by P. J. Belden
“Why did you hurt me?” The question was out there before she even knew she asked it. Just above a whisper, the pain from the past came back to the present. Silent tears fell down her cheeks as she stared into the eyes that have long both haunted and soothed her. “Why did I mean so little to you that you could so easily turn away from me, from everything we’d been building? Why wasn’t I enough? Why couldn’t you let me save you, love you?”
Sage watched as the woman he loved most in the world broke down in his lap. She was so close to him, his lips not far from hers and he was afraid to breathe. If he breathed, he might wake up from the dream he was apparently having. Ember being in his arms again was still surreal, but even more than that was having a son. This moment with her in his arms, seeing her gutted and dying inside, it killed him more. Sage wasn’t stupid. He knew he was the cause of that emptiness that used to hold so much life and light. What he was still trying to figure out was how to even begin to repair her. He didn’t know just yet, but he’d damn sure answer her questions. She deserved no less than that.
“Let me answer these question by question,” Sage began, but not moving from the mere inches from her mouth. His eyes flicked between her beautiful green eyes – even sad they were still breathtaking.
“Oh,” she breathed. “Okay.”
“Why did I hurt you? I told you before, it was what was safe for you at the time. I couldn’t be with you to protect you. So pushing you away – make no mistake, it killed me to watch the light and smile leave you – it was the right move to make at the time. Knowing what I do now, about my son, I’m even more positive I made that decision and now know without a shadow of a doubt it was the best decision I’ve ever made.”
Another tear slipped down her cheek, but she held his gaze, and it made him so damn proud of her. This was the strong, resilient woman he’d fallen in love with the minute he saw her all those years ago. The strength she had always shocked him, in her petite frame. But that’s what most people did, misunderstood her, and they were knocked on their asses quickly.
“You’re next question,” he said as he cleared his throat of the emotions trying to strangle it. “Why did you mean so little to me that I could so easily leave you and all our dreams behind without missing a beat? Easy. It goes with the question above. It wasn’t that I cared too little. It was more that I cared so much that I destroyed every good thing I’ve ever had to save you. You are all I’ve ever thought about. Even after that day, you’ve been it for me. No one has come close to claiming anything more than a piece of my body over the five years I’ve been without you. No one, Ems, not a single soul carries what you do.”
Ember broke the hold their eyes had by lowering her head to his chest. The world around him seemed to fall into place the minute her head touched that spot near where his heart beat rapidly. Sage knew she could hear his racing heart and prayed she saw his nerves and not misconstrued it as a sign of lying. He’d never lie to her, even if it meant losing her.
“The next one you asked was why weren’t you enough? You were always more than enough for me and not enough sometimes,” he chuckled nervously. “I could never have enough of your idle chit chat or the views you had on the world around you. When we weren’t together, I pictured you in my head, some of our memories playing back… The point here is, you’ve always been my everything. Someday, I hope to be your something again.”
“Sage,” Ember choked out as she lifted her head from his chest.
Shaking his head softly and slowly, he gave her a sad smile as a tear of his own slipped down his cheek. Sage was unashamed for crying in front of her. If it took breaking down to get her to see the truth in his answers, he’d let her see him bare and emotionally raw. Hell, he’d shed blood if need be.
“Let me get through this. Last question of yours. Why couldn’t I let you save and love me? You saved me when I first saw you. You took me from the hell I was living at home and gave me a reason to look forward to each day. You gave me a reason to smile, laugh… care. You saved me long before you gave me your love in return.”
“Then why did you leave me?” Her sobbed question broke him even more.
Resting his head against her forehead, he took a shuddered breath. “I had to go. My parents were going to have me arrested if I stayed.” Sage blurted out the truth, like letting it all out was a huge relief off his chest. In many ways it was. He’d kept it all inside to protect her. In the end, he’d lost her. So really what did he protect? His parents got exactly what they wanted. Sage had been miserable from the moment he left her at that bus stop and every day since. “They didn’t like that I was with you. They thought you hurt their reputation with their circle in town. They had told me a few months before graduation to break up with you. I refused. Then the day I told you I was leaving to make a name for myself, they’d said they were going to have me arrested for dating you. I was legal age, but you weren’t. Age of consent here is sixteen. So, I decided to leave and get a high paying job to help support us. That was the plan anyway. Until I went to find a job and ran into Rufus.”
She looked at him funny. The look caused him to hold his breath. At this point, Ember could say anything, and he wasn’t sure which path it would go down. The ‘keep talking you still have a chance’ way or the ‘tell the rest so I know what you just exposed me to and leave’ path. Swallowing hard, he waited quietly for her to say something, anything. When she didn’t, he continued on.
“I’d been waiting for the owner of this place to come out to talk to me, and he sat down at my table. He told me that if I needed money, he ran boxing tournaments, and I could make a mint in just a single match. The first thought in my head was getting you out to me sooner. So, I agreed without asking questions. I should have. Damn, I wish I had. Turned out once you start fighting for him, you hand over your life to them. They control you and will go after all those around you. I never thought that I’d have anything to worry about. A lot of the guys that fight in these things are professionals. Wouldn’t it figure that I’d find something that I’m a natural at,” Sage smirked at her. “But it didn’t all turn out bad though. We’ll go into that long story another time though.”
