The Regret Series Complete Collection Box Set: Lost to You, Take This Regret, and if Forever Comes (19 page)

And he smiled. This stomach-flipping, heart-lurching, earth-shattering smile. But it no longer was a smile of manipulation, not one to bend me to his way. This one was genuine, filled with love and adoration and everything I wanted us to be.

This smile was only for me.

“Are you okay?” he murmured. He splayed his hand wide, his fingers supporting the back of my head while his thumb caressed over my cheek.

I wet my lips, taking in the man above me, the only one I would ever love. My fingertips fluttered over his lips, and I whispered, “Perfect.”

I tilted my chin and lifted my mouth to his. The kiss started slow, soft and tender, flicks of tongue and grazes of teeth, as tender and slow as the movements of his body as he cautiously began to move within me.

Pressed together, he kissed me deeper, our mouths filled with longing as I opened to him, body and soul. I ran my hands
over his shoulders and down his back. The muscles were rigid and strained as they bowed and twisted as he worked over me.

Tentatively I moved, lifting my hips to meet him.

Christian slipped one hand down my side, his fingertips digging into the ridges between my ribs. A smooth palm cupped my bottom before he flattened it over my hip and ran it down to my knee. He tucked me closer and hooked my leg over his hip.

Pulling back, he filled me, deliberate and strong.

I gasped and clung to his shoulders as I began to match him move for move.

“Oh, God, Elizabeth.” His fingers dug deep into my thigh. Incoherent mutterings of pleasure slipped from his mouth to mine, and I devoured them while he devoured me.

That feeling built again.

Everything was frantic, the love that solidified this bond between us, the sounds that filled his room, mumbled words of devotion, every desperate touch.

I knew he was getting close. His movements were quick, jerky, his breaths clipped and labored. “Elizabeth…uh…you feel so good. So…good.”

This time he was begging and I was clinging because I needed more.

His hand slipped between us because Christian knew.

I curved my arm around his head, and he buried his face in the crook of my neck.

And I was lost.

Lost to him.

Pleasure rushed, surged and crashed, saturated every inch of my body.

Christian jerked and cried out in my neck, held himself rigid before all the strength left him and he collapsed on me.

We lay like that for countless minutes, our worlds shaken.

Christian rolled to his side, taking me with him. He placed his palm on my cheek, caressed this thumb over the edge of my lips. He gazed at me as if I were the center of his world. There was nothing I could have done to stop this when I realized he’d become mine. “I’m going to love you forever, Elizabeth Ayers.”

I looked up at the man who now held everything, my trust, my future, the nature of my heart. Reaching up, I ran my fingers through the thickness of his black hair. “Don’t ever leave me, Christian.”

Christian frowned, his blue eyes sincere as he leaned forward to whisper at my forehead. “I couldn’t.”

Take this Regret

A. L. Jackson

Copyright © 2012 A. L. Jackson

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior permission of the publisher.

Sapphire Star Publishing

www.sapphirestarpublishing.com

First Sapphire Star Publishing trade paperback edition, April 2012

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Names, characters, places, and plots are a product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

ISBN-13: 978-1-938404-34-4

Cover by Regina Wamba

www.aljacksonauthor.com

Dedication

To my family, Chad, Devyn, Eli, and Braydon

And to my sweet inspiration, Parker Elizabeth

September 2004

“Christian, let go.” Elizabeth struggled to untangle herself from the arms wrapped around her waist. Christian tightened his hold. She giggled and pushed against his chest.

His words came muffled into the crook of her neck where he pressed his mouth against her soft skin. “No, stay.”

“I wish I could, but I have to get to class.” She pulled back, her golden-brown eyes smiling into his intense blue.

