a month later
Mia's POV
I was sitting alone in the room that I had been staying in for the last month. Even though I had seen Deacon several times over that time, I left before he could say anything to me.
Every time I looked at him, I replayed that night instantly. I knew he didn't mean to hurt me intentionally, but I still couldn't bring myself to be in the same room with him. I had eaten my meals here instead of the family table. Basically, shutting everyone out.
I fed the twins their meals like I always had, but then immediately would retreat back to my room. Dimitri, Axel, Alex and Declan all stopped in at least once a day to check on me, they all said that all he did was ask if I would just talk to him. Rose and I would get together here in the room and watch a movie or two and just talk.
As much as I wanted to, wanted to feel his arms holding me, to feel his lips kissing mine, I hated to admit I was terrified to be alone with him again. What I saw in him that night, that wasn't my Deacon, that was the demon inside of him that this life had made.
Even though I was alone right now, I was scared to death at what I may have to do. The timer on my phone beeped loudly startling me at the sudden intrusion of sound.
Slowly I got up and walked into my bathroom, I looked at the four tests that were sitting in a row on the counter. I rested my hands on either side of the sink, bowing my head as the tears began to fall.
I slid down in front of the counter sobbing silently, still gripping the counter tightly. "Dammit!!" I shouted loudly as I sent a fist into the cabinet door in front of me.
Deacon's POV
I had to talk to her today, no one was going to stop me. There was no way I could take another day of knowing Mia was in the same house as me and not be able to talk to her, hear her voice, or anything else of the list of things I've missed doing every day and night for the last month. If I had to beg her on my hands and knees to forgive me I would.
Standing outside of her door was torture. I would raise my hand to grab the door handle, to knock and then I would stop and find myself just staring at the door again wondering what to do.
When I heard her cry out, followed by the sound of a thud. I panicked and without even thinking I threw the door open, rushing into the room, looking around for the reason of both sounds. I scanned every inch of the room until I heard her muffled sobs coming from the open bathroom. Cautiously I approached the open door, to see Mia sitting on the cold floor, her head resting on her knees and her arms over her head. She just rocked back and forth sobbing into her knees. Silently I looked around the bathroom, my eyes were drawn to what had made the thud, a knuckle shaped dent in the cabinet door from Mia apparently punching it.
I quietly took a few more steps, until I stood just outside the bathroom. Making as little noise as possible I sat down on the floor, before tapping on the open bathroom door. I was worried that if I stood with her like this that she would panic.
"Go away." She sobbed.
Taking a deep breath, I silently prayed she wouldn't scream when she heard me in the room this close to her. "Mia, I know you probably don't want to see me, but I heard you scream and hit the cabinet. I didn't know what else to do, so I came in check on you."
She looked up at me, the look somewhere between fear and shock. Her back pressed tighter against the tub behind her. My heart instantly ripped to shreds, my angel, my world, my everything was scared of me. My head dropped looking at the floor. "I'm sorry, I ... I should have just gone and got someone else. I shouldn't have come in." I started to stand up slowly. When I finally got to my feet, her body language changed again as she looked up at me from where she was sitting. I caught the shiver that's she tried to hide, as she watched me with the same face. I turned away from her and started to head back towards the door. I stopped, my back still to her, but I had to get this out or it was going to eat me alive. "Mia, I'm so sorry. I don't know what came over me, but that's still not an excuse for what I did. There is no excuse for what I did to you.
Every night it all runs through my head again, and I'm ashamed, and disgusted in myself. Not just for what I did, but for what I said too." I closed my eyes tightly, remembering what I said to her. "There will never be enough ways for me to tell you that I am sorry, or to show you that I'm sorry. I took a moment that was so beautiful, and words that were so gracious and turned them into nothing.
I understand if you still want to leave, and if that's what you choose, I'll honor your choice. I just had to know that you heard my apology, even if you don't except it. There will never be another woman for me but you. If you have to leave, I'll wait as long as it takes for you to feel safe enough to come home again, and I'll do whatever it takes to make you feel that way again. I don't care if that means we have to start completely over again, so that I can earn your trust again. I'll prove to you somehow that that's not the man I am."
Mia's POV
I was scared when I looked up seeing Deacon sitting outside the bathroom door. My reaction must have hurt him, but I didn't mean it too. All I could do was sit there and watch him walk away. When he started to talk with his back turned to me, I heard his voice breaking, I felt his heart breaking, and I felt the sincerity in the words he said.
I stood up slowly walking to the bathroom doorway, then through it. For the first time in a month, we were in the same room together. I wanted to run to him, throwing my arms around his waist and just hold him like that forever.
"I know that's not the man you are Deacon." I swallowed roughly as he froze in place at the closeness of my voice. "Please would you turn around so I can see your face?"
I waited patiently as he slowly turned to face me. "I'm sorry I've avoided you, but I didn't know how to start a conversation with you, because I kept replaying what happened over and over again in my head."
I watched as he nodded, his head still facing the ground. "I understand."
Cautiously I took a few steps towards him, then a few more and a few more. Finally, I was standing direct in front of him, though he still didn't look up at me. I raised my right hand, gently resting it on his cheek. "Deacon, please look at me."
Deacon's POV
My heart skipped a few beats when I felt her hand on my cheek. I looked up at her, her eyes filled with so much love and sadness. Then without warning she had her face buried in my chest as she held onto me like her life depended on it. I wrapped my arms around her, she didn't flinch, nothing, she just let me hold her like that for I don't know how long.
