I place my palm over her heart, then pull her hand to my heart. I lower my eyes to her level, making sure she’s completely in this moment with me. “Fuck all the firsts, Sky. The only thing that matters to me with you are the forevers.”

She releases a breath of relief, then completely kisses the hell out of me. I grab her head and lower her back onto the bed, climbing on top of her. “I love you,” I say against her lips. “I’ve loved you for so long but I just couldn’t tell you. It didn’t feel right letting you love me back when I was keeping so much from you.”

She’s crying again, but she’s also smiling. “I don’t think you could have picked a better time to tell me you loved me than tonight. I’m happy you waited.”

I dip my head and kiss her. I kiss her like she deserves to be kissed. I hold her like she deserves to be held. And I’m about to make love to her like she deserves to be loved. I untie the robe she’s wearing and slide my hand across her stomach. “God, I love you,” I say to her. My hand moves from her waist, down her hip and to her thigh. I can feel her tense up, so I pull back and look down at her. “Remember . . . I’m touching you because I love you. No other reason.”

She nods and closes her eyes and I recognize the nervousness seeping off her. I pull her robe closed and bring my hand to her face.

“Open your eyes,” I say. She opens them and they’re full of tears. “You’re crying.”

She just nods and smiles up at me. “It’s okay. They’re the good kind of tears.”

I silently watch her, gauging if we should even be doing this right now. I want to show her how much I love her and I want to erase what happened between us an hour ago, because it never should have happened. I want to make it right for her. It’s always been so ugly for her, but she deserves to see how beautiful it can be.

“I want to make love to you, Sky,” I say, lacing our fingers together. “And I think you want it, too. But I need you to understand something first.” I lower my mouth and kiss away a falling tear. “I know it’s hard for you to allow yourself to feel this. You’ve gone so long training yourself to block the feelings and emotions out any time someone touches you. But I want you to know that what your father physically did to you isn’t what hurt you as a little girl. It’s what he did to your faith in him that broke your heart. You suffered through one of the worst things a child can go through at the hands of your hero . . . the person you idolized . . . and I can’t even begin to imagine what that must have felt like. But remember that the things he did to you are in no way related to the two of us when we’re together like this. When I touch you, I’m touching you because I want to make you happy. When I kiss you, I’m kissing you because you have the most incredible mouth I’ve ever seen and you know I can’t not kiss it. And when I make love to you—I’m doing exactly that. I’m making love to you because I’m in love with you. The negative feeling you’ve been associating with physical touch your whole life doesn’t apply to me. It doesn’t apply to us. I’m touching you because I’m in love with you and for no other reason.” I kiss her softly. “I love you.”

She kisses me harder than she’s ever kissed me, pulling me down to the bed with her. We continue to kiss and she continues to allow me to explore every single part of her with my mouth and my hands. When I ready myself against her after putting another condom on, I look down at her and she’s finally looking up at me with a serene expression. The love in her eyes right now can’t be mistaken, but I still want to hear her say it.

“Tell me you love me.”

She tightens her grip around me, looking me hard in the eyes. “I love you, Holder. So much,” she says firmly. “And just so you know . . . so did Hope.”

As soon as the words leave her mouth, I’m completely consumed by a sense of peace. For the first time since the second she was taken from me, I finally know what forgiveness feels like. “I wish you could feel what that just did to me.” I claim her mouth with mine at the same time she completely consumes my heart.

Chapter Forty-three

When I turn my phone on, I’m flooded with texts. Several from Breckin, several from my mother. There are missed calls from Sky’s phone, so I can only assume they’re from Karen. I don’t listen to any of the voicemails, though. I know everyone’s just worried about us, especially Karen. I’m still not sure how what she did fits into the picture, but I find it hard to believe that what she did was done from a place of evil.

Sky rustles in the bed, rolling over. I look down at her and lean forward to kiss her but she turns her face away and I kiss her cheek, instead.

“Morning breath,” she mumbles, sliding off the bed. She heads for the shower and I check the time. Check-out is in an hour, so I decide to gather our things.

After I’ve got most of our things packed, she walks out of the bathroom. “What are you doing?” she asks.

I glance at her. “We can’t stay here forever, Sky. We need to figure out what you want to do.”

She rushes toward me. “But . . . but I don’t know yet. I don’t even have anywhere to go.”

Her voice is full of panic, so I walk to her in order to ease her mind. “You have me, Sky. Calm down. We can go back to my house and figure this out. Besides, we’re both still in school. We can’t just stop going and we definitely can’t live in a hotel forever.”