She glanced up at him, and he could tell she wanted to talk about it now. Instead, though, she sighed and questioned him on his fighting. “That’s what Hudson was talking about when we first got home?”
Nodding his head, he continued on. “Yeah, I am still reigning champ. No one has beat me in five years. I gave you a lot of my money at the time. Did you get that?”
“Yes, but I didn’t spend it. It’s still in my closet with everything else,” she blushed and looked away from him.
“I understand, but it’s for you and our son. Please use it as you see fit, even if you choose not to keep me here after all I’ve told you.”
Her eyes crinkled as she thought over something in her head. The emerald irises searched his blues for something, he wasn’t sure what just yet. One of the things he loved most about her eyes was the almost dark blue lining that circled the whole outer edge of her irises. When they had made love he could see the blue slowly creep in taking over the green. It had been the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.
“So, uh, you moved on after me?”
He knew this question was coming. Sage was ready for it in the fact that he had an answer. What he hadn’t factored into it all was the emotion and heartbreak behind that one single question. That part, he didn’t believe he’d ever be able to prepare himself for.
“Moved on? Never. Did I have one night stands with other women? Yes. How many? I don’t know. And before you even bother asking, it wasn’t until a year after I saw you last.”
Nodding her head, she’s quiet for a moment. “I had sex with Grey. One time. Then he said ‘I love you, Ems’ and I bawled and I ended it. That was it. Being honest, I tried to love him. I wanted to love him, to forget you, but I just couldn’t. Jada thinks it’s because it was unfinished business and I needed answers. She said I ne
eded answers in order to move past you, past us.”
Sage’s heart stopped in his chest as he asked the question that would tell him how his life would go. “And now that you have answers, do you want to move past me? Past us?”
Looking down, she fiddled with the belt buckle he wore. He had to recite erection deflaters in his head to keep from shocking her with his hunger. Not for sex, he could get sex anywhere. No this need, this yearning, was for her and her alone. Sage craved the connection that he had with Ember once upon a time before everything came crashing down around him. This time around, he didn’t want to make a mistake. Wherever they go after this moment, he hoped that it’ll get back to them against the world as it was before he stupidly up and left.
Biting her lower lip – causing him to groan, she looked up and met his eyes with a smirk. “Still, even now?”
Nodding his head, he gave her a smirk of his own. “Still, even now. Maybe even more,” he breathed the truth before it was choked off in his throat.
“Really?” She sat up and looked at him shocked.
“Why would you think otherwise? From the day I saw you when we were kids, to me officially asking you out when I was sixteen, every single one of those days I’ve always wanted to share that moment. When we were in the hotel room before I left, that action is what broke the thread of control I had.”
“Wow,” she breathed and bit her lip again.
“Don’t tease me unless you are willing to deal with the actions you wish to test,” Sage growled.
Ember giggled, and he relished the sound. It was the way she was with him when she was comfortable. The only thing right now was that he wasn’t ready to walk out of the black zone just yet. Not when he still hadn’t gotten an answer to his question.
“Tell me, Ems. Now that I’ve explained why I left to begin with, why I was so mean to you that day… I need to know. Do I have a chance to be yours again? To be not only with you, but a family with my son, our son.”
Her eyes shifted between each of mine, the thoughts and emotions shining brightly in her all-seeing gaze. His chest rose on a deep breath that he couldn’t let out until he either got the three letter word he was hoping for or the two letter word he dreaded. Unmoving, he sat there and waited, waited to know his fate. One word will either shatter or heal him. Which one will fully depend on the one woman that he’d hurt far more than he ever thought back then.
“You really hurt me, Sage, far more than I can ever put into words. When I found you that day, I thought our dreams would just start coming true because we were back together. The thing I realized over the last five years is that I don’t need someone else to make my dreams come true. I can do that on my own. What I need is someone that I can trust, love without fear, and know that at the end of the day no one makes me happier.”
“Ems…” he groaned. The waiting was killing him.
“At the end of it all, Sage, you are the only man that will forever hold my heart.”
She said the words so softly that he worried he was hearing things. Sage slowly let the words sink in. He was afraid to hope she meant that as a good thing. Letting the breath out slowly that he’d been holding, he asked the question.
“You still love me?” The words were halted and choked with emotion, but he managed to get that four-word question out. A question that may seem small in words, but had so much power. A power that could bring him to his knees in pain or happiness.
“Yes, I do.” She breathed. “But I’m scared that I do.”
He froze in mid-smile. Sage wanted to rejoice, but he couldn’t with that response. Ember, the love of his life, was scared to love him. There was no one to blame but himself for it either.
