CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CELESTE
My nose burns from the bits of skin and blood coating me, the scent of death and bile causing tears to seep down my cheeks. I’m so weak and shaky in Liam’s arms. I loathe being weak.
Inside the cell, I was somewhat disassociated. Scared but detached enough to just do what I needed to do. To play their game with feigned confidence. Even when the guy flickered on the dim light and grabbed me—not Beef Jerky because Ivy was his new prize—I squashed the quaking fear that he’d pull the trigger. An uncanny acceptance enwrapped me, a resolve that joining Ben wouldn’t be the worst fate. It wasn’t the first time I’d felt that. It was the first time that thought felt brave though.
But much like that night in the hotel bathroom, as soon as Liam touched me, I let go. Whatever had been holding me up fell away with the desolated monster.
Splattered on the concrete. Electrocuted with a hairdryer. Commemorated in the sea.
Set ablaze in a Dodge Viper.
Death is in me. It’s in my veins and bones and cells.
I can’t escape it.
Which begs the question I’ve been choking back. “Keith?” I whisper against Liam’s ear.
He nods, his scruff scratching my cheek. “Yes. And Arnold. I’m so sorry, baby girl. Rex, Dante, and Rena are okay.”
My sobs break through the smoke and hushed extermination, thundering so ferociously that I can’t seem to suck in a breath without wheezing.
Wells and Liam tromp into the woods with Ivy and me, gathering up their bags of supplies and marching through the overgrown brush without waiting on the other guys. They’re so methodical and focused, like this is an everyday occurrence.
Flames whoosh up in our wake. A brutal massacre reduced to forgotten ash.
My heart thumps, shivers skittering up my arms, muscles aching with the tension I’ve held since the bomb went off at the shop.
Moments later, Ty and Gage fall in step with us.
Gage lifts my chin off Liam’s shoulder while hiking behind us, his thumb collecting my tears and buffing at what must be blood or brains from the man who held me. “You’re tough, angel. I knew you were. You’ll be locked up with us for the foreseeable future, but you’re fucking tough.”
I wish I could soak that in, but tough is the last descriptor I’d assign myself at present. The Big Guy viewing me that way tugs at my heartstrings all the same. His opinion means more to me than I would’ve ever expected. Somehow, it deepens the anguish of the men I lost though.
“That’s for sure,” Ty agrees. He kisses Ivy’s temple and switches out with Gage, palming my head while keeping pace with Liam. “No more going out for a while. You okay, Lettie?”
Okay? I’m not even sure how to answer that. How could this be okay? And yet here, with the five of them, safety cocoons me, so I nod. Ty needs to know I’m not broken.
Maybe this is what okay looks like to them—a narrow escape from fire and brimstone. Slathered with the insides of my failed executioner and mourning men I’ve known for most of my life.
Arnold was like a stoic grandpa, quietly cheering me on in the background of all my important moments. How can he be past tense?
Like Ben. And Keith.
The five of them start talking, but I can’t seem to focus. I just close my eyes and breathe in Liam’s smoky skin, relishing the pecks to my temple and hair that he peppers me with every few seconds.
We make it to the car, and Wells buckles Ivy into the passenger seat while Liam crawls in the back seat with me on his lap, strapping us in together, his body heat easing my shivers.
After Wells shuts Ivy in, he opens our door, cradles my face, and plants a kiss on my forehead. His green eyes swirl with more emotion than I’ve ever seen in him, outside of the way he gapes at Ivy. “I’m so sorry, Celeste. We should’ve been training you.”
That apology, the way he’s holding my face, the regret in his tone might be one of the sweetest occurrences of my life because none of that is Wells.
I clear my throat and rasp out my response. “It’s okay—”
“It’s not,” he insists, jaw clenched. “This will all be fixed. And you’ll never be unprepared again.”
It isn’t a promise that this won’t happen again. It’s a vow I’ll be prepared when it does. What the hell have I gotten myself into? No chess strategy will master this life.
Wells drops behind the wheel, and we’re off. They make a call to someone named Vargas, who Liam explains is their FBI contact. I don’t question it any further.
Ivy is curled in a ball, either unfazed or zoning out. She perks up when Wells finally addresses her, ordering her to give him her hand.
“Still tense, Little Storm.” Worry threads every word.
“Pissed.” She huffs. “I pitched my gun, my Christmas present.”
So, unfazed it is. Painted in gore, and she’s pouting about her gun. Her ability to disconnect is truly astounding, even after seventeen years of friendship. When emotions do win, they swallow her whole in their intensity. But other times, she simply escapes.
“Brat.” Wells chuckles with an adoring sidelong glance at his precious wife. Letting go of her hand, he wiggles around for a beat, flourishing her pretty pistol a second later. “I’ve always got you, Ives.”
