Two years later...
Eliot slowly woke up. His arm tightened around the woman lying next to him. Sensing eyes on him, he opened one lid. The look of total concentration on Parker's face made him smile. It was a ritual they followed every morning. She tried to determine the exact moment he was going to wake up before he would wake up. She was usually pretty accurate.
Yet this morning, he knew it was something different. He could see the worry and the haunted look in her eyes. It had taken three months after he returned before she would let him hold her. Even longer before she would relax when one of the guys would come up behind her. She still had trouble letting men she didn't know walk behind her. Most likely she always would.
Once they had started dating, she had slowly started talking about that night. It took the whole first year before he learned the whole story. He had walked all around the Boston Harbor. Even though he knew the responsible parties could never hurt anyone again, he still had rage issues with what had happened.
Now lying in bed, watching the sun's morning rays play across her face, he knew he was right where he needed to be. Right where he wanted to be. Grabbing her hips, he was getting ready to start their day off right.
Pushing him into the mattress, she rose above him. Trailing a path of kisses down his abdomen, she hummed a happy tune that he knew would be stuck in his head all day. She followed his happy trail that always led to her happy place. Taking him into her mouth, she sucked him hard. Bobbing her head to the same tune she had been humming, she drove him to the brink of insanity.
Before she could even blink, she was on her back and he was towering over her.
"An eye for an eye, darling."
Propping her legs over his shoulders, his lecherous grin the last thing she saw before heaven exploded in front of her. Her whole body was on fire. A slow moving flame that melted every bone in her body and heated her skin to the point of boiling.
Her orgasm was so intense she seriously worried she was going to be ripped in half. Right when she thought she just might survive after all, he drove inside her with all his might.
No real pace was set; they both knew that at this point, they were too crazed to care. They just needed to be as close to each other as humanly possible. Perhaps even more than humanly possible.
Their screams of pleasure echoed off the walls. Too exhausted to move, they collapsed against the mattress. Reaching up to push back her hair, Eliot gazed into her eyes.
He knew this was the perfect moment to tell her.
"I love you."
Her eyes popped open. Though she looked like a deer caught in the headlights, he neither saw panic or fear in her eyes. He only saw what he wanted to see. Pleasure. She had been waiting for those words for a long time. Had been waiting for him before she gave the words back to him.
"I know, I love you too. I think I may have loved you since that first night when you looked at me like I was completely crazy. In that exact moment, I knew you would be the balance that I needed. The only person in the word who was my perfect match. Corny as it sounds, you are my soul mate."
