Fall On Me (6 page)

Shutting the water off, I climbed out of the
shower and wrapped a large fluffy towel around my body. I
purposefully avoided looking in the mirror as I brushed my teeth
and prepared for bed. There was nothing in my reflection that I
wanted to see. Cursing myself for forgetting my pajamas I made my
way back into the bedroom.

Kyle was standing next to our bed when I
opened the door. His hands paused on the waistband of his jeans as
his eyes locked on mine. "You okay?" he asked in a gruff tone.

"Yeah," I whispered as I chewed on my lip and
tried to keep my eyes on his face and off his bare chest. "I don't
want to meet her yet, Kyle. I'm not ready. It's going to put more
strain on us if you don't let this go."

Resting his hands on his hips, Kyle shook his
head in frustration. "It's something that needs to happen, Lee. You
can't spend the rest of your life ignoring the fact that she's
alive. I can't live the rest of my life knowing more about your
parents than you do. You will regret this so fucking much if you
don't get some closure. I'm not asking you to be her best friend,
Lee. One meeting. That's it."

"I need more time, Kyle," I growled. "I woke
up three and a half months ago to find my whole life altered. I'm
dealing with my injuries. I'm handling having our personal life
splashed all over the newspapers. I am coping with the realization
that my best friend is dead. I cannot deal with her as well.
Please…just give me some time to wrap my head around this. I've
spent my whole life believing she was dead. I need more time.
A
lot
of it."

Kyle hissed loudly and threw his hands up in
exasperation. "When the hell did you get so stubborn?" There was a
smirk to his lips that told me he was dropping this, for now at
least.

"It's a self-preservation tactic," I said
with a small smile. "Did you check on Hope?"

"Three times," he sighed. "She's fine, baby.
Stop worrying." I couldn't help it. It was probably a first time
mom thing, but some nights I actually got out of bed and crept into
her room to make sure she was breathing. Kyle caught me once, when
she was a month old, with my ear about an inch from her chest. The
following day he'd arrived home with one of those sensor mats to
put under her mattress–the ones that sent out an alarm if the baby
stopped breathing for longer than thirty seconds. She was only
twenty-two weeks old and should be sleeping in our room with us,
but we had to cordon off a section of the lounge area for her to
sleep because I'd woken her up every night with my screaming. I
felt terrible about it. The child was supposed to wake up the
mother at night, not the other way around…

The guilt I felt for missing so much of my
daughter's young life crushed me. I wasn't the one who had slowly
coaxed Hope into her sleeping routine. I wasn't the one who had
taught her to clap her hands or discovered she preferred to have a
night-light on in her room when she slept. I wasn't there when she
rolled on her belly for the first time. I hadn't held her little
hand when she got her vaccination shots. I wasn't the one who
weaned her from breast milk to formula, or stayed up all night with
her when she cut her first tooth. Kyle was the one who did all of
those things for our daughter. He'd been her father and mother when
I couldn't. I'd been in hospital and had missed twelve crucial
weeks of my daughter's life...

Hope was barely eight weeks old when I was
shot and I had been in hospital six weeks before the doctors had
cleared her to visit me. Kyle had been very insulted when the
doctors had refused to let Hope visit me after I woke up.
"What
the fuck do you think she has?"
he'd hissed at the doctor.
"Baby cooties?"
But my body was extremely weak at the time
and they were worried about the possibility of infection. As it
stood, I'd caught three infections–one in my bowel and the other
two in my bladder–after my surgery. My recovery had been slow and
painful process-excruciatingly painful. I had some nerve damage in
my lower back which required weeks of intense physiotherapy.

When she was finally allowed to see me Kyle
had brought her every day, but Hope had forgotten who I was. For
weeks she would cry and scream whenever I held her, only stopping
when Kyle cuddled her. It used to kill me. It hurt more than a
hundred bullets. I couldn't soothe her or calm her down when she
fretted. All she'd wanted was her daddy…This went on for weeks and
I used to cry so hard when they left. Kyle always came back at
night, but it devastated me to know my baby was so far away from
me. Growing up without me…

"Lee, she's okay. I promise," Kyle said in a
soft tone. "Nothing bad is going to happen to her. I won't let it.
All right?"

