I was sitting on my couch, my knees pulled to my chest, a glass of untouched wine on the end table, my mind lost in thought, when I heard the bedroom door open.
I fought the urge to fly up off the couch.
“Pizza’s on the counter,” I called, keeping my eyes aimed at the wall. “I wasn’t sure what kind you guys would like so I got a few different—ooph.”
I was cut off when Porter’s hard body hit me. One of his arms hooked under my knees, the other wrapping around my back. And then the couch disappeared from beneath me.
“What the—”
“Shh!” he demanded.
“What are you doing?” I whisper-yelled, looping my arms around his neck to balance myself.
“Your apartment’s too small,” he rumbled, carrying me straight to the bathroom in the hallway.
“I’m working on getting a house. It’s just taking some time.”
“Mm,” he hummed, setting my ass on the bathroom vanity. Bending at the waist, he rested his hands on either side of me and got in my face, his piercing, blue eyes searching mine. “Please tell me you believe me when I say that I had nothing to do with Catherine taking your son.”
“I…uh…know. I heard your message.”
His gaze darkened. “You listen to all of it?”
I licked my lips and nodded. “I just got it last night. Brady blocked your number on my phone.”
“Right,” he mumbled.
“I’m sorr—”
“I had no fucking idea he was your son. You have to believe me or this is as far as we can ever go.”
My heart swelled. “I believe you.”
He eyed me warily and then warned, “No faking it, Charlotte.”
I leaned into him and brushed my lips with his. “I believe you, Porter.”
In one swift movement, he locked the bathroom door and flipped the lights off.
I gasped as the familiar darkness flooded the room. My whole body sagged, but my pulse quickened in anticipation.
Porter’s large frame moved toward me, his hips forcing my knees apart as he wedged his body between them. Gliding a hand into the back of my hair, he tucked my face into his neck. “Talk to me.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I lied, fisting the back of his shirt and nuzzling my cheek against his jaw, the most amazing calm of my life engulfing me.
Using my hair to turn my head, he swept his lips up my neck, and then his breath flittered across my skin as he whispered in my ear, “No questions. No judgments. No faking it. No apologies. Give it to me.”
A shiver traveled down my spine, and I swayed into him, our chests becoming flush.
And then I gave it to him. Everything I could never give anyone else.
“I think he hates me.”
No sooner than the words had cleared my lips, he followed it up with a confession of his own. “I’m drowning in that car all over again without him.”
My breath hitched, an apology burning on the tip of my tongue. But that wasn’t what Porter and I did in the darkness.
Turning my head, I brushed my lips with his. “He told me that I only loved Lucas, and Catherine only wanted him to replace Travis.” I paused to collect myself. “He thinks you were the only one who ever wanted him.”
His body turned to stone, but his head hung low. “Jesus.”
My throat became thick, and I was barely able to speak. “I love him. I swear I do. But he’s right. I want him to be Lucas.”
His fingers tensed in my hair, but the pain at my scalp did nothing to distract me from the anguish in my chest.
“God, it feels so filthy even saying it out loud. You have to know that I love him. Down to the core of my soul, but he’s like a stranger to me.” I tried to push off the counter, desperate for some space, but Porter moved in closer, blocking my retreat.
“He was a stranger to me once. Now, he is the core to my soul. He and Hannah. That’s my life. That love wasn’t ingrained into me at birth the way it was you, but it grew into a wildfire. And I don’t know how to turn it off. And I’m terrified the courts are going to ask me to do just that.”
“Oh God,” I breathed, hooking my legs around his hips and locking them at the ankle as if I could hug him tight enough to erase the pain.
His hand drifted down my back and then crept under the hem of my shirt, flesh to flesh. “Your turn, Charlotte.”
“I can’t give him to you.”
“I’ll never ask you to. But I won’t ever stop trying to get him back.”
My body locked up tight, panic blasting through my system. “W…what?”
He shook his head and pressed his lips to my temple. “There’s enough of him for both of us. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. He’s your son. But I’m begging you not to forget that he’s mine too.”
Closing my eyes, even though the room was already pitch-black, I whispered, “I have no idea what I’m doing. These should be the happiest days of my life, and I can’t stop crying because I know he’s hurting.”
His head came up, and while I couldn’t see him, I could feel his blue stare burning into me. “You’re hurting too.”
It wasn’t a question.
It wasn’t an accusation.
It also wasn’t a lie.
“We’re all hurting,” I admitted, clinging to his shoulders.
