Ginny’s eyes turned glossy. She lifted her hand but stopped right before she touched his face, knowing she didn’t want to bring him pain in this peaceful moment.
Closing his eyes, Gavin pressed his cheek into her hand. The second her soft skin touched his, there was a euphoric moment for a split-second in time. He felt … happiness. But then the pain came flooding back, just like it always did.
His brown eyes flew open as Reaper returned.
She was an angel, and he was filth.
“Gavin,” Ginny tried to stop him when he turned to walk away. “Gavin, please wait.”
He denied her pleas, marching on.
“Reaper …”
He turned at the name on her lips. “That’s the first time you used my nickname.”
“Souls don’t have a name.” Ginny walked between the rows of sheets. “Mine recognized yours the moment I saw you. Even if I lost my vision, I would still recognize you.” She reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear. “You may have had sex hundreds of times, asked Taylor to marry you, planned to have children with her in this body … but your soul … that has always been mine.”
Reaper took a step closer to her to look down into her shining eyes. Groaning, he pressed his mouth to hers.
The sensations going through him weren’t ones of revulsion; they were of two souls reconnecting, as if they had been apart for too long. Cocooned between the billowing sheets, as if his soul was clean of the filth of the crimes that the others had forced him to commit, Reaper felt cleansed. Each kiss they shared, every driving thrust of his tongue into her mouth, reclaimed the other half of their hearts that had been lost when their souls had been torn apart.
The hot-blooded kiss sent fire scorching through his bloodstream, replacing the ice that had been pumping through a heart without any real emotion. Ginny infused not only warmth but an emotional need to connect with her … to become whole again. To recover the missing part of him that he hadn’t even realized was missing. A soul that was the counterpart to his.
Engines could run with missing parts, but they didn’t run as efficiently or reach the speeds they were designed to match. However, if you found the missing parts, the engine could run the way it was designed.
He and Ginny had been designed to be together from whatever higher up that he had stopped believing in. She was meant to be his.
Tearing his lips away from hers, Reaper gasped in lungsful of air, feeling as if he could breathe freely without constriction. He tried to place when had been the last time he breathed so fucking easily … then he remembered…when he had given Viper his jacket back.
The Last Riders had been his anchor. Without them, he had failed, not because he hadn’t been strong enough but because he had hit a storm and, without an anchor, he had run aground. Even a mighty battleship could be destroyed without an anchor to hold them steady.
He had believed Taylor was that anchor, which was why he clung to the thought of her during his kidnapping and when he had been released. Finding out Taylor had married and was expecting a child sent him adrift in the dark storms. However, he could see now that Taylor would have never been strong enough to hold him steady in the turbulent waters that had smashed him against rocky shores. Only one woman had the strength of will, the determination, and was reckless enough to hold him steady, to slowly and unrelentingly move him back to calmer water.
“I like this shade of blue. It reminds me of the ocean.” Ginny ran her hand over the sheet that was to his left.
“Yes,” he answered hoarsely. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?” she asked innocently.
“Get me to notice stupid shit.”
“I don’t think it’s stupid. I picked them out because I like this shade of blue.”
“I like it, but not enough to talk about it when we’re making out.” Curling his hand around the back of her neck, he pulled her back to his chest.
“Are we making out?” she teased, keeping her hands to her sides.
“I’m trying to, if you’d quit talking about the color of sheets and hold me back.”
“I have a friend who has panic attacks. Sometimes it helps to give her something to concentrate on besides her breathing. I really don’t care about the sheets, either,” she whispered. “And I’m not holding you back, because I don’t want to ruin the moment with you getting sick.”
“I don’t have panic attacks,” he denied.
“Okay … but you kind of do.”
“I don’t.” Reaper lowered his head to nuzzle her neck with his lips. “And the only thing you’re making me is horny.”
The shocked expression on her face had him laughing against her skin.