The people asked and so they shall receive! I had quite a few requests for a sequel. But seriously, I would like to apologize that this took so long to get out. Aside from the usual excuses, I was finishing my final project for my Bachelor’s Degree and getting ready for my internship (Yay!). So here it is! The sequel to A Beautiful Almost! To be completely honest, there’s a whole heck of a lot less angst (I don’t know if you could call it angst) because I’m a smooshy, mushy sap at heart and have a weakness for happy endings. It’s also quite long, so I apologize for that as well. Hope you like it! ❤
She kicked her shoes off and dropped her purse by the door.
Then she dropped onto a couch with a muffled thud, determined to sleep for the next twelve hours.
Bless the sweet bliss of darkness that awaited her.
‘It’s funny,’ she thought, ‘how darkness can be so wonderfully comforting and so utterly terrifying depending on context.’
Thick tears ran down her cheeks and her back shook with the almost silent sobs that tore through her already drained body. It felt like each tear was emptying her, drawing on a reserve that wasn’t there.
It wasn’t because she missed her soulmate.
This time her heart was breaking for someone else.
“I didn’t want this for you.”
With a scream of terror and surprise, she whipped her hand gun out of the holster on her thigh while flipping off the safety, rolling off the couch, and pointing it at the unknown intruder.
She’d be damned if she was going to be murdered in her own damn apartment.
The voice hung in the dark, smooth and amused.
She could barely hear it over the beating of her heart.
“Ts-tsuna?” she asked, breathless with fear and disbelief.
“Don’t move!” she yelped.
She moved to the light switch, flicking the lamp on and returning her hand immediately to the gun.
Her hard, blue eyes met Tsuna’s amber, narrowed and watching her attentively.
“You know how to use that,” he observed, nodding toward the firearm.
“Yet, you’re not scared.” She glared at Tsuna, speaking slowly.
Tsuna sauntered forward, steps smooth and lithe. His eyes flared in color, but the lids dropped; his handsome features reflected the change in attitude. The smallest smile dancing viciously across his lips, a cruel cast to the shadows on his face, oozing lethal confidence, a bit of contempt, and a certain surety of his own safety.
He stopped directly in front of her shaking form and leaned in and over her—placing his neck directly in line with the barrel of the gun—smirking haughtily at his soulmate.
“Do you really think you have the guts to shoot me?” he taunted.
The barrel of the gun was shoved up into his neck, cold and perfectly nestled into the junction of his jaw and jugular.
Sudden, icy anger fueling her actions, she cocked the gun, taking her sweet time to let the click resound in Tsuna’s ears. “That depends,” she whispered from behind clenched teeth. “On what you’re here for.”
Tsuna blinked, surprise bleeding into his posture, deadly aura falling away.
“What do you think I’m here for?” was his careful query.
Her nostrils flared, jaw set in determination. “I won’t die.”
Tsuna’s brow furrowed, just slightly, as the words fell before him. The full meaning hit him like a sledge hammer to the gut. A string of guilt tugged on his heart and pulled, dragging it down to sit heavy on his stomach. “Is that- Is that what you think I’m here for?” he asked incredulously. He stepped back, away from the cocked gun and the defensive woman behind it.
Doubt flew through her eyes. “I… did?”
“Damnit! What kind of man do you think I am?” he growled.
She glared, heartrate jumping at his rough tone. Her fingers tightened on the gun. “A Don.”
She raised an eyebrow at the uncontested acquiescence.
“But listen to me, sweetheart. Please. I’m not here to kill you. C’mon, you know me-”
“No. I don’t Tsuna.” She frowned. Her voice was forceful and agitated, frustration flying through her eyes and settling in the furrow of her brow. “Maybe you’ve forgotten, but we only knew each other for three weeks before you decided I was moving in with you.”
Tsuna’s hands came up in a shrug. “Well, yeah, but we’re soulmates. We’re made for each other and I-” He cut off abruptly.
Eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You what?”
“I, um, may have known about you before you knew me,” Tsuna admitted, for once looking a bit sheepish.
“You what?” she spat, all but hissing.
“It wasn’t on purpose! We were just—will you put the gun away? The last time I had a gun pointed at me this long Don DiMarco was threatening to decapitate me in his parlor!” He saw the resolute set of her face and the stubbornness in her eyes.