He pretended to pout but released his hold, allowing her to roll away from him. A faint smile tugged at his mouth as he turned to lie on his stomach, watching as Elizabeth dressed in the late evening light filtering in through the blinds of his bedroom window. She leaned down to pull her jeans onto her long, toned legs. Locks of dark-blond hair cascaded in messy waves over her shoulder, obstructing her small, heart-shaped face, though every line, dimple, and curve had been burned into his mind. Everything about her made him think of honey, the honey tinge of her eyes, the sun kiss of her skin, the sweetness of her mouth.

He’d known the moment he’d met her that they were perfect for each other. They’d been paired in a study group four years ago during their freshman year at Columbia University. When he’d walked through the door of the small café and had first seen her, she’d taken his breath away. Then when he’d sat down and talked to her, he found she was not only beautiful but one of the most intelligent, compassionate people he’d ever met.

Like Christian, Elizabeth wanted to be an attorney though for entirely different reasons. While he planned to become a real estate attorney so he could one day be a partner in his father’s law firm, Elizabeth was going into family law, focusing on children’s rights. She wasn’t in it for the money. She thought it was the best way for her to become an advocate for those who could not protect themselves.

The passion that came from Elizabeth’s mouth that first day had made Christian question himself—what he believed in and what he lived for. Even then, he’d been sure she would make him a better person. What Christian had found most appealing was how laid-back she was through it all. So many of the girls he’d met when he’d come to New York City had either been stuffy and boring or were only interested in partying on the free ride their wealthy parents had given them.

But not Elizabeth. She was serious about school and committed to her future, but she still took time to enjoy every day of her life, something in which Christian had had a hard time finding a balance. He’d always been pushed by his father to do the best, to
be
the best, and somehow he’d lost himself along the way. He’d become arrogant, conceited, and completely wrapped up in himself. Elizabeth had challenged his self-serving attitude from the very start. Christian had not been accustomed to being told no, yet somehow his typical charms had no effect on her.

~

Elizabeth was never one for frivolous things, a fling with a beautiful, black-haired, blue-eyed boy included. When she’d first met Christian, it had been clear what he was after, and Elizabeth had never allowed herself to be so careless with her affections. But as the semester had progressed and their study sessions grew longer with conversations straying far from the topic of their class, she’d uncovered more in him than the entitled frat boy she’d initially thought him to be. She’d found when she dug deeper into his past and broke through the egoistical façade, there was a good-natured boy who’d been emotionally hindered by the pressures placed on him by his elitist parents.

So when he’d asked her out again four months after their first meeting, she’d given in. It was then she realized she’d already fallen impossibly in love with a boy who came dangerously close to resembling the type of man she swore she’d never allow control of her heart.

They’d been inseparable ever since, spending every free moment of their busy schedules together. Christian had asked her many times to move in with him, and while she found the idea of waking up next to him each morning incredibly inviting, Elizabeth had always quietly refused, committed to the picture she had painted in her mind from childhood. It was one of a new house with a new husband, a place where she would become mother and he would become father, though she now found that picture skewed.

Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder at Christian as she prepared to leave, and a wave of guilt washed over her for keeping it from him for so long. She’d known for a week. Every day she intended to tell him, but each time she opened her mouth, the words just wouldn’t come. Even with the progress she’d seen him make, growing from the self-centered teenager
she’d met their first year at Columbia to the kind-hearted man she knew now, he still had his life mapped out, a plan he intended to follow, and she was not sure how he was going to handle this news. She wasn’t concerned about their relationship. She felt confident in their commitment to one another. They were solid. What she was worried about was how much stress this would place on him. This wasn’t exactly what she’d expected of her last year of under-grad before law school either. Elizabeth just believed she was better at accepting what life threw her way.

Grabbing her backpack, she slung it over her shoulder and leaned down to place a quick kiss on Christian’s lips. “Bye. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He returned her kiss, lingering a little longer than she had. “I’ll miss you.”

“Miss you too.”