“One more day,” she says. “Please, let’s just stay one more day, then we’ll go. I need to try to figure this out and in order to do that, I need to go there one more time.”

I don’t know how she can possibly think going back to that house is in any way a good idea. There’s absolutely nothing she needs from there. “No way. I’m not putting you through that again. You’re not going back.”

“I need to, Holder,” she says pleadingly. “I swear I won’t get out of the car this time. I swear. But I need to see the house again before we go. I remembered so much while I was there. I just want a few more memories before you take me back and I have to decide what to do.”

Jesus, she’s relentless. I pace the floor, not knowing how I can get it through her head that she can’t do this.

“Please,” she says again.

Ugh! I can’t say no to that voice.

“Fine,” I groan. “I told you I would do whatever it was you felt you needed to do. But I’m not hanging all of those clothes back up.”

She laughs and rushes to me, throwing her arms around my neck. “You’re the best, most understanding boyfriend in the whole wide world.”

I hug her back and sigh. “No, I’m not. I’m the most whipped boyfriend in the whole wide world.”

We’re sitting in my car across the street from her old house and I’m gripping the steering wheel so hard I’m afraid I might break it. Her father just pulled up into his driveway, and as mad and outraged as I’ve been in the past, I’ve never had the urge to actually kill someone until now. Just seeing him makes my stomach turn and my blood boil. I lift my hand to the ignition, knowing nothing good can come of this if I don’t drive away right now.

“Don’t leave,” she says, pulling my hand away from the ignition. “I need to see what he looks like.”

I sigh and fall back against the seat. She needs to hurry up and get what she needs because this is bad. This is bad, bad, bad.

“Oh, my God,” she whispers. I turn to her, wanting to know what made her just say that. “It’s nothing,” she says. “He just looks . . . familiar. I haven’t had an image of him in my head at all but if I was to see him walking down the street, I would know him.”

We watch as he ends a conversation on his cell phone and walks to the mailbox.

“Have you had enough?” I ask her. “Because I can’t stay here another second without jumping out of this car and beating his ass.”

“Almost,” she says, leaning across the seat to get a better look. I don’t understand why she would even want to see him. I don’t understand how she’s not jumping out of this car in order to rip his balls off, because that’s the only urge I have right now.

After her father finally disappears inside his house, I turn and look at her.

“Now?”

She nods. “Yeah, we can go now.”

I place my hand on the ignition and crank the car, then watch in horror as she swings open the door and rushes out of the car.

What the fuck?

I turn the car off and swing open my door, running after her. I chase her all the way across the front yard and halfway up the porch steps. I wrap my arms around her and lift her up, then turn back to the car. She’s trying to fight me and kick me and I’m doing everything I can to get her as far away from the house as I can so he doesn’t hear her.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I say through clenched teeth.

“Let go of me right now, Holder, or I’ll scream! I swear to God, I’ll scream!”

I let go of her and spin her around to face me. I grip her shoulders tightly and try to shake some goddamned sense into her.

“Don’t do this, Sky. You don’t need to face him again, not after what he’s done. I want you to give yourself more time.”

She looks at me and begins to shake her head. “I have to know if he’s doing this to anyone else. I need to know if he has more kids. I can’t just let it go, knowing what he’s capable of. I have to see him. I have to talk to him. I need to know that he’s not that man anymore before I can allow myself to get back in that car and just drive away.”

I take her face in my hands and try to reason with her. “Don’t do this. Not yet. We can make a few phone calls. We’ll find out whatever we can online about him first. Please, Sky.” I turn her toward the car and she sighs. She finally relents and begins walking toward the car with me.

“Is there a problem here?”

We both spin around at the sound of his voice. He’s standing at the base of the porch steps, eyeing me carefully. If I wasn’t having to physically prevent Sky from falling to the ground right now, I’d be rushing him.

“Young lady, is this man hurting you?”

She grows limp in my arms the second he speaks to her directly. I pull her against my chest. “Let’s go,” I whisper. I turn her toward the car. I need to get her away from him. I just need to get her to the car.

“Don’t move!” he yells.

Sky freezes at the sound of his voice, but I’m still trying to urge her toward the car.

“Turn around!”

I can’t force Sky forward at this point and there really isn’t a way out of this situation. I begin to turn her around with me and keep my arm wrapped around her. She looks into my eyes and there’s more terror in them than I ever imagined a single person could feel.

“Play it off,” I whisper in her ear. “He might not recognize you.”