers, “Say it again.”

I smile through my puffy eyes and tear stained cheeks, “I love you, Slater Nicks.”

He kisses me so hard my back hits the mattress and he falls with me, never breaking our kiss.

“God Kane, you made me wait a long time but the wait was worth it,” he smiles against my lips.

I kiss him chastely before promising, “You’ll never have to wait again. You have me forever, body and soul.”

He kisses the tip of my nose and then my forehead, “Say it again.”

“That you have me, body and soul forever?”

He shakes his head, “No, that other thing.”

I know right away what he’s talking about and start to laugh, “I love you, Slater Nicks.”

I laugh as he kisses my neck, my face, my lips.

I laugh as I realize he’s the only one who can make me go from hysterically sobbing to laughing.

I laugh as I realize what a fool I was not to see what was in front of me all along and I laugh as I realize that tape may have been the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

Well, aside from Slater Nicks.

SLATER

ARIA SLEEPS DEEPLY WITH her head on my chest, my hand threaded into her hair, twirling the auburn and azure strands.

She’s sound asleep, breathing steady. She’s been asleep for a couple of hours and I’ve just been watching her.

I’m too restless to sleep right now, my thoughts swirling like a tornado has circled around my head with no intentions of stopping anytime soon.

All I can think about is Duncan, her ex, and how he’s been harassing her.

The things that he’s said about her…they set me into a blind rage similar to the one I was in when I nearly killed that pap.

I want to tear him apart limb from fucking limb and I want to do it with my bare hands.

I want to cut out his tongue and hand it to her on a tray of diamonds, a gift and an offering.

Perhaps without his tongue he’d have less to say about her, though he has been texting everything.

Maybe I’ll just have to settle for his thumbs.