“Please,” Sage begged quietly as he rested his forehead back on hers while cupping her face gently in his hands. “Please don’t be scared to love me. I know that I’ve screwed up royally. All I ask is you give me the chance to prove to you that my love for you is just as real now as it was back then before the pain. Please.”
“Yes.” Her hushed response was almost lost in the rapid beat of his heart in his ears.
Looking her in the eyes, he dared a smile. “Yes?”
“Yes,” she said with a small smile and a little more confidence.
Unable to hold himself back, he brought his lips to hers and kissed her. The kiss was meant to just show how relieved he felt, but the time apart and the near loss of her completely, it grew deeper in an instant. Sage moved his hands from her face to cup her shoulders before pulling her close to him with a moan of pleasure.
“No,” Ember said breathlessly when she broke from the kiss only moments later.
“What?”
“We are going to take this slow. Hudson doesn’t need to think that we are together forever now just because you’ll be around. I need you to prove to me that you’re here to stay. Until then, no sex.”
Shoving his hands through his hair to calm himself down, he took another deep breath. Looking up at Ember, he couldn’t help but love the feeling of her on his lap like this.
“This is forever. I promise you that. But we’ll take it slow in so far as the sex department. I will be kissing you, holding your hand, hugging you, cuddling you, whatever. My son will know what a man should and shouldn’t do with a woman. That stuff is taught early. Furthermore, I’ll be sure that you know how much I love you and how history will not repeat itself.”
Grey stumbled his way down the street. The feeling of having a piece of him ripped from his body consumed him. Ember had been such a huge part of his life. He remembered the five-year-old bubbly little girl. Even at eight years old, Grey thought she was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen. As they got older, his affections for her had grown. Sage – fucking Sage – had seen her when they were fifteen and Ember was twelve. For a year, we were all just really good friends. He’d waited to tell her how he felt about her. He waited to let her know that he dreamed about her, had his first orgasm to her image. Grey had waited because she was only twelve. He was going to talk to her about it when she was fifteen. But then Sage – the fucker – had to jump in and steal her away from him.
Looking up at the building, he could still see lights on in her apartment. He was going to say his piece if only when he was drunk. Tripping, falling, sliding, he made his way up the steps to her apartment. His whole frame swayed as he lifted his hand to knock on the door. The bar had been good to help ease some of the pain enough that he could think about it all without punching something or crying.
His hand hit the wooden door and to his ears, it sounded funny. It was almost a foreign sound. He didn’t have long to dwell on how odd the knock sounded because the door was opened and there stood the reason his world was ending.
“Where’s my Ember,” he slurred.
“Are you drunk?” Sage looked at him as if it was the worst thing he could have done.
“So what if I am! I had a lot that I needed to forget,” he hiccupped as he finished.
Just then Ember walked into the kitchen wearing a long shirt and nothing else. The shirt stopped around mid-thigh, and he could tell she wasn’t wearing a bra under it. He felt his dick stir in his pants. That was his girl, unknowingly sexy.
“Grey? Are you okay?”
“Damn you look good enough to eat right now,” he blurted out as he stumbled into the apartment.
“Daddy,” a groggy innocent voice came from the hallway.
Ember turned to Sage and ran her hand down his arm, smiling at him. “You want me to take this one?”
“No,” Sage smiled down at her. “I’m making up for lost time.” He kissed her softly on her lips, the very lips that Grey wanted to kiss deeply, before he walked down the hall to the room.
Ember walked behind him, drawing his attention away from the empty hallway and on her bouncy, perky breasts and tight toned ass, and shut the door. She turned around to start saying something and Grey couldn’t hold himself back anymore. Shoving her against the door, he pressed his body
against her, holding her firmly against the door.
“Grey, stop!”
Her demand fell with an almost audible thud before it even met his ears. All he could hear was the rush of his blood through his veins and the need to have her again. Grey leaned down to kiss her, and she turned her head. Her mouth was moving, but Grey couldn’t make sense of it. Wrapping his large hand around her throat, he held her firmly in place. Her eyes met his and they widened with need, lust, love.
“I knew it was always me you wanted.”
She took a deep breath, a contented sigh. The smile spread across his face. He told her that he’d make sure that Sage understood they were just meant to be. Grinding into her, she whimpered with need. His smile widened at the thought of how bad she wanted him.
“I know you need me, baby. It’s been too long,” Grey assured her as he moved his other hand up under her shirt to her bare breast. “God, I’ve missed you. I don’t know why it’s taken you so long to know it was me you were meant for, but I’m glad you have. I love you, Ember.”
Pushing his hips into her softness, he needed her badly. A small squeal like sound filled the air around him, and that’s when he knew. Grey knew that Ember was finally his. Removing his hand from her breast, he started to remove his belt and pushed his pants down around his knees.
“What the fuck!” He heard someone roar loudly.
Next thing Grey knew he was flying backward and there was an odd noise in the background before he hit the ground only feet away from where he believed he’d stood. The air had expelled from his lungs. He laid there staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling with cold flooring against part of his body.