down and walks over to the window in his bedroom, lifting the giant frame and sliding it open so the breeze can float in.
We haven’t spoken much since leaving New York. Casey had left once I finally looked away from Dax. And afterward, I went inside and packed while he sat chatting quietly to my family in the kitchen. I told him I was okay and to leave me to do it alone. But now I’m not sure that was the best idea I’ve ever had. It was obvious from the way they all fell silent when I appeared that they were talking about me.
The family fuck up, like usual.
Dax was the only one who didn’t give me a sad smile. Instead, he stood and asked if I was ready, his eyes fixed on mine, gentle reassurance in them as I nodded back, so grateful for him being there. I think I would have collapsed on the sidewalk when I saw Casey if it weren’t for Dax.
The flight home was quiet. It was a red eye, so most passengers slept. But I couldn’t, no matter how hard I tried. Dax chose a horror movie from the in-flight movies and held me in his arms as he watched it with me. He just held me and didn’t try to sleep himself, even though I remember he said he has a meeting to go to today.
“Let’s take a shower. Then we can get some rest.” He walks over to me, his lips finding the skin beneath my ear and kissing me softly.
“Don’t you have work?” I wrap my arms around him, standing on my tiptoes to bury my face in the crook of his neck. He smells so good. Warm and strong, and a little spicy… just Dax.
“I did. But it can wait. I want to stay with you.”
“Okay. A shower sounds—”
The loud ping of a new message on my phone comes from inside my bag, and I let go of Dax and retrieve it.
“It’s Casey.”
My stomach drops as I scan her words. More apologies. More pleading. More attempts at trying to make me think about our years of friendship and how it’s worth saving.
I can’t. I just can’t.
It pings again in my hand.
Casey: I hope in time, you can forgive me.
Time? Fucking time?
An ear-piercing scream leaves me as I stride over to the open window and hurl my phone out of it. I clutch onto the window frame with both hands as it crashes to the driveway below and smashes. Pieces fly off in all directions, their jagged edges catching the light as it splinters.
Broken beyond repair.
Dax wraps his arms around me from behind, pressing his lips to the top of my shoulder. “It’ll all work out. You’re okay.”
I sag back against his chest, content to be held. Content to let the calm only he can create inside me, wash over me, like the breeze from outside.
I stare outside at what used to be my phone. “Shit.” I screw my face up. “I told Mom I’d call her when we got back.”
“You can use mine. I’ve got your mom’s number stored in it already.”
I nod, holding in a sob as Dax tightens his hold on me.
“Why do I feel like you know me better than I know myself, Dax Silver?” I sniff sadly. “I’m the villain of this story. I don’t deserve the happily ever after. My family all look at me like I’m going to lose my mind any minute. Sometimes they look at me like I already have.”
“That’s not what they’re thinking. Trust me. They love you. They want you to be happy. That’s all. They want you to be happy and safe. The same as I do. And you’re no villain, Rose. You’re the stitching in the spine that holds it all together. You’re holding me together.”
My laugh is empty as I shake my head. “How’d you figure that? Your life was simpler before I arrived.”
He kisses my shoulder, his lips warm against my skin. “My life’s never been simple. And if not having you meant it would be, then I’d rather live a thousand lives of turmoil banished to purgatory instead.”
“Sounds fun.”
Dax chuckles, then spins me in his arms. “Shower, Sunbeam. Then I’m taking you to bed.”
“Eyes,” Dax instructs as my eyelids flutter closed.
I force them open and gaze back at him as he thrusts inside me. We’ve spent the day in bed together and still didn’t get a minute of sleep. Dax has been taking care of me over and over again. I swear he thinks he needs to wear me out to the point of exhaustion in order for me to sleep, after I struggled so much on the plane.
“I can’t,” I murmur.
“You can. Just one more. Come for me one more time.”
He alters the angle he’s sliding inside me so that his piercing drags over my G-spot. I shudder as I struggle to keep my eyes open and on him. I’ve lost count of how many times he’s made me come. The last one was only a few minutes ago. I need a rest, I need—
“I want you to come before I do, Sunbeam.”
He kisses me over my shoulder, sliding his tongue inside my mouth and lifting my hips a bit more so he can thrust into me deeper from behind.