And the fear. She was still afraid.
His own damn soulmate was afraid of him.
Suddenly, it was too much. The world resting on his shoulders was too heavy and he couldn’t take the weight anymore because his soulmate—the one who should trust him the most—was afraid of him.
And it really was his fault for being such an enormous douche.
He looked at her, truly observing her for the first time since he broke into her apartment. She was tired. The entire situation had been weighing on her back and turning in her stomach for months upon months and she was bone-tired. Tsuna could see it. Dark circles announced the months of fearful half-sleep and her jacket hung a bit too loosely on her frame in a subtle show of anxiety-fueled weight loss. Despite the firmness in her eyes and the hard cords of muscle that peeked from beneath her clothes, he could see the gauntness that hadn’t been there before.
Tsuna backed away. He sat on the couch, shoulders drooping, back slouched, head hanging.
She stood there, teetering on the precipice of distrust and concern. This was something she hadn’t seen from Tsuna before. In the three weeks of knowing him she had seen angry, charming, happy, smug, deadly, seductive, ruthless, motivated, domineering…
She had never seen vulnerable.
Tsuna looked up as he heard a noise.
She had put the safety back on and was setting the gun on the table.
Her beautiful face was frowning, just a bit, but she was walking over to him and sitting next to him, not quite touching him and her hands and arms curled in tight to her body like a shield.
“If you’re not here to kill me, what are you here for?” she asked quietly, eyes on her shoes.
“Why are you wearing so much black?” he asked instead.
She swallowed. “I was at a funeral.”
“A boy in town. From the youth shelter. I work there now.”
Both of their voices were subdued, careful; both afraid of driving the other away, both scared of closing the gap too quickly.
“You work at a youth shelter?”
Tsuna blinked. “That’s amazing.”
She shrunk further into the shelter of her hunched shoulders.
“No. I meant it.” Tsuna shifted, turning his body to her. His hands found her face, cupping her cheeks and gently lifting her eyes to his. “That’s wonderful. I didn’t…” he trailed off. “I’m sorry. That’s what I came here for. I came to say that I’m sorry for the way I treated you, for how much I took you for granted, for ever hurting you.” He kissed her, tender and soft, yet needy and desperate. Trying to convey feelings he didn’t have words for. He pulled back—far too quickly for his taste. “I never wanted to hurt you. Never want to hurt you. I-” He licked his lips, searching for words. “I didn’t think of you. I only thought of myself and there’s no excuse for it.”
Tsuna’s hands slid from her face, across her neck, skimming her shoulders, caressing her arms. They settled on cradling her hands, still lying in her lap. His head fell forward into the crook of her neck. His heart leapt and he let out a sigh of utter relief and happiness when he finally felt her relax against him.
They stayed still like that for a while.
“How did you know about me before we met, Tsuna?” she asked into the quiet.
Tsuna spoke into her neck, too comfortable to move. “It really was an accident. It was your roommate. She worked for a sex trafficking ring we were trying to crack.”
“Shh. I know. She doesn’t seem like she could hurt anyone. But we had been tracking her for months, lost too many informants to her. Each time we got close, she would disappear. We knew we couldn’t attack her directly. Otherwise she’d run. And you were there. An innocent civilian. We try to avoid civilian casualties. So we sent in a Vongola man.”
“I knew I had seen Dante somewhere before!” she cried.
Tsuna chuckled. “Sometimes you’re too observant for you own good. Yes, Dante was the one we sent. He started dating her and got to know about you. Angelica talked about you a lot. Specifically, she mentioned your soulmark.”
“Her real name. Anyway, Dante didn’t know it matched mine, but he had to report everything and my guardians do know my soulmark. Gokudera put two and two together.”
“How long before we met?”
Tsuna paused. “Um, two months.”
“Two months? You were stalking me for two months before you introduced yourself!” She moved back dislodging Tsuna, her hands going to her hips in mock anger. “You are my soulmate, mister. You stalked me for two months! What do you have to say for yourself?”
She expected him to follow her playful attitude, but instead his eyes dropped to stare intently at their hands.