“Not tonight,” he whispered. “Tonight, he’s happy. Tonight, I’m here with you. Tonight, we’re together. Tonight, nothing outside this apartment matters. Tonight, your son sleeps safely in your bed. Tonight, my kids sleep soundly for the first time in a week. And, tonight, we can share the darkness.”
My mind drifted back to only a few weeks earlier, the first time Porter had taken me to the confessional in the darkness. It was a night I’d never forget because it was the first time I’d ever given myself to someone else. Not physically, though that had happened too. But emotionally. I’d offered him my deepest, darkest secrets. And he’d taken them, devoured them, and made them his own. He’d made the darkness a beautiful place filled with understanding and acceptance.
Porter was like that. Everything was easier with him
Everything except losing him.
So I asked him the same question he’d asked me that first night together. “What’s going to happen when we turn on the lights?”
“Just don’t let go and it won’t matter.”
“How are we going to do this? Technically, Porter, you’re breaking the law by even being here. The police—”
“I had nothing to do with the kidnapping,” he growled.
“I know! And I believe you. But the police are still investigating you. You end up in jail for breaking the protection order, it’s not going to help anyone.”
“So we lay low for a few weeks. But, damn it, Charlotte, we will find a way to make this work. This is my life. This is your life. This is his life. And her life. This is our life and you know it. We’ll figure out the details later, but for now, all I need from you is a promise that we are going to do this. No matter what. We’re in this together.”
My heart soared higher than I ever thought possible. Porter had the most amazing knack of getting into my subconscious and untying the knots I so often made out of obstacles. With him, my thoughts weren’t jumbled and my fears weren’t roadblocks.
“God, I missed you,” I breathed, giving him my very last confession.
“Does that mean you’re with me?”
“Yeah, baby. I’m with you.”
“And we’re going to do this, right?”
“Yeah. We’re going to do this.”
And then Porter gave me his last confession, only his was a little more tangible.
His lips crashed down on mine, our mouths opening and our tongues tangling, needy and desperate.
His lips felt like velvet, smooth even as they were rough and demanding. And, with his every touch, a week’s worth of panic and anxiety ebbed from my system. In its absence, every nerve ending in my body came alive, desire filling me.
I tugged at the bottom of his shirt, frantic to feel more of him—all of him.
He broke the kiss long enough to snatch it over his head, mine meeting the same fate less than a second later.
His mouth once again covered mine, and he yanked my bra down, both of my breasts popping free of the cups. His dexterous fingers immediately found my nipples, plucking and rolling, sending sparks to my clit.
“Yes,” I breathed, falling back on the sink until my shoulders hit the cold mirror.
Using my legs to force him forward, I rolled my hips against his, finding glorious friction against his hard length hidden behind his zipper.
“Fuck,” he ground out, releasing my breasts and moving his hands down to my core. His fingers dipped into my yoga pants, swept my panties to the side, and then pressed in deep.
My back arched and my ass slipped off the vanity, but Porter held me in place with an arm hooked under my hips.
“Keep going,” he encouraged in a jagged voice as I began working myself against his hand. His thumb dropped to my clit, drawing slow circles as his fingers curled inside me. “Come on, sweetheart. Give it to me,” he urged before hunching over to suck my nipple into his mouth.
The combination was too much, beautiful and agonizing at the same time. My nerve endings became overloaded with sensations to the point I couldn’t focus anymore, but Porter never slowed.
His fingers twisted.
His tongue swirled.
His thumb circled.
“Porter,” I cried, my release tearing through me.
His head popped up, sealing over my mouth as he swallowed my moans until I sagged in his arms.
And then…he was gone.
My pants were ripped down my legs, and the sound of his zipper played the harmony to my labored breathing.
And then…he was everywhere.
His mouth came back to mine, his hand guided his thick shaft to my entrance, and his strong body surged forward as he drove inside me.
I clung to his shoulders as he dragged me to the edge of the counter, the lip of it biting into my ass as his hips began a relentless rhythm that lit the fuse on yet another orgasm.
“Oh God,” I moaned as he planted himself at the hilt.
“Shh,” he ordered, pressing up onto his toes to change the angle, as if he could possibly get deeper. “You have to be quiet.”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me, yet he somehow understood.
He resumed his tortuous rhythm, driving into me in the hunt for his own release. “Fuck, Charlotte,” he groaned, his breaths coming quicker, his shaft swelling inside me.
He was close.
I was closer.
Circling my hips, I ground against him. “Baby,” I called in a whisper.
“I’m right here, Charlotte,” he swore. “Always.”
