Page 60 of Monk

The fact that for seven years I’d been rotting from the inside out under the weight of that guilt, fucking club whores to feel numb, killing men because it came easy, running guns and drugs and lies through my hands until I couldn’t tell where duty ended and self-destruction began.

The fact that my club walked away from the Federation and painted a bigger target on every back we had. The fact that I had become exactly what I always swore I wouldn’t become. And above all else, the fact that I was a liar. A fucking coward. A man sleeping beside the woman he loved while building their whole future on top of graves and secrets and names that weren’t his.

I wanted to tell her.

Christ, I wanted to tell her everything so badly it made my chest ache. I wanted to roll over, wake her gently, and emptymyself out right there in the dark. Wanted to hand her every ugly piece of me and say,Here. This is who I am. This is the truth. Decide if I’m worth anything at all.

I wanted to confess every sin, every lie, every dead body, every stain I had spent years pretending I could outlive. I wanted her judgment because at least judgment would be honest.

At least then I would know.

But the words wouldn’t come. They stuck in my throat like broken glass, tearing me up every time I even tried to shape them. Because what if she looked at me with disgust? Real disgust. Not anger, not hurt, not the kind of fury that still has heat in it. What if she looked at me like I was rotten all the way through? What if she saw the whole truth and realized the man in this bed, the man holding her, wasn’t someone she could ever trust? What if she took Tatum and walked out before sunrise, and this time she never came back? What if I saw that little girl once—just once—and then spent the rest of my life knowing I had driven her and her mother away by finally telling the truth?

I couldn’t survive that.

I barely survived losing Lina the first time. Seven years without her had hollowed me out so deep there were days I swore I could hear the emptiness echo when I breathed.

Losing her again—losingthem—would finish what the massacre started. So instead, I lay there in silence, holding her close, feeling her heartbeat through my skin, and hated myself for being too much of a fucking coward to speak.

I didn’t deserve her. Didn’t deserve the way she fought for me at the station, the way she held her ground against me, the way she came at me with all that fire and refused to bend even when I gave her every reason in the world to run. I accused her of betrayal. I stood there while Ruby put her hands on her. I called her a whore.

I put my hands on her tonight like pain had given me ownership, fucked her rough and brutal and desperate like claiming her body could somehow make up for all the years I lost. Like I had any right. Like I was owed one goddamn thing by the woman I abandoned to grief and motherhood and survival.

And still she was here. Still in my bed. Still breathing softly against my chest like some impossible mercy I had no business touching.

I didn’t understand it. Maybe I never would. Maybe Lina was stronger than me in every way that mattered. Maybe some piece of her still remembered the man I had been before all of this, before blood and guilt and rage turned me into something colder. Or maybe she was just as broken as I was, and broken things had a way of finding each other even when they should have known better.

Whatever the reason, I wasn’t going to waste the chance she had given me. Not this time. I was going to show her. Not with words—hell, I’d already proven I was shit at words when they mattered most—but with everything I had left. I was going to show her I could be more than the monster I’d become. Show her I could be gentle. Show her I could be patient. That I could kneel if I had to, bleed if I had to, tear myself apart and rebuild from the fucking bones if that was what it took to become a man worthy of standing next to her. A man worthy of being Tatum’s father. A man worthy of the life sleeping warm and trusting in my arms. Because if Lina gave me even the smallest crack of hope, I was going to crawl through it on my hands and knees.

I was going to earn her.

Earn them.

Or die trying.

Slowly, carefully, I shifted my body until I was pressed against her back, my chest flush against her spine, my arm still wrapped around her waist. She stirred slightly but didn’t wakeas I buried my face in her hair, breathing in the scent of her. She smelled of vanilla and something sweet, something uniquelyLina, and, like some fucking Pavlovian response, I felt my cock harden against the curve of her ass.

God, she smelled like heaven, like home. Like everything I had lost and somehow found again.

I pressed a soft kiss to her shoulder, my lips barely grazing her skin, tasting the faint salt of her sweat mixed with that sweet vanilla scent. She sighed in her sleep, a soft, contented sound that made my chest tighten.

I wanted her again.

But not like before. Not rough and desperate, and brutal. I wanted to worship her. Wanted to show her what she meant to me. Wanted to prove that I could be gentle, that I could love her the way she deserved to be loved.

I trailed my lips along the curve of her shoulder, kissing softly, reverently, feeling the warmth of her skin beneath my mouth. My hand slid from her waist up to her ribcage, my palm spreading wide over her side, feeling the rise and fall of her breathing.

She stirred again, a soft murmur escaping her lips.

Still asleep, or maybe just waking.

I kissed the back of her neck, my tongue darting out to taste her skin, and felt her body respond. A slight arch, a soft sigh, her ass pressing back against my now fully hard cock.

Fuck.The feel of her against me was intoxicating as I slid my hand up from her ribcage to cup her breast, my palm molding to the soft weight of it, my thumb brushing over her nipple. It hardened instantly beneath my touch, and I heard her breath hitch.

“John?” she whispered, her voice thick with sleep, still half-dreaming.

“Shh,” I murmured against her ear, my lips brushing the shell of it. “I’ve got you, baby. Just let me love you.”