Free Divinely Living (Surviving Series) by Courtney Cross Page B

Chicago to a less than warm reception and was sent packing. Nobody knows where she went after then, but the faint leads the private detective my dad paid to find her turned up pointed towards her moving to California. My dad tried for years and paid thousands of pounds to find her but never did. The man was riddled with cancer nine years on and was still searching for the whore. Alex’s admission years later during a violent confrontation with my uncle that he only screwed her as an act of revenge for Benjamin withdrawing his help when they were at university was what finally finished him off. She was only the beginning of what Alex had planned yet what they did had the most devastating of consequences.”
    Tears that I had been holding back began to fall. I cried for his loss, his pain and the devastation that ripped an entire family apart through one man’s unfounded ideals of unwarranted retribution. Jonah had suffered at the hands of Alex just as I had.  Yet another reality, that bound us closer together. “I’m so sorry for what he did to you,” I whispered as sobs lodged in my throat and stifled my voice.
    Closing the gap between us in a second, he pulled me from the chair and hauled me to my feet. Burying his face in my still damp hair and wrapping his arm around me tightly, the shakes that racked through his powerful frame set my own body trembling in response.
    “You do not apologise for that fuckers actions, do you hear me.” Releasing his hold on me slightly, I raised my head from his chest and saw the defiance in his eyes. “You suffered worse than anyone at that bastards hands. You don’t owe me, or my fucked up family any apologies on his behalf. What my mother did was her own choice. My dad harboured love for her until the day he died through his own choice. None of this is your doing or your guilt to bear.”
    I cupped his cheeks in my small shaking hands as the tears continued to fall. “It’s not your doing either Jonah. Your uncle was wrong to make you feel you owed him any kind of gratitude after everything you were put through as a child. He was family and an adult. It was his duty to care for you; you owed him nothing in return.”
    Pressing a kiss to my forehead, his body relaxed against mine as he held me tightly. “We’re both victims of failed parentage and deficient childhoods. That’s what makes you even more special to me sweetheart. Being fucked up is okay, you told me that. You want me despite my failings because you understand what it means to be damaged which only makes me love you more, because you understand.”
    Resting my face between the hard slabs of his pectorals I inhaled his scent, allowing the familiarity and safety it offered to flow through me. With Jonah I felt I belonged. I never realised until that moment how significant a factor that had become within my life. He was my lifeline, my protector and my defence against the darkness. Jonah was the brightest light and sweetest of agonising pain and I loved him passionately for it.
    Still holding me in his arms, he sat down in the chair I had been rooted in and pulled me across his lap. His tongue found the pulse point within my throat as he traced the outline of my neck. I sucked in a breath as his hand ascended over my thigh, the flesh beneath his palm burning under his touch. His tongue found my chin, then my lower lip before sealing his lips around mine, his tongue sweeping the inside of my mouth, as he tasted me. A groan of need escaped him as he intensified the kiss, his fingers gripping my upper thigh painfully. I moaned as the hardness of his growing erection pressed against the cheek of my ass, an undeniable sign of Jonah’s arousal. Desire stirred within me, my sex beginning to feel the slow burn it always did when turned on by Jonah and greedy for his touch. Just as the sex haze that always enveloped me when wrapped up in Jonah’s seductive spell began to fall, I wrenched my lips from his and shook my