Chapter 280: Damning the Consequences
Jacob~
I’d been dying to kiss her again. I swear on my immortality, every time she looked at me with those big emerald eyes, my chest ached with the force of it. Easter... my little spring blossom. The woman I swore to protect with every breath in my lungs – the same woman I’d been forced to erase from my world for her own safety.
It was fine that she didn’t remember. Not the nights she curled up in my arms, trembling from nightmares even I couldn’t chase away. Not the mornings she nearly burned the kitchen down making pancakes, her laughter ringing out as the smoke alarm screamed. Not even the promises I breathed against her lips between hungry, stolen kisses under the blanket after our first night tangled together.
I had taken all those memories from her. Torn them from her mind with my own hands, ripped my presence from her life so thoroughly she wouldn’t even ache for what she’d lost. I did it to keep her and her children alive. I did it because I loved her.
But then Brandon happened. That scrawny little classmate with too-slick hair and eyes that roamed over her body like she was his for the taking. When I saw him hovering around her today, smiling like he’d already unwrapped her in his head, something snapped inside me.
Jealousy wasn’t a strong enough word for what I felt. Rage coursed through me like fire in my veins, burning away reason. I didn’t care about the consequences. I didn’t care if damning myself meant damning her too. All I knew was that I needed to touch her. To taste her again, even if it was just one last time before fate tore her away from me once more.
And so, here I was – kneeling before her in my barely furnished living room, my fingers pressed into the soft flesh of her calf. Her skin was warm under my touch, trembling slightly as if she could feel every sinful thought racing through my mind.
"Jacob..." Her voice was so small, so unsure, it nearly broke me. She tried to pull her leg back, but I held it firmly, massaging up to her swollen ankle.
"Shh," I murmured, not trusting my voice with the words threatening to spill out. Words like I love you and I’m sorry I ever let you go and please let me keep you this time. Words I didn’t have the right to speak.
I looked up into her eyes. Freckles dusted across her nose, her cheeks blooming with that natural pink blush that made her look like she’d just stepped out of a fairytale. My little fairytale girl, bruised by life but still so damn beautiful it hurt to breathe.
"You deserve to be taken care of, Easter," I said softly, my thumb brushing a circle into her calf.
Her lips parted, trembling. "Why are you doing this...?" Her eyes searched mine, wide and vulnerable, desperate for an answer I couldn’t give.