"I know that. I'm sorry," I muttered. "I just
worry about her."

"That's what mothers do…"

"Don't," I said in a weary tone. I knew full
well where he was going with this. "Please, Kyle. Not tonight." A
vein in his neck pulsed as he nodded his head.

I watched–more like gawked–as Kyle shrugged
off his jeans and climbed into bed. He stared at the stuffed
gorilla he bought me with a look of disgust before flinging it on
the floor and focusing his gaze on me. I hovered at the foot of the
bed nervously. He was staring and I didn't like it. "Come on, baby.
Get your sexy ass over here," he purred as he patted a spot on the
mattress next to him.

He wasn't fooling anyone with that 'sexy'
remark. We hadn't made love since before the shooting and I wore a
t-shirt and sweats in bed. He had enforced a no sex rule the day I
came home from the hospital and I hadn't protested. I didn't want
to embarrass either of us by having him tell me why. I knew Kyle
loved me, but even I had to admit that I wouldn't be overly
enthusiastic about getting me naked if I was him. He was gorgeous,
painstakingly beautiful, and my body was a road map of scars. They
were all over my skin. It was disgusting.

"Can you turn around please?" I asked him. I
knew I sounded foolish but the light was on and it made me
uncomfortable. "Or at least close your eyes?"

Kyle frowned and leaned on his elbows.
"Why?"

"Kyle," I groaned as I tightened my grip on
the towel around my breasts. "I'm a blanket of scars. I don't want
to sicken you." I wasn't ashamed of my nudity. I was ashamed of my
body. There was a very big difference.

He'd seen my scars once in the hospital and
that one time had been enough to confirm what I'd been secretly
dreading. The distraught look on his face when he'd helped me into
the shower stall in the hospital…The horrified look in his eyes as
they'd roamed over my skin had hit me hard. I knew in that moment
that it was too much. I had too many marks to be desirable. I was
too deformed to be sexy.

Kyle sat straight up. The white bed sheets
pooled around his waist. "Do you honestly think that I see you any
differently tonight than I did the first night I saw you?"
Yeah,
actually I do…You have eyes and you're not blind.

I let out a sigh and walked over to the light
switch. Flicking it off, I shrugged my towel off and felt around
for the dresser where I kept my underwear while I mentally cursed
myself for not bringing my clothes into the bathroom with me.

The light flicked back on and I tensed. Kyle
stood in front of me with a pained look in his eyes. I moved to
turn it off, but he captured my hand. Without a word, he dropped to
his knees, placed his hands on my hips and started kissing my
stomach. "Don't," I begged, closing my eyes.

"Beautiful," he murmured as his lips traced
the thick scar on my left side that curved around to my back–the
scar from my kidney surgery. I had an identical scar on my right
side. Kyle turned me around and continued to place kisses across my
back. His fingers trailed over my rough uneven skin. His tongue
caressed my damaged flesh. I whimpered and opened my eyes. He
pulled back and lifted his face. "You are so fucking beautiful, Lee
Bennett," he husked as he looked me square in the eyes. "How the
hell did I get so lucky?"

"Kyle, I…" I choked out. I wasn't sure how I
felt about this. I didn't know if this was an act of pity or love.
I knew it wasn't an act of desire because he couldn't…he just
couldn't find this desirable. My body trembled.

"Do you love me, princess?" he asked as his
lips touched on the bullet wound in the center of my belly and then
the one below it that represented my bowel surgery.

"You know I love you," I breathed. His mouth
slipped lower to the scar over my bikini line–the one from my
ectopic pregnancy–and I felt him suck in a breath.

"Sometimes I wonder how you can," he
whispered stroking his nose against my skin. "I don't understand
how you can love me when I caused this. I caused you all of
this…pain."