She squeals, stretching out her seat belt to kiss him on the cheek with a, “Yes, you do, Chief. God, I love you,” as she plucks the gun from his hand.
“Love you, baby,” he says, followed with a demanding, “Fix your buckle, Ivanna.”
She does as she was told, but holds up her cherished possession to me, her dancing blue eyes beaming over the seat. “It’s a Sig P365 380 in Rainbow Titanium. Isn’t she pretty?”
“So pretty,” I warble, lacking the enthusiasm she seems to be summoning.
Liam tilts my head, his lips pressing into mine, like he’s pleased I answered her. Still, there’s an undeniable tension rolling off him, even as he snuggles me against him.
Ivy launches an exposition about what we overheard, excitement dripping from her tone about the prospect of a book existing with dirt on countless politicians and high-level officials. When she’s done cataloging it all, Liam seethes.
“Fucking hell.” It’s a pained, exasperated bleat.
Wells shoots a look over his shoulder, hitching to my gaze and then parking on Liam, a two-second silent conversation ensuing between them before he turns back to the road. “I’ll handle KORT. You leave tonight.”
“What?” I gasp, suddenly nauseated. “Where—”
“Both of us, Ace,” Liam clarifies, catching my misunderstanding. His eyes glisten with disappointment as he strings his fingers through my matted hair. Leaving everyone is probably upsetting. “This is bigger than the Skulls,” he explains. “Whoever the big money is behind this believes you know where that book is. You won’t be safe until we find it or kill everyone hunting for it.”
“I might know something about it,” I confess against his scruffy cheek.
He immediately pulls back, studying my face. “Tell me.”
“My brother left me five books on conspiracy theory a few days before he died. He said I’d know if I needed them. I think it was a message.”
“Where are they?” he asks, his words rushed with adrenaline.
“At my parents’ home, on the bookshelf in my room,” I supply.
In an instant, Liam’s on the phone with Gage, barking orders for him and Rex to prepare for a trip to Ohio, his arm tightening around me like he’s preventing me from flying away.
“Take her to twenty-three,” Wells says.
No idea what that means, but it seems to choke Liam up. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.” Wells’s eyes find Liam’s in the rearview mirror, conveying reassurance. “Take some time.”
“Yeah.” Liam buries his face in my hair, breathing in what can only be a rancid aroma of captivity, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “Thanks, Chief. We need it.”
Not long after that, we finally veer into the gated driveway of the grand French chateau I’ve been calling home. Everything feels more tentative than before. Death’s proximity heightens the importance of every decision, those concerning my family too.
Since Ty appears unscathed, he enters the front door, distracting the Noires and Natasha from our disheveled state as we bolt up the back stairway from the garage entrance. Liam quickly strips both of us down in his bathroom and shoves me into the hot shower. All his movements are hurried and hasty, like he can hear a ticking countdown. To what exactly?
His intensity is frightening, as is the way he’s watching me. There’s something he’s not saying.
Once we’re both wet, he brushes my teeth, instructing me to spit near our feet. I’d be grossed out, but the pink water pooling at our ankles and the crimson drips drizzling like rain down my legs must desensitize me to what would ordinarily be disgusting. This is a far cry from the life I anticipated. Maybe no less a prison. I’m not sure.
He attacks my mouth, his tongue sweeping into me with velvety strokes that are more possessive than ever before.
It’s vicious and beautiful.
Claiming and commanding.
Lethal and starved.
Everything he was in that first kiss at the barn when I felt myself snap, craving the freedom only his shackles seem to offer. Now, it’s even more.
He hoists me up to his hips, curling me around him as the scarlet sprinkling hustles down the drain. In perfect unison, he tweaks one of my hardened nipples with a delectable sting and thrusts inside me, groaning against my gasping lips, the sensation of him filling me nothing short of a divine excursion.
“Give it to me, Ace. I want it all. Every. Fucking. Thing.” The tone of his delivery is downright murderous, hoarse and riddled with some sort of torment, so I don’t say anything in return.
But even as I moan in ecstasy, I’m aware that a kill still dresses me.
Pressing me against the slick and dewy polished concrete tiles, he drives his hips forward in punishing pumps, his lips wetting my ear with a freakish dip into my thoughts. “You’re ravishing like this, Carver. The pieces of that motherfucker still stuck to your skin as I fuck you. And your sopping cunt tells me you love it. My filthy girl.”
He’s so depraved. Warped and wicked. I’m not sure why that does me in, but the restless, exhausted twitch of my muscles and heart and soul cling to everything lewd and unholy inside him. Maybe it’s what I’ve been searching for all along. Although I don’t recognize this version of me even if it does feel fitting.
