Chapter 135
Azriel’s POV
I pulled her tight to me and just f*****g broke, “Thank you, baby girl. Thank you for being honest. I know I’m a f*****g a*****e and I’ve hurt you so bad and messed with your head and I don’t deserve you but please hang in there with me.
I’ll try. I’ll try to be what you need, try so f*****g hard.
Keep being honest, okay? You are everything to me, do you understand me? You’re more important than the family, the money, the power, the control, any of it. Be strong for me, baby. I need you to be strong. Don’t let me break you.
Please don’t let me break you.”
She clutched me what must’ve been as tight as she could, “I won’t. You’re worth loving, Azriel. You are worthy of real love and that’s what you are going to get from me, okay? And I’ll be everything you need, too, okay? I will love you and be yours forever. I won’t break.”
She wiped the tears from my cheeks with her fingers and put her lips to my chin.
“I’ll hold you to that,” I said, kissed her nose, and then we fell asleep locked together.
Claire’s POV
I meant it. I wanted him to know unconditional love. I think that’s what he needed. Why did I fall in love this man who had f****d with my head so much? It was a combination of things, maybe.
Maybe it was what he’d been through and that I thought my love could cure him. It must be unconditional if I was still willing to be in this at this point, right?
I told myself I was strong enough, that I could endure, for him, for myself.
I think feeling unconditional love, the love a mother can give, was a missing ingredient from his childhood, maybe because his Mom died so young and his father was so driven but such a dirty dog having all those different women around and no one to really raise Azriel properly, teach him the right morals.
Sure Rosita was sweet but obviously he lacked the maternal figure he needed.
I lacked it too, in the years between my Mom and Lilys mom, Rose but Rose had to
made up for it and Lily had been amazing, too, a lot better than my devious stepmother and a good for nothing father.
Was I f****d up as a result of what I’d been through with him? Maybe. No, probably.
But with the glimpses he’d shown me of who he was underneath what his father and Uncle had made him become, I wanted him. I wanted to help him see he could be who he was meant to be.
I’d been pushing away my dark thoughts, reaching for the light. The last few honeymoonish days had helped. It felt like we were gearing up for something big. It was like it was fortifying me for what was to come because I knew how things could
be. Yeah, there was dark.
This was a man who didn’t hesitate to kill his enemies. This was a man who had been rough with me, too rough with me. But this was a man who had also shown me that he loved me, that he’d keep me safe, that he’d risk his life for me.
I wanted him to feel loved.
I wanted my love to be what made him want to stay in the light.
If giving him justification made me f****d up, so be it. There were a lot of f****d up people in the world who had evolved because of what they’d been through. I wanted my happily ever after.
Would I get it with Azriel? I sure hoped so.
He’d told me when he first got me here that he looked forward to breaking my spirit. Now he was begging me to never let him break it. I sure hoped I could honor that wish of his.
When I woke up he was holding me close but he was awake, staring at the ceiling, looking like a tortured soul.
Sadness swept through me at his facial expression.
I was no stranger to coming to terms with having a f**k up father who put his own needs before his kids.
The two situations weren’t really the same but I still got it. I was still coming to terms, myself, with what I’d heard on that recording, admission that my Dad’s relationship with me was broken because of my mother’s death, and his selfish requests.
Things were already screwed with the father daughter thing so he’d might as well get his lifelong dream of being a wise guy out of it.
When I’d seen Azriels Uncle yesterday a part of me wanted to spit in his face, to demand answers. But another part of me just felt numb. I had been forced to face and feel so much in the past several weeks. I didn’t know how to categorize my feelings.
I just knew I had to put one foot in front of the other and move forward somehow. At least I had Azriel with me. He’d help me, he’d protect me. And I’d help him and I’d give him what he needed at the end of every hard day ahead of him.
“I’m calling Greg today. I have more questions for him.” He said without looking at me, aware I was awake and watching him.
I snuggled into his side and put my lips to his shoulder and started to trace the outlines of his tattoo with my fingertip.
“I’ll have him here this afternoon. You can decide if you want to talk to him or leave him to me.”
“Kay,” I said, not sure which option I’d choose. Azriel kissed me on the mouth and then kissed between my breasts, then my navel, then gave me a devilish grin on the way down farther.
s*x was a good distractor from our problems.
A very good distractor.