“Fuck, you’re so perfect.” He pushes deep, his balls hitting against me as he strokes my clit with his other hand.
I arch back against him, my mouth dropping open as the familiar waves crash through me and I come with a rush of wetness.
“Good girl.” He takes my lips in a searing kiss as he growls out his release deep inside me.
I continue coming around him in deep, shuddering pulses as he fills me, groaning into my mouth and telling me how special I am.
How perfect.
Because to him, I am. And it’s the only time I’ve ever believed it.
Dax wouldn’t lie to me.
He’s the one person I trust.
Eventually we fall asleep. Only after Dax has made love to me all day long and fed me a delicious meal. Jasmin stocked the fridge up while we were away. I swear I love her more every day. I didn’t realize just how much I needed to eat. The last thing I ate was at Vienna’s. When I saw Gareth… and then Casey.
I frown into the cool pillowcase as I wake up. I don’t even get more than a split second’s reprieve before the memories of the last few days crash into me at full speed.
“You okay?” Dax pulls my back against his chest.
“Do you have some sixth sense or something? I just woke up.”
He chuckles, his lips trailing kisses up toward my ear, which make my nipples pebble into aching peaks.
“Yeah, maybe I do with you. Or maybe I was just watching you sleep and thinking about how I want to wake up like this every day.”
I bite my lip and gaze over my shoulder at him. His eyes glitter back at me before he takes my lips in a tender kiss that sends butterflies racing inside my stomach.
How does he do it? Disperse those memories that were clawing at me mere seconds ago, and replace them with this… this warmth and calmness? This feeling of being exactly where I am supposed to be.
“How was your sleep?” His eyes stay on my lips and he bites his bottom lip as his morning erection grazes the back of my thigh.
“It was well needed.” I smile as the final memory fades, until all I see is last night, and the way he looked at me as he slid inside me with my legs draped over his shoulders. I swear he felt deeper than ever in that position. “I was all sexed out.”
He groans, sending a vibration over my skin. “That’s what I like to hear. My girl, all sexed out and satisfied.”
“Did I say satisfied?”
I squeal as he bites my neck and presses the weeping head of his cock against me. He holds me still, one strong arm wrapping around my waist as the other slips between my legs, and he sinks two fingers inside me. I’m already wet, always so aroused around him.
I moan loudly as he swirls his fingers inside me and he whispers in my ear about what a good girl I am for being so ready for him, reminding me that I belong to him. Because if these past few weeks together have taught me anything, it’s that Dax owns my pleasure. I hand it over to him willingly every single time. I was always good at pleasuring myself. It’s all I ever had, apart from that one forgettable experience with Gareth. But even my best efforts are nothing compared to the orgasms Dax gives me. It really is like I told him last night—he knows me better than I know myself.
I moan again, grinding onto his fingers, as a rush of wetness seeps from me, coating his palm.
“See, these sounds you make? They don’t sound like someone who isn’t satisfied.”
I suck in a breath as he lifts my hips and replaces his fingers with his cock, pushing inside me slowly at the same time as he dips his nose into my hair and groans. “Fuck, I love the way you feel wrapped around my cock.”
I turn my head, desperately seeking out his lips. He finds them, kissing me deeply as he increases his pace, fucking me with a steady dominance that has me gasping against his lips. He angles my hips upward, making me feel so deliciously full of him that I cry out his name as we both come together in one hot, frenzied release.
“Tell me again that you’re not satisfied,” he pants into my shoulder as my orgasm continues on around him, clenching around him and milking every last drop from his body in desperation.
He groans, pressing his fingertips to my clit and drawing a second peak from me, extending my orgasm until I’m grasping at his hand to force it away because I’m too damn sensitive to take anymore.
“Fine,” I gasp as his hand stays firmly in place, stroking me.
“Just fine?” The smirk in his voice makes me want to turn around and smack him. But I can’t, because his annoyingly skilled fingers are still turning me inside out with pleasure. He rolls his hips at the same so that his piercing drags over my most sensitive spot inside, and I almost lose my eyes to the back of my head.
“O… kay,” I pant, screwing my face up as my entire body shakes and a bead of sweat runs between my breasts. “You satisfy me. I’m stupidly…” Gasp… “Completely…” Gasp… “Satisfied.”