The past two months have me so screwed up, but as he tips me over the blissful cliff, I don’t even care. It all melts into the oblivion he propels me toward, his grunts echoing off the walls to swirl in with the haze of steam and the bloody desecration still marring us.
Is this who I am? Someone who carves rapture out of ruins, who loses herself to euphoria at the foot of evil tombs?
“Mine,” he snarls, biting my collarbone in a branding chomp while spilling into me.
Fuck, that jolt of pain only extends my unraveling. Maybe that’s all the answer I need.
I’m his.
As we float down from our high, he drops my legs, pulling out, only to push his cum back inside me while staring at the action like he’s memorizing it. The gesture and his staunch resolve have my insides fluttering into a gooey mess.
“I want you always fucking filled with my cum, for it to be constantly dripping out of you.” He grips my chin, forcing my eyes to meet his mossy greens, the gold flecks pulsing with a menacing warning as he cups my pussy with the other hand and slides his cum-coated fingers off my jaw and across my lips, repeating his caveman utterance. “Mine.”
Guessing he’s waiting for an answer, I offer it easily. “Yours, Liam.” I might not have reconciled all that means or what the future looks like for us, but I can give him that much today.
After I confirmed I was his, he soaped me up without a word, scrubbing my hair and nails and crimson-stained skin, checking over every inch of me until he was satisfied it was all gone. Then, he wrapped me in a towel, combed and braided my hair, and left to gather our things.
Caretaking but distant.
We ate a swift dinner a couple of hours after sunset and said our goodbyes, Ivy tearing up through every word.
At one point, Liam hauled her against him, dragging her index finger to brush just under his ear as he trilled a sweet, “I’ve got Celeste, and I’m always with you, High Society.”
That finally calmed her down.
Later, I asked Liam what that moment was about, and he informed me they all have tracking chips implanted in them, behind their ears. While that concept was baffling, it explained Ivy’s confidence in the guys finding us. I get why sharing that in the warehouse would’ve been too risky, but I’m not sure how I feel about Ivy never telling me before. I get it, the need for tracking and for secrecy. But it’s a reminder of being on the outside. I’m trying not to dwell on it.
Wells confiscated my phone, forbidding me to have any contact with my family or anyone else for that matter. Apparently, my mother’s phone was somehow infiltrated by the Skulls, so Natasha’s texts and mine were informing them of my whereabouts. That’s how Pruitt ended up at La Lune Noire on the correct night, how they knew I’d be visiting New Orleans in the first place so Scott Filmore’s father could slyly contact my grandfather, and how they knew we’d be at the dress shop.
The safe house we’re headed to is nine hours from New Orleans, in the Smoky Mountains near Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It’s dawn, so we must be nearly there. We drove straight through. Well, Liam did. I cuddled up under blankets, barely stirring.
The last remnants of his honey tone and buoyant laughter on a phone call, along with the brilliant tangerine bursts of rays anchoring the mountaintop to the sapphire skies, awaken me. An artistic portrayal of who we are together. My man who rescues me from the darkness and the symbol he used to express that colliding.
He sounds far lighter than he did last night. Maybe the stress faded away with the distance. When he hangs up with a sweet goodbye, I realize it’s Ivy that he’s so bright for this morning.
I shimmy upright, fixing my chair to meet my straightened back and checking myself in the mirror. It’s not pretty, but I had the foresight not to wear makeup, so no raccoon eyes. Bonus. Snatching my lip gloss from my bag, I dab it on and pinch my cheeks, so I don’t look like death. My hair has one of those purposefully messy dos happening—cute and wispy in a way that generally takes far too long to appear natural and can never be re-created—so I go with it.
“Morning, gorgeous,” he says, tapping my nose with a megawatt grin.
Waking up to that will never get old.
I return his smile and the greeting. “Good morning, handsome. What was that about?”
He quirks an amused brow, seemingly still lost in the humor of the conversation. “As I’m sure you know, Ivy can be a brat.”
“One of her best qualities,” I avow.
He chuckles, a mischievous twinkle sparkling in his eyes as he keeps them on the winding road. “I don’t disagree. And given the right circumstances, Wells doesn’t either. But she makes him crazy, and he flips out. So, a while back, she proposed a rule that he couldn’t punish her for indiscretions that involved the whole house. If she makes a decision he doesn’t like that involves all of us, we all get to vote on how it’s handled. So, she was calling to convince me to vote in her favor.”
I shake my head, giggling and rummaging around for my water bottle. Their dynamic is so bizarre. “And did you?”
“Absolutely,” he asserts, plucking a bottle from his door and passing it over. He’s been reading my mind lately. Endearing and a little creepy.
Swigging a gulp and swishing it around my mouth to freshen up a little, I try to comprehend how situations like this work between them all, especially since the punishment is probably of a sexual nature. Knowing Ivy, that’s why she made the rule—to irritate the hell out of Wells when he’s mad and domineering even though she craves his methods of discipline.
