“Oh, God! Sweetheart, don’t cry.”
The sight of him stopped her world from spinning. His voice flowed over her like honey. His words made her tear up again, and her knees threatened to buckle.
With a hand lightly covering her mouth in disbelief, Honor breathed out, “Wha…what...?”
She stuttered and stammered, clueless. Was this real? Or had she fallen asleep and this was her subconscious’s way of slowly killing her?
“I need you, Honor. You can’t leave me.”
“But—”
“I love you, Honor.”
Her eyes went wide, and she gasped for a breath. “You…
what
?” She choked and her words came out as a whisper.
“I love you, sweetheart. I asked you to give me a chance. I was stupid. I didn’t get it. That wasn’t enough. I know that now. It wasn’t fair to ask you for something you couldn’t give me. But I know now what you need, and I can give you that…if you’ll let me.”
Her face fell, not even trying to hide the desperation and stress she felt, she searched for words that could explain. Her thoughts were coming at her from a hundred different directions. Wanting him to say those three words again, and not wanting him to say those three words again. Wanting to pull him in the house and kiss him, and wanting him to leave.
Wanting to tell him she loved him too and always would.
Right there on her doorstep he dropped down on one knee and held up the ring.
“Honor, you need forever. I love you. Let me give you forever, sweetheart.
Please
?”
Only five weeks before he had been in that the same spot, saying that same word that had gripped her. The love and sincerity showed in his eyes. She knew his strengths, but could tell he was unsure of her answer as she studied the vulnerability in his hazel eyes. She saw how scared he was. Honor couldn’t catch her breath. She blinked rapidly, and it was as if she was watching the whole event unfold in slow-motion.
“Please, Mom. Please, say
yes
.”
She whipped her head to look behind her. The unshed tears pooling in her son’s eyes as he stood in the hallway, begging her, gripped her heart.
A different man—same word.
“Honor.
Dallas—”
She turned back to the man on one knee, his dark skin and muscles calling to her from underneath the light-blue, V-neck t-shirt. The mascara that her tears left behind earlier was still on his shoulder. She stared into the eyes of the man who she’d fallen in love with at first sight. His strong features and closely shaven head looked up at her. The man was strength and beauty, sex and sin, all wrapped up in one, and oh, God how she loved him.
“I love you both, so much. Please come home so we can be a real family. Will you marry me, Honor? I’ll give you forever, sweetheart.”
Honor let out a shaky breath, one of relief. Finally, he had said the two words she needed him to say…
family
and
forever
.
“Honor?”
Through the tears in her eyes, she looked at the man who had stolen her heart only a few short weeks before and nodded. Instantly, she found herself squashed between two men, one she’d loved his entire life and the other she knew she'd spend a lifetime loving. Her family…forever.
“I didn’t think he’d ever go to sleep.” Eli chuckled as he pushed Honor’s bedroom door shut, carefully letting the handle go with just a soft click, and then scooted in between two stacks of already packed boxes.
He had never seen anything as beautiful as Honor was at that moment. On her knees, surrounded by pictures—some wrapped in newspaper, some still waiting. In her tiny jeans shorts and a white t-shirt with a blanket of dark auburn curls piled on top of her head, a few loose tendrils escaping, she looked perfect. The smile she graced him with was bigger than any she’d given him back in Pennsylvania, and he thought she was breathtaking then. Now, the joy spread over her face was ten times more magnificent and so very contagious.
If he had only been smarter, he could have saved her the heartache he’d caused. Eli knew he would spend a lifetime making up for that. She’d suffered too much in her life, and he wanted to spend every last breath making sure she was never hurt again.
“I’m surprised. We’ve kind of had a whopping roller coaster ride of a day. I’m shocked he hadn’t dropped two hours ago,” she said, quiet for the boy in the next room, but with laughter in her voice.
“I helped him finish packing his closet and got everything off the shelf for him. I told him if he went to bed, I’d wake up early and we’d get the rest done real quickly. He’s going with me to rent the trailer in the morning. Get this.” Eli crouched down beside Honor and brushed a stray curl from her forehead. “He told me he couldn’t wait to go
home
.”
He watched for sadness to creep in, or for signs that she was upset. “Are you okay with this, Honor? I mean, I’ve just turned your entire world upside down in the last twelve hours. I don’t mean to rush you out of what’s been your home for years.”
She shrugged. “Eli, this has always just been a house. My son was happy on the track out back, but I’ve never seen him as happy as he is at your house.”
“
Our
house, Honor. It’s your home now, too. I don’t ever want you to think of anything there as mine again. All right?”
Honor grinned as her cheeks went pink. “I’ll try.”
Eli took her chin between his finger and thumb and tipped it back up, “I’m serious, sweetheart. It’s all yours. But seriously, I’m moving you really fast,” he rolled his eyes. “No pun intended, but really, are you okay?”
“Eli, wherever you are, I’ll be perfect.”
He leaned forward and softly brushed his lips over hers then gently took the picture frame from her hands. The picture in the sterling frame was like most of the rest, a picture of Dallas at different stages of life. Running a finger over the glass, he took a long look at the boy who was staring off in the distance. As he stood dressed in gear, he leaned on his bike. Obviously, at one race or another, his sun-bleached hair was in disarray from having had a helmet on. But there was a peacefulness to him. He wasn’t stressed. He wasn’t show signs of nerves. As the camera caught him, he looked like he was in love.
Eli remembered that feeling—that place of peace. It was something he could only feel and could never explain. He always assumed it was the same as a stage for an actress, a pool for a swimmer, or the diamond for a ballplayer.
