right before her cunt tightens.
She milks my orgasm from me, my control completely lost. I thrust into her wildly several times before I bury myself deep inside of her and come, hard. I don’t move, staying deep inside of her while I attempt to catch my breath.
Dipping my chin, I touch my mouth to hers, sliding my tongue along the seam of her lips. My arms are shaking, but I don’t fucking care, because right here is exactly where I belong. I’ve never felt this at home in my entire life and that’s exactly where I am—home.
Eventually, I roll onto my back when it looks like Tennessee needs to breathe and I can’t hold myself up for another second longer. Gathering her in my arms, I pull her against my side. Closing my eyes, I touch my mouth to the top of her head as she hitches one of her legs over my thigh.
Tennessee lifts her head, her green eyes finding mine as her chin rests against my chest. “Before this goes any further,” she begins. “I need to tell you something.”
My heart stops in my chest, it stops fucking beating. She’s going to tell me something and judging by the look in her eyes, it’s not good.
Just when I thought that maybe, just maybe, this was going to be something so beautiful that it made everything else pale in comparison, she has this look on her face and she appears almost sick.
I jerk my chin in a single nod, not ready or willing to say anything. She has something on her mind and she’s going to say it, whatever it is, and honestly, I’d rather have it now than five years from now.
“Holden was a product of rape,” she admits.
My eyes widen and my lips part in shock. “What?” I breathe.
She shrugs a shoulder. “I went to a party in college, I took a drink from someone I shouldn’t have. Someone I didn’t know. I went upstairs with him and a few months later I found out that I was pregnant. Holden couldn’t be anyone else’s, I hadn’t been with anyone in a long time. I wasn’t a promiscuous teenager or anything. I had a few boyfriends, but not many. I remember being in that room, feeling off, and then feeling almost paralyzed.”
“Did you file a report?” I ask, my blood immediately boiling in my veins from her words.
I try to hold back my temper, to keep from blowing up in her face because at the end of the day, it isn’t her fault. He took advantage of her, whoever he is.
She shakes her head a couple of times. “No. I was young and embarrassed. I didn’t even know his name, nothing at all about him. I didn’t even think about the repercussions of that night. Not until it was all too late.”
My arms tighten around her and I hold her closer. “It doesn’t matter though,” she whispers softly. “I wouldn’t trade Holden for anything in the world, and without that experience, I wouldn’t be who I am today,” she says, pausing, then her eyes find mine. “I wouldn’t be here with you.”
My lips turn up into a sad smile as I watch her. “You would have ended up here, eventually,” I rasp. “My brave Tennessee, we were meant to be, no matter what, we would have found one another.”
Tears fill her eyes from my words, but they don’t fall. She blinks a couple of times and I watch the unshed tears vanish. Her lips curve into a smile and she curls closer to me, as if she’s trying to meld into my body. Flexing my muscles, I accept it, and pull her even closer.
We stay that way in silence for a long time. I’m sure I should be saying reassuring things to her, that I should be telling her that I had already suspected that situation, but that hearing it was sobering. I should say a million things, but I don’t, and neither does she. Instead, we drift off to sleep, holding one another close.
Chapter Twenty-Six
TENNESSEE
I thought that telling Landry about Holden’s biological sperm donor would be a lot more emotionally draining than it actually was. He didn’t seem fazed by the information at all. He seemed sad and upset, but he wasn’t angry and I’m glad. I don’t know how I would feel if he had been mad about my past.
Rolling over in bed, I reach out for him, but find that his side of the bed