The Right One - Felice Stevens Page 0,87
heard, but I don’t ever want you to think you’re anything but the man I want to be with. The only one. I have no doubts, and neither should you.”
Still in a dreamlike state, Morgan held on to Leo as he bent and took off his shoes and socks.
“Follow me.”
His hand in Leo’s, Morgan walked through the apartment to the bathroom and watched as Leo undressed. Leo opened the stall and turned on the shower. Steam rose and curled around them.
“Come.” Leo smiled, held out his hand, and they stepped under the spray. “Let me take care of you.”
He poured out shampoo and washed Morgan’s hair, then repeated it with the conditioner. The fragrant smell of the shower gel filled his senses as Leo swirled a sudsy cloth over him, washing every inch of his quivering skin.
The water poured over them, rinsing away the scented bubbles, and Morgan blinked at the gorgeous sight of Leo, hair drenched and plastered to his skull, water running in rivulets down his tanned skin over the tattoos. He grew faint again, not from fear, but the incredibly overwhelming love he felt for this person who’d heard the worst about him, seen him at his weakest, and not only stayed, but fought for him. The emotions streaming through him were terrifying in their intensity.
He reached out his hand and placed it over Leo’s breastbone, where the pump of his heart played a frantic melody against his fingers. Leo’s palm covered his, pressing them both into his chest. He rested his forehead on Leo’s, the taste of their kiss like a silvery shimmer in the water and air between their lips.
“For the first time in my life, I don’t have to try and be happy. I just am.”
Leo ghosted his fingers over his cheek until they cradled his face. “And for the first time, I know what happiness is. I’m looking at it.”
Chest to chest, they held on to each other, the water pouring over them like a benediction, washing away the sins and pain of their past.
Leo turned off the water and dried them both off. Naked, they lay in bed together, and Morgan, still shaken by the afternoon’s events, burrowed his head in the pillow. Leo tangled their feet together and pressed a kiss to his shoulder.
“Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”
An ugly sound escaped him. “You’re kidding, right? You heard everything Jeffrey said. I never wanted you to know everything. All my ugliness.”
Leo stroked his back. “Why? Did you think it would change how I feel about you?”
“Yes…no…I don’t know.” Morgan inched away. “It’s changed me. I cringe when I think how subservient I was to him. How eager and willing to do anything he wanted just to have him love me. But it wasn’t love.”
“You have nothing to be embarrassed about or ashamed of. I can understand how that happened to you. You came to the city from your sheltered life upstate and got caught up in someone who preyed on your decency and good nature.”
“At first he was so kind. He told me how sweet I was, said he fell for me right away. Love at first sight, like in the movies. I should’ve known then it was a stupid fantasy. And the first year of our marriage was good. No indication anything was wrong. Then, the harder he worked and the closer it got to him finding out whether he’d make partner, it got progressively worse; the verbal abuse started, then the physical. He claimed the stress made him act out, and every time it happened, he’d apologize and swear it never would again.”
“Sounds like a weak excuse from a pathetic, weak person. There’s never a good reason to lay your hands on someone in anger. It’s why I took up boxing. I had so much rage inside me, I knew if I didn’t find an outlet for it, I’d hurt someone eventually.”
Morgan lifted his gaze to meet Leo’s. “I wanted to believe him. When things were going well, he could be so nice and kind. We’d go to the fanciest restaurants and see all the hottest Broadway shows. I let myself get entangled in his web, I see that now, and when I was caught, he pounced and made me feel like I’d be nothing without him.”
“But you got out on your own. That must’ve been scary as hell.”
“Terrifying. I ran away—there’s no other way to look at it. I found a therapist who told me almost exactly