My release climbed higher until I wasn’t sure I could hold on any longer, and when I felt Porter step off the edge, I eagerly followed him over.
He folded forward, burying his face in my neck, his hips never faltering as we rode our orgasms out together.
Lazily, I trailed my fingertips up and down his back, his large frame hovering over me, both of us panting.
“Jesus,” he breathed.
I smiled.
Righting himself, he gripped my hips so I didn’t teeter off the edge of the counter and grumbled, “Why is there never a fucking bed in the darkness?”
There was no way I could have stopped the loud bubble of laughter that came from my throat.
His shoulders shook as he joined me. Cupping the back of my neck, he pressed his smiling lips to mine in a kiss that meant more to me than he would ever be able to comprehend. Sans the incredible sex that had preceded it, there was nothing special about that kiss.
But maybe that was what made it so perfect.
It was easy, and it made the overwhelming world outside my apartment feel easy too.
“Close your eyes. I’m gonna turn on the lights,” he whispered.
My stomach sank, and I gripped his shoulders tight. “Nothing’s going to change when you do, right?”
He caught my hand and folded his around it, intertwining our fingers before bringing it to his lips. “Everything’s going to change, Charlotte. And I swear to you, no matter what happens, we’re going to do that together, okay?”
My nose began to sting. Fucking Porter and his hand holding.
God, I loved it so much.
“Okay, baby. Turn on the lights.”
“I didn’t know!” I defended.
Porter smirked across the kitchen, his hip propped against the counter and his long legs crossed at the ankle. “Seven?”
“I didn’t know!” I repeated.
After we’d cleaned up, which was surprisingly convenient when you have sex in the bathroom, we’d gotten dressed and begrudgingly left our private sanctuary. I hadn’t been eating much over the last few days, and with Porter securely holding my hand, making my mind blessedly quiet, food had become a priority. On the way to the kitchen, I’d stopped at the bedroom door, cracking it open to peer in at Travis, as I had done so many times over the last few days. Every time I’d done it before, half of me had expected him not to be there. That fear had become a reality only hours earlier, after he’d climbed out the window in an attempt to escape me.
But that escape had become the precipice that had brought Porter back to us.
“Seven though?” he teased, lifting a piece of pizza to his mouth.
I glared at him, all the while smiling on the inside. “Well, he likes mushrooms.” I waved my hand at one box before amending, “Sometimes, anyway.” I swung my hand toward another box. “But then I wasn’t sure about Hannah, but all kids like cheese, right?”
He swallowed a bite and washed it down with beer before saying, “So that’s two. You got five more to go.”
I took a sip of my wine. Not the warm one from the end table. Porter had poured me a new glass. “Well, I figured, with you being a grown man, you’d probably want yours to be a little heartier. I’m sorry to say they didn’t have your precious Wagyu on the menu, but I got you all the other meats.”
He smiled wide and counted off, “Three,” before taking another bite.
“Seriously, Porter?” I huffed, not even the least bit annoyed. “Fine. I like supreme, but I remembered you picking the onions out of your salad that night at The Porterhouse, so I got one with onions and one without in case you wanted a piece of mine.”
He lifted three fingers in the air and, one by one, flipped up two more to show five. “For the record, I like onions, but you didn’t order onions that night, and I had high hopes of my mouth being on yours by the end of the evening, so I made the sacrifice in the name of onion breath.” He winked. “Two more.”
My stomach got all warm and fluttery at the thought of our first kinda-sorta kiss. He’d only brushed his lips with mine, and even before I had known how perfect his mouth truly was, I still would have killed for more. He could have eaten a field of onions and I wouldn’t have cared.
Rolling my eyes, I finished with, “Then I thought maybe Travis wouldn’t like mushrooms, so I got sausage. Everyone likes sausage. Except…then I thought maybe it was ground beef that everyone liked.” I shrugged. “So I ordered both. There. Are you happy now?”
He set the rest of his crust aside and prowled over to me. “Happy to be standing here, surrounded by seven pizzas that had to have cost you at least a hundred bucks and are now more than likely going to go to waste? No.” His hand came up to my face, his thumb trailing back and forth across my cheek. “Happy to be standing here, listening to you pretend to be annoyed with me while rambling on about ordering at least a hundred bucks in pizza because you weren’t sure what kind we would like, but you knew I needed that time alone with Travis as much as he needed it with me, and you didn’t want to interrupt to ask what kind of toppings we liked on our pizza and, instead, just ordered the left side of the menu? Yeah. Charlotte. I’m really fucking happy.”
I bit my bottom lip. “It was only seventy dollars. I had a coupon.”