"No," I said shaking my head. My heart was
hammering in my chest as if it was trying to burst its way through
my ribcage to claim him. I'd given him my heart and every morning I
woke I thanked Jesus for giving me another day on this earth and
prayed to him–begged him– not to burst our bubble. I prayed Kyle
wouldn't hurt me again. I knew he was a different man to the one I
first met. He was older, more open and a hell of a lot less
secretive. But loving Kyle Carter was like throwing my heart into a
boxing ring and trusting that every punch, every blow I was dealt
wouldn't kill me. That he would save me…that he could somehow build
me back up. It was exhausting.
It was exhilarating
.

"You did not do this," I whispered as I
stroked his cheekbones with my thumbs.

"But I caused it," he replied looking
directly into my soul with those blue eyes. "There won't be any
more." He ran the palms of his hands over my stomach. "Not one
single scratch. I promise."

"We're going to be okay, aren't we?" I asked
as I stroked his hair. When I felt vulnerable I depended on his
strength. I drew courage from his assurance.

Kyle smirked. "You can bet your ass we're
gonna be okay, princess." Climbing to his feet, he cupped the back
of my neck and leaned down to press his forehead to mine. "We'll be
better than okay. I made you a promise and I plan on keeping
it."

****

Kyle

"I wish I was as strong as you," Lee
whispered as her small hands clung to my arms. "You have so much
faith in us. So much confidence."

"I'm gonna marry you, princess," I told her.
"It's a done deal. My confidence comes from seeing you wear my ring
on that finger of yours." I didn't want to tell her that I was
scared shitless she'd wake up some morning and realize I was more
trouble than I was worth. I'd rocked her world and not the good
way. And the worst damn thing was I couldn't even attempt to rock
her world the good fucking way because I was terrified I would
break her. Jesus Christ, there were no words to express how badly I
wanted her right now, but her body needed time to recover. She had
surgery on her goddamn organs. I didn't want to…poke anything.

Whatever Lee saw when she looked at herself
wasn't the same as what I saw. When I saw those marks on her skin I
saw life and felt relief. She was here. Alive and breathing.

Every scar, blemish and wound on her
beautiful body was a mark of survival. She was a survivor and I'd
lay down my heart and soul for her. And those silvery lines on her
sides and lower belly made me want to beat my fucking fists off my
chest. She was my woman. She'd grown my child inside of her body. I
fucking loved looking at those silver lines. Those were the only
marks a man was supposed to put on his woman's body.

I had a hell of high pain threshold to be
able to put myself through the torture of kneeling in front of this
naked woman and not take it any further. I knew it was bothering
her that I hadn't touched her since she'd come home, but she had to
know I wanted her. How the hell could I not? Her body was insane.
Lee had the tiniest little waist I'd ever seen, that spanned out
into these beautiful deep curves. The wide set of her hips alone
set my pulse racing and had my dick hardening. Her body was a
dream.

"I can't wait to marry you," she admitted
with a sigh. "I just hate what they're saying about me. It makes
what we have seem…dirty. Fake." I knew what she meant and it made
my blood boil. I wanted to personally kick the ass of anyone who
believed the stories suggesting Lee was with me for my money. She'd
spent the majority of her pregnancy proving she didn't need my
money–or me. Their smart comments were the reason she kept putting
off getting married. I was far from stupid. I knew the gold-digger
references were
exactly
what was bothering her. I was
leaving her alone about it because the girl was vulnerable as hell
at the moment, but one of these days she was going to have to
toughen her skin to other people's opinions. If she didn't we'd
never make it up the aisle. I loved her. I loved her so fucking
much that it was almost painful. Nothing anyone could ever say or
do could change that. She was mine, finally with me, and I was
never letting go.

"Don't listen to one word of that bullshit,"
I growled as I flicked off the light and guided her over to our
bed. Switching on the lamp on her bedside table, I stared down at
her lost little expression.
Jesus, the girl had the loneliest
eyes I'd ever looked into…
"I don't. The way I see it we both
know the truth. Do you think I like it when they write shit about
me hurting you? Hell fucking no. But I don't let it get to me
because we know the truth. Lee, all of this crap we're going
through, it won't break us. The trial, the shit they're saying
about us…we're gonna get through it."

"I know we will," she whispered as she leaned
on her tip-toes and kissed my lips. "And you should probably know
that I'm going to love you forever."