“I hurt you,” he murmured, reading her expertly. Like he had so many times before. “I’ve hurt others. Myself. I don’t deserve absolution.”
Her eyelids flew shut involuntarily as she processed that. He was beating himself up, suffering willingly because he didn’t think he was allowed to be pardoned.
For so long she’d operated under such a similar belief. How fitting that even in this, they were cut from the same cloth. How fitting that in that moment, she saw exactly why despite trying so hard to atone for her sins, she’d never gotten there. Because there were no sins to forgive.
“Evan,” she croaked and opened her eyes to see him staring at her with all that emotion she’d fought against for so long, when in reality it was absolution in every sense of the word. For both of them. “Don’t you see?”
To make sure he did, she took off her glasses and laid them on the counter.
“You made mistakes. Of course you did. You’re human.” As she said the words out loud, they reverberated in her soul, blowing away twelve years of anguish over her own mistakes. “But you have a right to be happy. A right to reach out for what you want. I’ll be here. Reaching back, every time because I love you. I’m way too hardheaded to give up on you, no matter what you throw at me.”
Something that looked suspiciously like a tear glistened in the corner of his eye. “Say it again.”
“I love you.” No question which part he’d meant, not when everything inside of him was radiating from his face, bleeding through the atmosphere and curling up in her heart. “I love you, Evan. I love that you don’t judge me for my mistakes. I love how you love me.”
His forehead drifted down until it touched her, but not before she glimpsed the wave of genuine pain twisting his gorgeous mouth. “It feels like such a weakness that I need you so much.”
“Darling, that’s the best part,” she murmured. “You stripped me to the core, revealing things I didn’t even know were there. Wanna know what you uncovered? An intense longing to be the woman you needed. It was so easy to become that and felt so right it scared me. But not anymore.”
“You weren’t supposed to be so forgiving.” His voice broke, but he didn’t retreat. “God above, Rachel, I love you so much. But it may not be so easy to be with me in a few months. A year, when I’m so addicted to you that I won’t be able to breathe if you’re not around.”
“Well, if that’s bad, then I’m an addict too. Instead of fighting that, here’s an idea. We’ll form a two-person support group. The next time you feel like you can’t resist me, I promise I will run. You’ll have to chase me, and I will not make it easy for you to catch me. Let’s try it now.”
She yanked on their joined hands and launched into his arms, pulling him down for a scorching kiss that he instantly responded to. She lifted her head for one fraction of a second and murmured, “Oops. I guess you’re too much for me to resist. I’m afraid I’m going to be a very bad influence on you.”
By way of an answer, he swept her up in his arms and carried her to the bedroom, where he rolled them together until she could hardly tell where he ended and she began. Which was perfect.
“I hope you’re planning to be a bad influence for a long time,” he advised her. “Because I kind of like it.”
“Kind of?” she sputtered. “You clearly don’t understand how truly wicked I can be.”
His eyebrow quirked, and it clearly said put your money where your mouth is.
So she kissed him and fell into being Evan Silva’s addiction with everything she had.
The team quit ReefCo on a sunny Monday, with incredibly fortuitous timing. It meant Evan could stay in bed with Rachel. And take a shower with her. Eat breakfast together. Then go back to bed. The lightness that filled his heart could only be described as pure joy, and he embraced it wholly as the best happy place on earth.
Rachel rolled toward him, resting her head on his crooked elbow like she often did when they laid in bed. It was close enough so she could see him without her glasses. But it was also close enough that he could kiss her whenever he felt like it, which worked out pretty well for him too.
“I like this lack of employment deal,” she remarked. “Maybe we can sell coconuts on the beach to unsuspecting tourists.”
Evan laughed and threaded his fingers through her hair, and he liked that too because she was always within reach. “I have a feeling you’d turn that into a million-dollar enterprise in nothing flat. But I’m not going to be unemployed for long. I’m going by Miralinda today to talk to Brayden Lucas about a job.”