I swear I feel Dax’s smile against my skin as I come again, so hard that my vision blurs and he has to pull me back against his chest to steady me because my head is spinning.
He holds me close, one arm still wrapped around my waist as he kisses my neck and strokes my hip with his other hand until I return to earth and gain control of my body again.
We lie together in silence for a while, the breeze from the open window blowing the long white voiles around his four-poster bed so that they dance around us gently like sails. Dax stays inside me, and I sink back into his chest and sigh at how perfect time with him is.
Time.
“I had a dream.”
His eyes soften, and he pulls out, turning me fully so I’m laid on my back beneath him. “Tell me.”
I trace my fingertips over the bird on his neck. “It was that same dream I told you about by the fire.”
“Where you’re trying to lock the door, but the key just keeps turning?”
I bite my lip and nod, warmth, and something else, filling my chest at the fact that he remembered it.
“Only this time, I didn’t wake up when it got to the other side.” I take a deep breath. “It was vines. Vines with thorns all over. They pushed through the door and were wrapping themselves around me. Scratching me. I was so scared I froze. But then I heard myself tell them to go away. That they weren’t welcome. I sounded so calm. So in control.”
“Then what happened?” Dax searches my face as I smile at the bird, dancing my fingertips over its wing.
“Then they shrank back. They went back through the door and disappeared.”
“Hey,” Dax coaxes softly. “You did that. You are the one in control.”
I drop my eyes to the bird and back up, biting my lip shyly. “I never used to feel it. And seeing Gareth and Casey these past few days… it threw me. I can’t deny it didn’t. But even after all that, I still feel better than I did before I came here.” I take a deep breath, lifting my eyes. “It’s you, Dax. You’ve helped me.”
“I’ve done nothing.” The lines at the corners of his eyes deepen with his smile. “It’s all you. You allowed yourself to believe that you had nothing to give, that the world got the worst of you. But I’ve always seen your best. That’s always been who you are.”
“And I see your best, Dax Silver,” I muse as I trace my fingers down to his chest and around the compass that sits over his heart.
“Now that’s a trick of the light. It’s all how you choose to see it.”
“Don’t.” I continue to trace the hands of the compass that point west. “Don’t believe you haven’t got goodness in you too, Dax. I feel it.” I rest my palm over his heart and splay my fingers out. “Right in here.”
He takes my hand, bringing it to his lips. “Did I tell you you’re beautiful, Sunbeam?”
“Like a million times.” He laughs as I stroke his lips.
“Will you tell me something else?”
“Like what?” He slides his mouth to my wrist and kisses my pulse.
“Why do you call me Sunbeam?”
He looks into my eyes for what feels like forever before dropping my hand and reaching for his phone. Disappointment pulls down inside me, making my chest heavy as he stays silent.
He frowns as he looks at my face, then wraps one arm around me and pulls me into his side. I need to get used to the fact that this is just the way it is with him. He has secrets. Where he goes when he leaves the estate. The ‘other world’ he’s mentioned that he doesn’t want me tangled up in. No matter how deep into my scars I let Dax see, maybe he will never let me see his.
He swipes into his photographs and brings up an album. “Here.” He hands the phone to me.
The screen is filled with the image of the most breathtaking sunset, the sky a mix of pinks, brighter than I’ve ever seen.
“Did you take this?” I tilt my face up to him.
“Keep going.” He inhales deeply, his eyes locked on his phone as I turn and swipe.
Image after image of beautiful sunsets fill the screen.
“When we were kids, Mom used to tell me and Jasmin that people who died found ways to tell you they loved you. She told us that she would make the sunsets brighter on the days we needed reminding.”
“So all these photos—?”
“Were the days I felt like she was up there.” A bittersweet smile spreads across his lips before I steal it away with a kiss.
“That’s why the compass points west, for the sunset.” I press my forehead to his, my heart swelling with the depth of feelings I have for him.
“Yeah. It’s the first one I got after she died.” He snakes a hand around the back of my neck as I sink into him. “I knew on the days I saw those bright sunbeams that there’s always something worth being grateful for.”
“Sunbeams.”
“Yeah.” His eyes shine. Then he presses his lips to mine with a whisper, “Sunbeams.”