A wide, breathtaking smile split his face. “Beautiful and thrifty. I knew I was falling in love with you for a reason.”
“Porter,” I whispered, my whole body warming. “Don’t say you love me.”
His hands went to my hips where he tugged me against him. “I didn’t say I love you. I said I was falling in love with you. And it has nothing to do with pizza and everything to do with the fact that you called me tonight.”
“He needed you.”
“You needed me too, Charlotte. And believe me, that is not something I take lightly. Because I really fucking needed you too. You are the strongest woman I have ever met. You’ve lived through hell, and I know you think you were barely surviving, and maybe some days you were, but you kept holding on when others would have let go. You never needed me to stop the world for you. You simply needed someone to accept you for who you were. But, tonight, after a week that’s shaved years off my life and left me questioning everything I’ve ever known, you stopped it for me. And you stopped it for Travis too. I don’t know what’s going to happen when the sun comes up tomorrow. And I don’t know what the judge is going to say in two weeks. But because of you, I have tonight. So yeah, Charlotte. My last confession of the night is that I’ve been falling in love with you since the first day I met you.” He settled his hands on either side of my face and bent at the knees so we were eye to eye. “And, sweetheart, you have to know that, with a woman like you, it’s a really short trip.”
“Don’t say that,” I pleaded, but my heart was swelling.
He tipped his forehead down until it was resting on mine. “We can pretend if you want. But it’s still true.”
“We still have a long way to go, Porter. Don’t complicate this any more than it already is.”
Smirking, he asked, “Sweetheart, our road has never been smooth. Not for a single second since you brought me that fucking pickle jar at the spring fling. And yet you think me loving you is going to change when the road gets bumpy?”
“It could.”
“It won’t.”
“But it could, and I think the two of us have suffered enough heartbreak to last a lifetime. Don’t add this to the list.”
“Charlotte, your name had been carved on the top of that list for over a month.” He sucked in a deep breath, released me, and strolled back over to the counter, where he resumed his position. Lifting a piece of supreme pizza (with onions) out of the box, he smiled. “But, if this is what you need, I’ll give it to you. Just let me know when you’re done pretending.”
“I’m not pretending,” I lied. I absolutely was. It was what I did best.
I wasn’t ready to absorb what he was saying. Okay, that wasn’t true. I wasn’t ready to set myself up for disappointment again. All good things came to an end eventually. Even love. Not that I knew. The only person I’d ever truly loved had gone missing for ten years and now hated me.
“It’s just—”
“Pepperoni,” he interrupted, waving a slice of pizza in my direction.
“What?”
“One pepperoni and one whatever the hell you want. I’ll eat either. Hannah likes cheese, but Travis likes pepperoni, so I pick them off for her when she isn’t looking and voila: instant cheese pizza. That’s what you order in the future.”
I swallowed hard, unsure whether to accept the out he’d just offered me by changing the subject. But the fact that he was offering me the out meant everything.
So much so that I smiled at him and said, “I’m falling in love with you too. But, with a man like you, it’s a very long trip. I’m still not completely convinced you aren’t a serial killer.”
Porter smiled. “You’re such a liar.”
“I speak nothing but the truth.”
He cocked his head to the side, a mischievous glint shining in his eyes. “Oh yeah? Nothing but the truth?”
I made a show of crossing my heart.
“Okay, then. How many times have you listened to my voicemail?”
Oh shit. “Your voicemail?” I played stupid and got busy packing up the smorgasbord of leftover pizzas.
“You know, the one when I told you I loved you, like, a week ago. The one you confessed to only getting last night.” His arrogant smile stretched wider. “The one you are now pretending you don’t know about. And the one, I have no doubt, you listened to at least two dozen times because you love me too. And you missed me, most especially my sexy body.”
I barked a laugh. “Wow. You are quite full of yourself tonight, aren’t you?”
His heat hit my back, and his arms looped around my stomach. “No. I’m right.”
“I listened to it once,” I lied, resting my hands on top of his.
He chuckled and dipped low to press his lips to my neck.
My head lolled to the side to give him more room as he peppered kisses up to my ear.
“What happened to the truth?” he teased before nipping at my earlobe.
I purred, tracing my hand up his strong shoulders and into the back of his hair. “It got lost with your humility.”
His chuckle turned into a full-blown laugh.
And then, as his hand slipped over my breast, mine turned into a full-blown moan.
Moments later, after a quick check to make sure the kids were still asleep, it turned into a full-blown repeat performance in the bathroom.
Only, this time, we left the lights on.