Chapter 34: Eden
Chapter 34: Eden
The night felt soft, but I didn’t.
The air outside the cabin was quiet, a little too quiet, the kind of stillness that makes you want to scream just to prove you’re still here. I sat curled up in the armchair near the window, knees to my chest, sleeves pulled over my hands. I wasn’t cold. I just needed to feel held.
When Salvatore walked in, he didn’t speak right away. Just shut the door and looked at me like he already knew I wasn’t okay.
He sat across from me. Close, but not crowding me. His elbows rested on his knees. He waited.
“I’m trying,” I said, voice low. “I’m trying to picture it. A family. Peace. But my brain keeps pulling me back into blood and power and—”
“You don’t have to choose tonight.”
I shook my head. “But I will have to.”
“You don’t have to choose alone,” he corrected.
I looked away.
Silence stretched between us. Comfortable for him. Agonizing for me.
“I keep thinking you’re going to leave,” I blurted. “That you’re going to wake up one day and realize this is all too much. I’m too much.”
Salvatore didn’t flinch. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You say that now, but what about when the baby comes? What if I mess it up? What if I disappear into one of my spirals again? What if I yell at them? What if I forget how to be gentle?”
“You won’t,” he said.
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you.”
I stood up suddenly, pacing. My chest felt too tight.
“You want to know me. That’s different. You haven’t seen the ugliest parts yet. You haven’t seen me screaming, or sobbing in a closet, or scratching myself open just to feel something. You haven’t seen me rip the world apart because I think someone doesn’t love me the right way.”
His eyes didn’t leave mine. “Show me.”
“What?”
“Show me everything. All of it. I’ll still be here.”
I stared at him. “Why?”
“Because I love you. And I don’t want just the parts that are easy.”
I hated how much I needed to hear that.
“I need you to keep saying it,” I whispered. “I’ll probably need you to say it a thousand times a week. Just so I can keep believing it.”
“Then I’ll say it ten thousand.”
I sat down on the bed, fingers trembling.
“I’m terrified, Salvatore. I’m terrified that I’m going to be a horrible mom. That I’m going to be cold like her. Or manipulative like Sergio. Or just… broken.”
“You’re nothing like them.”
“You didn’t see me in that basement,” I said. “You didn’t see what I felt when I hurt that man. I liked it. I liked seeing him bleed. I liked being the one in control.”
“You should’ve liked it. He deserved it.”
“What if I become someone I can’t come back from?”
His voice softened. “Then we build a new version of you together.”
I looked at him. Really looked. He was sitting on the floor now, back against the wall, legs bent. Watching me with that same mix of reverence and patience.
“Did you ever want to get rid of the baby?” I asked.
“No.” His answer came fast. Fierce. “Never. Not once, angel.”
He crawled forward, slow, like approaching something sacred. He reached for me, pulled me into his lap so I was straddling him. His hands settled on my hips.
“You and this baby are the only good things I’ve ever done,” he said.
I believed him.
But I still felt the weight of all my thoughts trying to convince me otherwise.
I tucked my face into his neck. “You’re going to have to help me. A lot. I can’t do this alone.”
“You’ll never have to.”
His arms wrapped around me tighter. I felt his heartbeat against mine.
I didn’t know when the shift happened—when the vulnerability bled into something more. But I felt it in the way his fingers started gripping a little firmer. In the way I tilted my hips just slightly. In the way my breath caught when his mouth brushed my collarbone.
And maybe it was all too much—too raw, too fast—but I didn’t care.
Because for once, I wanted to be the one in control.
I leaned back, cupped his jaw, and said, “Get on your knees.”
His eyes darkened. “Angel—”
“You said you’d show up. Prove it.”
He knelt.
I rose slowly and let the shirt slip off my body. I wasn’t performing. I wasn’t teasing. I was shedding.
Years of being touched without permission.
Years of hearing my body described like it didn’t belong to me.
Now it did.
And I was going to be worshiped on my terms.
“Lie back,” I said.
He obeyed without question, lowering himself to the rug like a man before an altar. His eyes never left mine.
I stepped forward and straddled his face. The second my thighs pressed to his jaw, he moaned — deep and desperate — and gripped my hips like he needed me to survive.
He kissed the inside of my thighs first, slow and reverent. I guided him with a hand in his hair, anchoring him as his tongue dragged over my clit — soft, slow, deliberate. He circled it, teased it, then sucked hard, making my hips jolt.
“Fuck,” I whispered. “Just like that.”
He groaned like it fed him. His tongue moved faster, more insistent, licking me open and wide. His nose pressed into me as he moaned again, the vibration sending a tremor up my spine.
I grabbed the back of his head, rolling my hips forward into his mouth, my thighs closing around him as the pleasure built. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t quiet.
It was fucking righteous.
And when I came, I didn’t hold back. My body locked, back arched, mouth open as I cried out. My orgasm ripped through me like something sacred and primal, wave after wave, and still he didn’t stop — he licked through it, slow and possessive, like he wanted to drink every part of it down.
When I finally stilled, chest heaving, sweat dripping down my spine, I looked down at him.
Salvatore was staring up at me, his mouth wet, eyes heavy and dazed.
“What are you doing to me?” he whispered.
I blinked, caught off guard. “What?”
He swallowed. “It feels like you’re taking something from me. Everything. But I’m letting you.”
My lips parted. Something cracked open in my chest.
I smiled down at him, soft and full.
“I don’t think I’m taking anything,” I said. “I think I’m finally getting my brother back.”
He groaned. “Ew, don’t say that.”
I laughed — really laughed — and so did he, his face flushed, hair a mess, mouth still shiny with me.
It was twisted. Tender. Perfect.