So maybe the Sylvie due to circumstances I became was the Sylvie I was supposed to be.

And Creed had always had badass in him. He was his father’s son. We even talked about him joining the military when we got wherever we were going to go, settled in and he was okay with the possibility of leaving me to go on assignment.

So maybe due to circumstances, he became the Creed he was supposed to be.

And because the universe wasn’t right without us together, we became that way then we came back together.

On this thought, I pressed closer and asked, “Do you think that shit had to happen so I could be who I am with who you came to be?”

Both his hands slid into my hair and fisted gently at the back of it, none of the intensity shifting out of his face when he replied, “Fuck… no. My Sylvie who had my back and stood by my side as best she could from the age of six to the age of eighteen did not deserve years of torture and living with the knowledge a man is dead at her hand and I didn’t deserve the shit dished out to me either. What I think is, it’s life. Life can be shit. We had our shit. We’ll have more of it, though, God willing, not that f**kin’ bad and we made our way back together because together is the way we’re born to be. But,” his hands in my hair pulled me closer and his voice dipped lower, “you wanna think it was supposed to happen that way. That makes you feel better. Think it. I just don’t agree.”

“The me that I am right now though, Creed, feels like the Sylvie I was meant to be,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, you are,” he agreed. “Comfortable in your skin. Good at what you do. You enjoy it. You like the way you live. I can see that. But you could have become this Sylvie without that shit buried in your soul,” he replied and I tipped my head to the side.

“Would you be down with that?”

He lifted his head an inch from the pillow so our faces were mega close and he whispered, “Then and now, beautiful, I’ll take you any way you come to me.” His hands in my hair shook my head gently. “Any way. I love this Sylvie. I loved that Sylvie. I just love you, baby.”

And I just loved him.

Any way he came to me.

To share this, I shoved my face in his neck.

Creed got the message and I knew this when his arms circled me and he gave me a mighty squeeze.

He allowed seconds to tick by before he murmured, “Gotta let you go, need to deal with this condom.”

“Right,” I murmured back and shifted off him.

He kissed my shoulder before he exited the bed. I had pulled on my panties and camisole by the time he got back.

Creed turned off the lone light we had on and pulled me into him, tucking me close and I took us full circle.

“I’m glad your kids like me, Creed.”

“What’d I say?” he asked in reply.

I pressed in closer, grinning at his shadowed skin.

Creed’s arms around me tightened then loosened and I relaxed into him.

Finally, I gave it to him.

“Just so you know, you haven’t changed much but I’d take you any way you came to me, too,” I whispered. “I loved you then. I love you now. I just love you, Creed.”

I heard him draw a breath as I felt his chest expand with it.

Then he released it and I felt his lips brush the top of my hair.

“Good to know,” he muttered there.

I smiled at his shadowed skin again before I took a deep breath and, in my man’s arms, after a day of fun and relaxation, a night of good food and then great f**king, I slipped straight into sleep.

* * * * *

Daddy showed him the picture. Me, wearing heels, a dress Creed had never seen, my hair done up in a way I never did it, looking older, like the days he’d spent there were years. I had Dixon’s arm around my waist, my hand lay on his chest and my head was resting on his shoulder.

“I told you,” Daddy whispered, his voice ugly in his glee. “Right from your arms to Jason’s. Right to Jason.”

Creed tried to focus through the hunger, the pain, the discomfort, the smell. He couldn’t see my face. He could barely see my profile.

But he knew I’d never go to Dixon.

Never.

Daddy went on, “He’ll make her happy. I promise you. I promise you, Tucker. He’ll make her happy. I’ll see to it. She’ll be happy in a way you never could make her be.”

Creed closed his eyes.

Daddy lost patience, his fingers shoving in Creed’s hair, yanking his head back and the pain spiked along the slice in his scalp. “Look at it!”

He opened his eyes and there I was.

His Sylvie.

Even in another man’s arms, he drank me in.

“That’s where she’s meant to be,” Daddy told him.

Creed knew Daddy was wrong.

That wasn’t where I was meant to be.

Because we were meant to be.

“He’ll make her happy,” Daddy continued. “I promise you that. You promise to vanish from her life, I promise, I vow, Sylvie will be happy.”

Creed’s eyes moved from the photo to Daddy and he whispered, his voice hoarse and weak, “He’ll never make her happy.”

Daddy yanked again on his hair, arching his neck pack, more pain, this excruciating, tearing through his entire scalp, down his neck and spine.

But Creed didn’t even groan.

All he said was, “Never.”

* * * * *

I shot up to sitting, the dream still having a hold on me but I didn’t get the chance to dart out of bed and do anything crazy.

This was because Creed had me on my back with him on me, his hands moving soothingly over my skin and his lips whispering, “Just a dream. Just a dream, baby.”

I wrapped my arms around him and held on tight through the shakes that trembled through me.

He rolled us to our sides and silently held me through the shakes, one hand drifting up and down my back, one hand sifting through my hair until the shakes left me.

Only then did he speak.

“This shit has got to stop.”

I tipped my head back and whispered, “I’ll get through it, Creed.”

I saw his darkened chin dip down and he replied, “Yeah. You will. By talkin’ to somebody. I don’t care who it is as long as it’s a professional.”

I felt my body get tight. “I’m not gonna go see somebody.”

“Yeah you are.”

I pulled up so we were face to face. “I’ll be fine,” I told him. “I’ll get through it.”

He disagreed. “Not on your own, you won’t.”