CHAPTER 71
KILLIAN’S POV
+25 BONUS
I slammed the bathroom door behind me, too pissed off to even pretend to be calm. My jaw was tight, my chest heaving. I couldn’t believe Liana. After everything I’ve done for her, she still kept throwing Cynthia in my face like I hadn’t made it crystal clear that Cynthia meant nothing to me. Like I hadn’t ruined every tie, every connection, just to have her.
It was as if she wanted to hurt me on purpose. Like she was so fucking scared of accepting that someone could actually love her this much, she had to push me away at every chance she got. And maybe I deserved the way she looked at me sometimes, but fuck, didn’t she see it? Didn’t she feel it? I chose her. I will always choose her.
I turned the tap on and splashed some water over my face, breathing hard, trying to cool down, but I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Her voice. Her tears. Her moans. That look in her eyes when I pushed her too far, the way her body gave in even when her mouth fought me. She didn’t mean what she said. She couldn’t have. The way she broke, the way she clung to me, it wasn’t fake. It couldn’t be.
I looked down.
My cock was hard again. Stiff. Angry. Still aching.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath.
I didn’t want to go back to her room and take her like that again. Not when she was still trying to figure shit out in her head. Not when I knew she was already overwhelmed. I didn’t want to be that guy.
But I was still so fucking hard it hurt.
I shut the small bathroom door and grabbed myself, stroking with the kind of frustrated pressure that should’ve been enough. But it wasn’t. It never fucking was. Not when it came to her. It felt like cheating myself, like punishing my body with something fake while all it wanted, what I wanted, was her. Only her. And she didn’t even realize it.
When it didn’t work, I cursed again, turned the knob to freezing, and forced myself under the cold water. My teeth gritted while the icy water ran down my back, my muscles tensing as I tried to kill the heat inside me.
Eventually, my body calmed. My cock softened. My head felt a little clearer.
I grabbed a towel, wrapped it around my waist, and stepped back into the room.
She was still there.
Curled up in a corner of her small bed, turned away from me. Her knees were tucked in like she was trying to disappear. She didn’t even look up when I walked out.
My heart twisted.
I wanted to yell at her. Shake her. Pull her against me and make her feel everything I was feeling. But I didn’t.
I just walked to my pile of clothes, started getting dressed slowly. Every now and then, I caught myself glancing at her, wondering what the fuck was going through her head. Wondering if she knew what she was doing to me.
When I was done, I walked over to her.
She didn’t budge.
1/4
71
+25 BONUS
“Come on,” I said quietly. “You need to wash up.”
She still didn’t move.
I sighed, bent down, and tried to lift her.
“Leave me, you pervert!” she snapped, slapping at my arms, but her slap was weak. Barely a tap.
“You’re sticky and covered in sweat. I’m not leaving you like this. You’ll feel worse,” I said, lifting her up in one clean move despite her protests.
She struggled a bit, but it wasn’t real. Not really. Her fists weren’t even clenched properly. She didn’t scream. She didn’t even kick.
I walked her straight to the bathroom and gently set her down inside the tub.
“Wash up,” I told her, my voice firm. “Or I swear I’ll help you do it.”
She turned her head away.
I stared for one second too long. Her legs were parted just slightly, her skin glistening where I’d sucked on earlier. My eyes dropped, just for
a moment, to that small seductive thigh that still had my fingerprints on it.
“Fuck,” I muttered, clearing my throat roughly and spinning away like it burned.
I stepped out, shut the door, and leaned my back against it for a second, breathing hard.
God, I loved her. I loved her so fucking much it was killing me.
She didn’t even know. She didn’t fucking know what it was doing to me that she kept rejecting me, kept acting like I was temporary. Like I hadn’t torn my whole damn life apart just to be with her.
I pushed off the door and walked out of her room, silently praying to every fucking moon in the sky that I wouldn’t walk back in there and do something I’d regret just to feel her again.
I found myself walking slowly toward Ryan’s little room. I stood outside his door for a moment and knocked gently.
“Who’s there?” his small voice came, so sweet and innocent it made something in my chest twist hard.
I cleared my throat and said, “It’s me,” before pushing the door open slowly.
Ryan was seated on the floor, legs crossed, completely lost in his own world as he played with that superhero toy I got him earlier. He didn’t even look up.
“Hey, buddy,” I called out softly.
“Daddy,” he answered with a little smile, still focused on the toy, making little fighting noises and sound effects with his mouth like he always did when he was imagining a full–blown battle scene.
I moved closer and sat beside him, watching him play, and for a moment I just stared at him, completely in awe. This was my son. My actual son. And the more I looked at him, the more I saw myself. It was like looking into a mirror from years ago. The way his nose scrunched up when he concentrated, the way his brows furrowed slightly even when he was happy, the exact same way mine did. He didn’t look anything like Liana, which was strange but also beautiful. He was mine.
2/4
71
+25 BONUS
I reached out and took his tiny hand in mine, gently lifting it and placing a kiss on his soft knuckles. And before I even realized it, a tear slipped down from the corner of my eye.
Ryan looked up instantly. “Daddy, why are you crying?”
I wiped my face quickly and ruffled his hair. “It’s nothing, buddy. Nothing.”
But that was a lie. It wasn’t nothing. It was everything.
Because I remembered the day five years ago when my doctor sat me down and told me I wouldn’t be able to have children. That something had gone wrong, some infection I never even knew about that had scarred me permanently. I remembered sitting there in silence, not even reacting, because the pain was so much it just froze
- me.
I hadn’t told anyone. Not my mother. Not even Logan or Steve. No one. I couldn’t even speak about it. It was too painful. Like admitting it out loud would make it more real. So I buried it, locked it up deep, and tried to move on like it didn’t matter. Like I didn’t need to be a father.
But I did. God, I did.
So when I found out that Liana had a child, my child, from that night we shared seven years ago, I thought I was hallucinating. I thought it was some sick trick the universe was playing on me. But it was real. He was real. Ryan was mine. and every day since, I’ve thanked the gods that Liana didn’t abort the pregnancy. That despite how much of an asshole I was back then, she kept him. She carried him. She gave birth to him. She raised him. and she gave me the one thing I thought I would never, ever have.
I pulled Ryan into my arms and kissed his head.
“I love you, Daddy,” he whispered as he hugged me back.
and it broke me.
“I love you too, little man. More than anything.‘
My eyes stung, but I refused to cry again in front of him.
Liana didn’t understand. She didn’t see it yet. She thought Cynthia was better. She thought she wasn’t enough. She thought I still wanted Cynthia. That I regretted choosing her. But what she didn’t know was that I would choose her a thousand times over. That if I had to kill everyone in this world just to keep her beside me, I would. She didn’t know that every time she pushed me away, it made me more desperate to pull her closer.
She was mine. In every way. She had always been mine. From the moment I touched her. From the moment I saw her eyes light up that night. From the second she moaned my name like I was the only man that ever existed.
She didn’t understand what she meant to me.
She gave me Ryan. She gave me life. She gave me something I thought I would never have. That woman, my mate, my love, my pain, she was everything.
I looked down at Ryan who was now back to playing with his toy on the floor. I wanted to be there for him. I wanted to be the father he deserved. I wanted to watch him‘ grow, teach him how to ride a bike, scold him when he breaks a vase, take him to school, help him with his homework, hold him when he’s crying over his first heartbreak. I wanted to be there for all of it.
And I wanted her.
Even if she didn’t love me back yet, I would love her enough for both of us.
3/4
71
My love was enough.
And leaving her wasn’t a fucking option. Never was. and never will be.
+25 BONUS