Elizabeth turned and left Christian’s small third-floor apartment. With each step, her feet grew heavier as she wondered about the best way to tell him. By the time she reached the last set of stairs leading to the ground floor, she’d convinced herself she just needed to get it out. She turned and raced back up the stairs. She had a key, but for some reason, she felt the need to knock. She rapped loudly on his door.

~

Stretching, Christian yawned and sat up on the side of his bed, deciding he’d better get some studying in since he’d spent most of the day in bed with Elizabeth. Not that he’d ever consider it a waste of time. When someone knocked on his door, he quickly pulled on his jeans from the floor and ran a hand through his thick mass of black hair, having no idea what was awaiting him on the other side of the door.

Peering through the peephole, he caught sight of Elizabeth. He was confused—not by her presence, but by the fact that she was standing outside his door, asking permission to
enter. He swung the door open and frowned. “Elizabeth, what are you doing?”

“I need to talk to you.” The distinct anxiety laced through the words made him fearful, and he pulled her inside, shutting the door behind them.

“What’s wrong?” Obviously, there was something wrong, or she wouldn’t have been standing in his apartment, staring at her feet with rigid arms held over her chest.

“I’m pregnant.”

Christian strained to her hear her whispered words, struggling to decipher them—he was sure she had not just said what he thought she did.

Clearly, though, he was not mistaken when she finally brought her gaze to his, her eyes watery and afraid. His hands began to shake, and he ran them nervously through his hair again as he allowed himself to really hear her.

A baby? That would ruin everything—everything he’d worked for, everything she’d worked for, and every plan they’d ever made. His chest tightened, and for the first time in his life, he felt as if he might have a panic attack. Part of him wanted to demand to know how she could have been so careless, before the rational side of him made him accept whatever had happened was just as much his fault as hers. It was the rational side that saw her shaking and wanted to comfort her, to tell her it would be okay. It was the same side that told him not to panic and they had options. It didn’t have to be that big of a deal.

“Hey,” he said softly as he took a step forward to wrap his arms around her. He ran his hand through her long hair to soothe her. Her face pressed into his chest as she released an audible sigh of relief with his touch. “It’s okay,” he whispered calmly into the side of her head. “We’ll get it taken care of.”

Elizabeth jerked back as if she’d been slapped and searched his face.

“Christian, you don’t really expect me to do that, do you?” she asked, incredulous.

As much as Christian loved Elizabeth, he thought sometimes she just couldn’t see straight through her idealistic mind. Of course they’d talked about her beliefs before and he knew her viewpoint, but that was before they’d been thrown into the situation. It changed things. He was convinced it was the only way.

“Elizabeth . . . you have to.”

Elizabeth shook her head, appearing to struggle against her tears. She backed two steps away from him. “I’m having this baby, Christian.”

“Think about it, Elizabeth.” His words came out harsher than he’d intended, and Christian suddenly realized just how angry he felt that she’d already made a decision without him. “How do you expect to go through law school and have a baby? Have you even thought about it?” She had to see just how impossible the situation was.

Elizabeth looked confused as if she couldn’t grasp what he was trying to say and stuttered, “I . . . I don’t know. We . . . we’ll figure it out.”

Christian squeezed his eyes shut and turned away from her as she began to cry. He tried to rein in his temper even though he really wanted to yell at her and tell her just how stupid and irrational she was being. This would ruin their lives—
his
life. Somewhat unconsciously, Christian found himself thinking thoughts he’d worked so hard to overcome, thoughts of himself, what he needed, and what he wanted. Suddenly, he didn’t see the hurting girl in front of him, the girl he loved, the girl he had every intention of spending the rest of his life with.

He saw somebody standing in his way.

He turned quickly and leveled his eyes at her, his face hard as manipulative words fell from his mouth before he could really think through their meaning. “It’s me or the baby, Elizabeth. You can’t have us both.”

She swallowed deeply and nodded her head as she visibly accepted the ultimatum that Christian had laid out before her. After all, Christian knew there was really never a decision to make.