Tsuna couldn’t bring himself to look at her. “I didn’t know if I wanted a soulmate,” he admitted.
Tsuna’s eyes whipped to hers.
She laughed softly. “Do you know how terrified I was when my soulmark started to burn? I almost passed out.” She frowned. “What changed?”
“The situation.” Tsuna moved closer. “May I?” he inquired, gesturing toward her with open arms.
She nodded, trusting her instincts that told her he truly didn’t want to harm her. If he did, he would have done so already.
Tsuna gathered her close, pulling her into his body. He nestled her between his legs and curled around her. carefully wrapped his arms to encompass her—warm, but not tight. He didn’t want her feeling trapped at the moment. After all, she had held a loaded gun to his neck not too far in the past. Finally, he laid his head against her, encouraging her to relax back into him.
As he cradled her, Tsuna spoke. “Your roommate was planning on selling you to the sex trafficking ring. She just had to make sure no one would come looking for you.”
“Me? Why? I’m sure there are easier targets.”
“She thought you were a virgin. Virgins go hundreds of thousands of dollars in this particular circle.” Tsuna spoke quietly, anger at what could have happened to the woman in his arms seeping through the softness of his voice.
They lapsed into contemplative silence.
“How can I trust you?” she whispered. “How do I truly know you’re not here to kill me? I don’t feel like you’re here to hurt me, but…” Her voice was conflicted, tired, and confused.
Tsuna’s response this time was slower, more thoughtful. “Is that why you learned to use a gun?” he asked, yet again answering with a question.
Tsuna sighed. “You spent all that time, nearly an entire year, thinking I wanted you dead?”
Tsuna’s hold on her tightened and he buried his face more deeply in her neck. She could feel him shaking just the slightest bit. “I’m so sorry,” he murmured. “You shouldn’t have had to live like that. I shouldn’t have made you feel like that.”
This was not what she had expected, obviously. She had expected hostility and ego and was instead met with penitence and tenderness; a sincerity she had yet to witness in her mafioso.
“I want to believe, but it’s still hard. I had convinced myself you would hate me,” she admitted.
“I was angry at first, don’t get me wrong. I-” his voice faltered. “I went a bit insane with anger. Do you know what it’s like to have your other half ripped away from you?”
“Tsuna, I am your other half.”
“It was terrible,” she conceded. “I felt like someone had ripped a piece of my chest out.”
“Yes.” His voice softened again, shame creeping into the corners. “I was hurt and I showed it through anger. I was bent on finding you, but not for the right reasons.” He stopped. That was a bit of an understatement. His anger had taken over like a tsunami, rolling across the ground and threatening to devastate everything he held dear. Looking back on it, he couldn’t help but be impressed that it had taken so long to find his beloved despite the burning motivation of his fury.
Tsuna chuckled wryly. “Yamamoto and Reborn knocked some sense into me. Literally. Separately. Brutally.”
She laughed along with him. “I’m sorry. I’ve heard horror stories about those two.”
“You could always kiss it better,” Tsuna purred in her ear.
“Tsuna!” she protested with a wiggle, but Tsuna held on tight, smiling mischievously.
He continued to hold her, letting her sink back into his embrace.
“Do you know how much I love you?” Tsuna exhaled.
She froze. He had never directly stated his love.
“I thought I knew how it would feel; seeing you for the first time. I’d seen your picture. I read every bit of information we had on you. I sent Gokudera to watch you for a bit.”
“See, I told you you were a stalker,” she sassed.
“Shush. I’m being mushy. Besides, I’m a Don. What was I supposed to do?” He swallowed thickly. “Then I saw you. I met you. And I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t do anything. I felt like I was a kid again, No-good Tsuna, all helpless and weak. It-it didn’t rearrange my life. It just… gave it sense. Changed my perspective. I finally saw how everything in my life had been preparing me for you, had been directing me and giving me the tools to succeed, for us to succeed. When I saw you, I knew that I could love you.” He turned his head to her neck and began kissing. It was soft. It was sensual. His kisses were so tantalizingly slow she wanted to cry out. As it were, she bit her lip and listened to the words he pressed into her skin.