There was nothing like waking on race day, walking in the freshly tilled dirt, and memorizing the curves, jumps, and lines. The smell of each track was different. The dirt varied from state to state. The adrenaline rush never changes. It was always the same.
He remembered his past as he held the picture in his hands, and remembered years of growing up with Carter and Jesse on those same tracks. He remembered flashes of the good times, and for the first time…he remembered them without longing for the past.
Eli saw his future in that picture of a little boy’s past.
In that sterling frame he was holding, was a picture of a boy who was now his son. The boy who claimed him before they’d ever met. The boy he’d watched from a distance, grow as a rider over the last couple of years, the boy who by fate’s design had brought him Honor.
“God, I love this kid.” He said still smiling at the picture, not even really aware he’d said the words out loud until he heard Honor take a deep breath.
“I know you do.”
Eli glanced up to see the tears glistening in Honor’s eyes.
“Oh…no, sweetheart. No more tears. Only good things from now on. I promise.”
“I know. I’m just so thankful I found you.”
“That makes two of us, baby.”
He carefully laid the picture back on top of the stack to finish wrapping and packing in the morning. He stood back up, his knees cracking and popping along the way, and with Honor’s hands in his he brought her up to stand too. Running his palms up and down her bare arms, he looked deep into the dark purple that fascinated him at first sight. She was his now and, tonight for the first time, he’d make sure she knew just how much he wanted her.
“I love you, sweetheart.”
“I love you, too.”
Eli had spent every night lying awake in his bed with her just across the hall and wishing he could make her his, praying he could show her how much he loved her. Imagining her with his sheets wrapped around her body and her long curls fanning out over his pillows. God help him, he wanted to take his time and savor this moment, to make it last and take care of her every need, but he was too far gone. He’d wanted her for too long.
Staring into her eyes, watching the hollow of her neck, hearing the change in her breathing, desire took over, and he knew need surpassed desire.
“Honor,” he said, his voice deeper, huskier.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she pushed up his t-shirt.
There was a God and he had given him the perfect woman. She understood exactly what they both needed. There would be time for slow later. There would be time for soft words tomorrow. Because forever was theirs. Now all he could think about was getting her undressed as fast as possible.
He reached with his arms crossed and yanked his shirt off, not paying a bit of attention to where it landed because as it went over his head covering his face…he felt fingers at the first button of his jeans.
Letting her try to work the button-fly, Eli went to work removing her clothes, much more interested in revealing what had been hidden from him all this time. He bunched the sides of her soft cotton shirt in his fists as he leaned into the curve of her neck, running the tip of his tongue along the slope. Her head slowly fell to the side, offering more of her to him. The smoldering heat he tried to keep tamped down all this time, instantly became a roaring blaze.
With his palms lightly pressing against her, Eli pushed her shirt up her sides, the cotton making its way up and over her breasts. His mouth left her skin only for the briefest of moments. With the shirt gone, there was more of her to explore and kiss. Her skin was smooth as fine silk, and as he kissed his way back up her neck and jaw to her lips, the tiniest of moans escaped from her. Eli brought both hands to her face, cradled her head, and placed a soft kiss on her lips.
Pulling back, he continued to hold her in his grasp as he gazed at her through heavy-lidded eyes.
“Honor…I love you so much.”
Her hands came up to grip his forearms, her expression desperate. “Don’t ever stop telling me that, Eli…
please
.”
Her words were merely a soft-spoken plea, but they twisted in his stomach. Not once had she asked him for anything. Yet, with that one statement, he saw the foundation of her walls start to crumble. She’d been fiercely independent from the moment they met, but standing in his arms, her vulnerability was visible through the cracks in her armor. She needed him, and Eli had never felt more alive.
“Oh, sweetheart, you never have to worry about that. I’ll love you ’til the day I die. I promise.”
With that declaration, he swept her up in his arms and placed her on the bed. Unzipping her shorts, he quickly did away with the barely there denim leaving her in nothing but white cotton panties and a matching bra. Both were trimmed in tiny pink bows, but other than that, it was simple, sweet, and so very much her.
He made a slow pass down her nearly naked body and back up with hungry eyes. Her chest was heaving with quick breaths, and Eli watched her swallow hard. She bent one leg at the knee, and Eli could tell she was fighting like hell not to cover herself from his gaze. Without taking his eyes off his fiancée, he rapidly undid his jeans and pushed them to the ground.
“Commando, eh?”
The fire in her eyes and the grin on her lips as she teased him only stoked the matching flame within him. The nerves were still evident by her shivers and timid smile, but the teasing went a long way to relaxing her.
Eli narrowed his eyes while fighting a smile and wiggled his eyebrows with a wicked
You’re mine, girl
attitude as he blanketed her body with his. Pulling in a deep breath at the skin-to-skin contact, he closed his eyes and savored the moment. Her leg came around his and aligned their bodies, perfectly. Eli moved ever so slightly and felt the hiss of her breath against his shoulder right before she kissed his skin and ran the tip of her tongue hesitantly along his collarbone.
Her fingertips lightly ran over his skin, the touch so sweet, Eli didn’t think he’d be able to hang on long enough to get inside her.
“I promise to be quiet so we don’t wake our boy, but God…I need you now.”
He pulled back enough to watch her struggle to open her eyes, the tip of her tongue still touching her top lip.
“Baby, long shot here, but do you have any condoms?”
Honor blinked multiple times, his question apparently not registering.
“Sweetheart, I’m not going to last.” He listened to her choppy breathing, stared into the purple of her eyes, so dark it was almost black.
“Pill.”
It was his turn to decipher her words…or lack thereof. “Honor?”