When she finally pulled away, she looked up into my eyes, her teeth biting into her bottom lip roughly.
I knew what that meant, there was something that she wanted to say to me or something she wanted to tell ne. "Mia, what's making you bite your lip? If you want to yell at me, go ahead, I deserve it and I'll gladly take it."
She glanced back to the open bathroom door and then back to me. "I don't want to yell, but you should know the reason you heard me shout."
"Okay, but first please tell me everything is okay."
"I'm fine, nervous, but fine." She responded timidly, turning to head towards the bathroom once again.
I followed her quietly, stopping in front of the sink when she did. "What's in here that that you want to show me?"
Without saying a word, she looked forward, my eyes following her gaze. When I saw what was sitting on the counter, I took a sudden harsh breath in. Closing my eyes momentarily to compose myself before looking at them closely.
Setting a hand down onto the counter I leaned in and looked at all four of the small tests that sat openly there. I thought my heart was going to pound out of my chest at what I saw. My eyes grew wide, my breaths turned short as I looked back at her. "When did you take these Mia?"
"Just a little bit ago, I just saw the results shortly before you came in." Her voice was so light if I hadn't been listening, I would have thought that she was mumbling to herself.
I didn't know how to react; I was completely speechless. "So, you, you thought that you were?"
"I was going to have either Alex or Declan call the doctor to do another test, but there's four of them saying the same thing. So, I'm assuming that they're right." She looked at me attentively to gauge my response. "I would have been barely a month along maybe a week longer. I only took them because I missed my period last week."
I looked back at the tests and then back to her again. "Mia, I don't know what to say." I covered my mouth with my hand, then ran both my hands through my hair. I again looked at the tests and then back to her.
I smiled as I picked her up into my arms and headed out of the room with her, heading towards our room. As soon as I entered our room, I laid her on the bed and covered her with the blankets to make her comfortable. My hand cupped her cheek gently. "You wanted it didn't you?"
Mia's POV
"More than words can explain." I answered fiddling with the edge of the blanket. "I thought maybe it would give you a reason to still love me if we were going to have another baby?"
Deacon's arms wrapped around me tightly, as he held me. "That's what you thought? That's why you were so upset about the results?"
Deacon's POV
Mia nodded silently me. "I would have hated me." She said lightly. "When I woke up you weren't there, you were always there."
"They wouldn't let me in with you Mia. I can't blame them though; I was the one who caused it after all. I wasn't far, if you'd have called, I'd have heard you. I sat outside your door for almost a week hoping you would, but when you didn't, I figured you didn't want to see me."
"That's all I wanted Deacon, was for you to walk through the doors and hold me."
Mia's POV
The tears poured down his cheeks as he looked at me. Slowly Deacon bent down onto his knees by the bedside clasping my hands in his own. "I'm so sorry, I don't deserve your forgiveness, but I'm begging you for it. Not just for your forgiveness, but for the chance to be in your life. I will never be able to forgive myself Mia, and I truly wouldn't blame you if you never did either."
I couldn't understand what he was talking about. "Deacon what's wrong?"
He just stared up at me from his knees. "I deserve to be sitting in a cell in that pit right now, not here with you. Why didn't you send me there that night? I deserved it; I still do. What I did to you."
"Deacon, I know the difference between you and what a life like this can turn you into. That wasn't you that night. You were upset, hurt, emotional and probably confused. I'm fine, I promise." Resting my hand on his cheek, I guided his eyes to mine. "I would never send you down there either. Right now, you're exactly where you need to be, okay?"
His head shook no slowly again and again. "Mia, I could have killed you do you understand that? I threw you onto the ground, and treated you like a slave. I made something you said to me and did out of love into something so depraved.
Baby, when I whipped you forward like that, I ripped every stitch open in your stomach. Even after realizing what I had done, it wasn't me who kept you safe. I watched them hold you, and I heard every plea that came from my brother's lips for you to stay with us, just for you to open your eyes. Mia, I almost killed you that night. If something would have happened to you, there is no way I would have been able to live with myself."
"But I'm right here, aren't I?" I blushed as I looked at him. I couldn't help it, the thought that had just run through my mind was enough to make a hooker blush. "You're my home Deacon, my everything." Blushing I looked up at him. "You made me feel complete that night. It felt like what I had imagined our first time should have been.
You remember that right? How you pinned me against the door, and told me that you didn't care who heard us, because you were finally going to be able to have me the way that you've always wanted me.
After you surprised me with the wedding of my dreams, after I found out that I finally had a family, and after you called me your Donna for the first time." I leaned closer to his ear. "The way you made me feel that night was more than I could have ever asked for, you and Alex and Declan gave me the family I never had as a child.
Then you brought me back to this room, our room, and made my body feel the same way my heart did. Deacon, regardless of what happened after all that, it was the best night of my life.
I got a family, and I was able to have you the way I had always wanted to have you. And you made me feel amazing, you lit my entire being on fire, mind, body and soul. I couldn't make a sentence, then I couldn't make words.
You have no idea, and I will probably never have the right words to explain to you how I felt after that, that night. I felt all of you, every inch of skin that touched me I felt, because you lit every inch of my skin on fire.
Deacon that was the first time I was able to give my entire body to you, it was the first time I felt that I that not only was I enough for you, but also that I was able to finally please you in a way that I've prayed no else ever has before."