Chapter 248
(TYLER)
Sasha and I retire up there quickly, and I decide to take a shower.
Sasha, when I come out, has stripped naked apart from his bandages, which I’m so used to seeing on him these days that I barely even notice them. I concentrate instead on the movement of the muscles in his ass and thighs as he prowls the bedroom.
Sasha has been thinking, based on his bunched-up brows and tight lips.
“Everything okay?” I ask casually, dropping my towel.
He glances up, then does a double take at the sight of my ass as I look over my shoulder at him. Good to know I’m still a distraction for him. i don’t know why, but it makes my heart leap.
There was a time when I worried he might tire of this particular ass, glorious though it is. that he would someday outgrow it and grow disinterested, and that he’d then be on his way to outsource another omega like he used to back in the day. Sasha had quite the reputation in his younger years. He doesn’t have that playboy reputation for nothing—kissing omegas and making them cry, that was Sasha Adonis in his early twenties, running around town, taking tail for a night and then disappearing in the morning.
I thought he would do the same to me, after all, that first night. But during our marriage, even in the rockiest parts of it, our desire for each other has only grown. Developed. Never waned. Our sexual interludes might not occur two or three times a night like in the early days, but they’ve only become more intense.
Every time we make love, we become more connected. More one.
“What are you thinking about?” Sasha asks.
“Us.” He raises an eyebrow. “Where we’ve come from,” I add. “And… where we’re going p>
With a smile, Sasha holds out his hand and I cross the room to take it. “Where do you want to go p>
I stretch up to kiss his cheek. “Wherever you are, that’s where I am, too.” He hugs me carefully, a faint ashy fug still caught in his hair as it falls across my face. It’s longer than he normally wears it, and I kind of like the look it gives him.
“I’m glad to hear that,” he says. “So once we get the mansion into shape, you’ll be happy to stay there p>
“I don’t mind, but that’s not exactly what I meant.” He cocks his head.
“No?” I take a breath, think about how best to explain, and then realize it’s not only my words that I need to choose carefully.
“Let me take your bandages off and wash you. Please p>
Before we left Chester, Darla confirmed it was safe now for Sasha to take off the bandages, to get the wounds wet, as long as we dried them gently and covered them up again after. “In fact, it’ll help,” she said with a bright smile.
She left us with a huge stash of bandages and strict instructions. And we, having agreed privately that home would be too dangerous to have Darla so close to us, paid her out her private contract, with a sizable bonus, and said our goodbyes.
I really think she was sad to leave us.
But Sasha refused to let me remove the bandages this morning. We stuck to our normal routine in the shower and I didn’t push him. Up until now. His eyes are as warm as I’ve ever seen them as he tips my chin up to search my face. After a moment, he says,
“If I let you take these bandages off, you’ll tell me exactly what you meant, baby? What’s ticking over in that always-interesting mind of yours p>
“I will p>
“Alright, then.” I begin to remove the bandages, starting with the soft cotton wraps first. I work methodically and wind them up, and then I go to work on the Band-Aids underneath, inching them off little by little. Eventually, I get down to skin.
I worried I’d cry when I saw the damage. I don’t, though. The jagged pink scars that run up and down Sasha’s body don’t upset me. They don’t appal me. They only remind me exactly how much this man loves me.
“They’ll fade,” he says, after I’ve stared at them in silence for several moments. “They said they’d fade p>
The nervous lilt to his tone hits me right in the chest. “You think I care about that?” I put my hand on his cheek and look him straight in the eye. “I hope they don’t fade. Every single one of them is a symbol to me—to the whole damn world—of your strength. Your resilience p>
Keeping his eyes, I kneel down in front of him and press my lips gently to the river of scarred flesh running up the side of his belly.
His hand threads through my hair, petting me.
I run my tongue all the way up to the tip of the scar and then look up at him again. “You wear these proudly. Show those motherfuckers they can try to take you down—but they never will p>
We had a lot of creative sponge baths during our time in Chester, but I know Sasha’s been getting tired of having me take care of him so intimately. He would never say, because he’s trying, with every fibre of his being, to be grateful, but I don’t want him grateful or compliant or docile.
When I first arrived at the Adonis mansion, I heard a lot about Martino Adonis, the man of the family then. And I guess his son takes a lot after him. Sasha is so similar to his father. Martino Adonis didn’t stay long enough for me to witness his resilience, but from the stories that I heard, I guess that explains Sasha ’s resilience even in the toughest of situations. And that is one thing that makes me damn proud of my Alpha.
I want him to be who he is.
And I want him to remember, for once and for all, who I am.