“I love you, too, sweets.”
Through her orgasm that rolls through her like a wave crashing into shore, through mine as it hits me all the same, even while she continues to cry as she comes, her nails digging into my back while the tears stream down her pretty face. Those starry night eyes stay locked with mine.
Leonor never broke contact with me once, and being the one to get her through this, to help her with something so vulnerable because she trusts me, because she knows I fucking get it? This is a memory I know I’m going to cherish until I’m too fucking senile to remember it.
34
LEONOR
TWO AND A HALF MONTHS LATER
“Ijust need to get some air.”
Lucky eyes me skeptically, his brow raised as he looks between me and the front of the hardware store but he doesn’t say anything.
He doesn’t have to.
The expression on Lucky’s face speaks volumes and while I understand where he’s coming from, I’d like to think he knows that I’m in an entirely different headspace than I was a few months ago.
I get it, I really do.
My beautiful giant struggled so much with what happened, with finding me the way he did twice in one lifetime. His feelings are beyond valid and it breaks my fucking heart but there’s a fine line we’ve been treading and one of us needs to step over it.
Because I meant every word I said the night I decided to stop living in fear and letting old ghosts or new demons dictate the way I live my life.
Does that mean I’m not scared, that I’m throwing caution to the wind and getting reckless? Absolutely not. Everything that happened, losing Pierre, it nearly broke me and I’m not going toforget that. I can’t. But I’m not going to let it rule every thought and action anymore.
Having my boys back, being with all four of them the way I am, playing music and making plans, it’s all too precious, too important and beautiful to allow that.
It’s been hard.
I still have trauma; my nightmares have increased and my anxiety has definitely gotten more difficult to manage but I’m working every goddamn day to get a handle on both.
Part of that has been reclaiming some level of normalcy while most aspects of my life are still flipped upside down.
Justine is still overseas, our building is still in shambles which means we’restillliving in a hotel. My stalker has all but disappeared save for the odd rose or note, and while that’s been a nice reprieve, I know we haven’t heard the last of him. I’m assuming he needed a break after making such a scene at the Bissonnette property, it’s been crawling with cops day and night since they took Pierre and I from the cemetery so that fucker is probably keeping a low profile. I’m not working at the mansion anymore, though. I can’t stomach the idea, I can barely think of that property without getting physically ill and having some of the worst flashbacks I have ever had, but I also quit because the men in my life won’t let me get within 10,000 feet of the driveway.
That’s probably been the biggest thing, navigating the events a few months ago and how they impacted all of uswithmy boys this time around.
It’s been good for us, I know that.
We each handled it so differently, some better than others and while we’re still working on it because that shit doesn’t just go away, progress has been made.
Mostly.
“Lucky, my love,” I say as I reach up and loop my arms around his neck. “I love you so fucking much.”
“I know.” He eyes me again, even as I push up on my toes and kiss him. “I love you just as much, baby cakes.”
Hugging him hard, I smile as he wraps his arms around me, burying his face in my neck as he holds me tight.
Lucius has by far struggled the most with everything, harboring the most guilt and turning on himself because he feels like he didn’t do enough to keep me safe.
It kills me that he feels this way, it completely guts me.
I’m pretty sure it makes me a hypocrite for trying so hard to get him to stop feeling that way, though. That’s all he wanted from me for three fucking years and even when I let them back into my life, Lucky handled me with kid gloves until he couldn’t anymore. I truly am not worthy of Lucius’ friendship let alone his unconditional love and devotion, and I sure as hell don’t deserve the rest of my boys either. Not back then and most definitely not now but I’m trying. I’m trying so hard to be the person the four of them fell in love with, the woman who is deserving of everything they give her. I’m just doing a terrible job because I don’t know how to be a grownup adult human handling my shit in a healthy, nontoxic way.
But I do know that everything that’s happened couldn’t have been stopped.