“I forgot. Too quickly. I forgot how much I need you. I forgot that not everything is dark and heavy and callous. And I forgot that you’re my light. I tried to drag you down into the darkness with me. But that’s not right. I need you. I need you to help me stay afloat in the dark. I need your warmth and your love. You happiness and your laughter--”
A laugh escaped Tsuna. “Maybe your boobs.” He paused before shifting his hands around to cup her breasts. “Definitely you boobs.” He bucked his hips, undulating as slow as possible to grind into her backside. Her face flamed. “Your butt, too. That’s pretty nice.” His lips were scalding on her skin, nipping and nuzzling.
“Tsuna,” she called urgently, all breathe and blush and gasping lungs. “Stop. I can’t do this.”
Tsuna stilled immediately.
She untangled herself from Tsuna’s arms and stood up on shaky legs.
Tsuna almost made a deeply embarrassing sound at the loss of her warmth, but he let her go. He needed to do this her way, as much as it killed him. He wanted to whisk her away now. To take her back to the Vongola mansion and take her in every sensual, erotic way humanly possible. He wanted to lock her up for a week straight and worship her body and soul. Watching her standing there, chest heaving and skin flushed, trying to deny the magnetism of their touch, he wanted her more intensely than anything he had ever desired.
He had considered doing it.
Especially back when he was angry.
He had dreamed of finding her and taking her in the middle of the night, locking her away, punishing her, and never letting her see the light of day again. It had taken Reborn beating him within an inch of his life and Yamamoto roughing him up to get it through his head that it was his fault. That she left for a reason and he would only cause them both misery if he pursued those awful thoughts. That if he ever wanted a true shot at her love, he needed to take her into account.
And as much as he wanted her to be his, he couldn’t own her. He didn’t want to cause her pain due to his selfishness. He had already done enough of that.
So he could be patient; for her.
She leveled her gaze toward Tsuna, sorrow lacing her eyes. “I can’t go back with you.”
Tsuna stood. He walked over to her and grabbed the hand that was clutched to her chest. “I’m not asking you to. Not yet. Eventually. Maybe. When you want.” He brought her hands to his lips. “What I’m asking for is a second chance. A chance to get to know you properly. To date you, to court you. I want a second chance to love you fully, to give you a chance to know me.”
She stared down at her own hand, still held tenderly in his. “I can’t leave, Tsuna.”
He could hear the tears trembling in the timbre of her voice.
Tsuna brought her hand to his chest, cradling it with both of his own hands. “We’ll cross that bridge when it comes. I mean to take the time we need this time around.” His voice was the most painful mix of careful soothing and quiet desperation. “You’ll stay here. I’ll visit on the weekends. You’ll remain independent until you decide otherwise. We can look for someone to run the Youth Center here so you don’t have to worry. And everything will be your choice. Please.”
She looked up at him. “And we’ll take things slow?”
She bit her bottom lip for a brief moment, mulling things over. “What if I decide it won’t work?”
“Honestly?” Tsuna asked. “I’ll probably be back the next day with every rose in a fifty mile radius and your great-aunt Bertha yelling at you to marry me.”
She smiled, a soft laugh pealed from uncertain lips, and Tsuna felt his heart leap.
There was a pause, a consideration.
Tsuna let out a relieved sigh. A load of tension eased from his shoulders, bleeding away with the warmth in her smile.
Seeing the stress he’d been carrying, trusting his word, she took Tsuna’s hand with the hand still held in both of his. Together they walked to the couch and she made him sit in front of her so she could rub his back and shoulders.
As she kneaded his muscles in the most wonderful of ways, Tsuna inquired of his love in a soft voice, “Would you really have shot me.”
Her motions continued without change, tender and capable. “I won’t die, Tsuna. Not like that.”
There was a strength in her words, a passion and conviction Tsuna had never previously realized.
“Good,” he stated with a firm nod. “You’ll need that resolve. I live a dangerous life. If you decide to live yours with me, you’ll need to be prepared. You’ll need to take that strength and hold tight. Focus it and let it become your will and your tool.” He grabbed her hand from his shoulder and brought it to his mouth, not kissing it. He leaned into the hand, speaking into the smooth skin. “As soon as you make the decision to be mine, as soon as you make the choice to stand beside me, you become my Donna; my Queen.”