“Why absolutely? Would you have voted that way if you were Wells?”
“Those questions don’t really belong together, Ace. I voted in her favor because Ivy is always true to who she is, and there is no realm of possibility in which she would’ve let you be taken. She had no other option. And I’m fucking proud of everything that girl is and does.”
So many conflicting thoughts flit through my mind with that explanation. I love how Liam views Ivy. She deserves to have an army of people who see how amazing she is. But I’m a little hurt by Wells being mad because she chased me down even though I agree wholeheartedly.
“But Wells disagrees?” I ask, staring out the window at that arrogant rising sun. “He would’ve preferred she let me be abducted without her, even knowing that it was only Ivy’s chip that led you to us?”
His fingers clamp down on my thigh, playful squeezes following until I award him with my attention. “Don’t go getting your feelings hurt. He would’ve still risked his life to save you without question. We would have done things differently to ensure we didn’t lose you.” He sighs softly, as though he’s reconciling both sides—my wounding and Wells’s aggravation. “But when it comes to Ivy, he only sees the right option as the one where she’s safe at home, preferably in his arms.”
“Yeah,” I concede, knowing that’s the truth. The thought of her putting herself in danger vexed me. I’m sure it was utterly tormenting to Wells. “I guess I see that.”
“Hey,” Liam croons, clutching my hand in his. “You’re important to him. He told me you were family, not because of Ivy and not because of me. He respects you. Other than Natasha and of course Tom before he passed, no one outside our house makes that list. But he can’t breathe without Ivy, which means when she’s involved, everything gets blurred.”
“And if your wife did what Ivy did, you’d be different?” I swallow, keeping my best poker face intact, not sure where I’m even heading with that inquiry.
“Fuck no.” He kisses my knuckles, winking at me in a quick side-eye ogle. “I’d spank her ass so she couldn’t sit down for a week.”
That has me both laughing and squirming a bit in my seat. We’ve yet to venture into spanking. “But you told him to let her off the hook,” I argue.
“Exactly.” He snatches his sunglasses from a pouch above his head, the morning light finally becoming blinding. “Because she’s mine in a completely different way. I get the freer part, to honor the spirited side of her. That’s what makes our relationship special. We’re there for each other, able to see one another with a wider lens. And I never have to worry because I know Wells will take care of her. He’s got her covered. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
I wish my mom could hear him talk about Ivy. She’s been so hung up on how they all fawned over her at Tom’s funeral and how they all live together now. But Liam’s love for Ivy isn’t the threatening kind.
Pulling my legs up to my chest, I twist sideways to face him, my hand still clasped inside his. “My mom and dad have a beautiful marriage, and Tom and Natasha did too. I grew up, hoping for that. As I got older, it seemed like a shot in the dark. But Ivy and Wells put it all to shame. They’re so passionate. It’s not something you see very often.”
“No, it isn’t. But we make shots in the dark easily,” he quips with that beaming smile again. “I’ve never seen anything like Wells and Ivy falling in love, but there are no two people more deserving.”
This moment is so intimate, the mountain road leading us into the radiant sky, puffs of white outlined in threads of gold, Liam soft and open. I want more.
“Do you think … is that something you want … someday?”
“Is what something I want, Ace?” His gaze stays on our curving route, but I think he knows exactly what I mean. He’s just fucking with me.
“To be in love. Maybe not an epic love. Not everyone finds that, what Wells and Ivy have, but …” Good God, I’m babbling. My heart jumps to my throat. I hope Ivy wasn’t wrong. If she was, I’m screwing this all up.
“Yeah,” he says, features instantly stony. “Someday.”
Well, there’s my answer. I should’ve kept my mouth shut. He’s satiated me into a crumpled mess of unrequited emotions. Should’ve limited it to blow jobs between us, maintaining my position of power. Although the orgasms he bestows could keep me hot and bothered for years to come. Pun totally intended.
But all that is secondary to the throbbing fissures splintering through my heart.
The GPS only has a couple of minutes left on it, turns voiced in quick succession. The scenery is breathtaking, but the air inside this Lamborghini Urus is stifling. Liam silently follows along, releasing my hand and dragging his down his face with a frustrated groan. That just-below-the-surface simmering wrath from last night seems to be returning. No idea why, but this wouldn’t be the first time he’s given me whiplash with his moods.
With less than a minute left until our destination, his voice fractures the loaded quietude with an unyielding chill. “Let me be abundantly clear, Ace. I heard that fucking doubt in your voice when I carried you out of the warehouse. And now, you say that shit about Wells and Ivy. You and me”—his finger wags between us—“this has been so goddamn fucked up from the start.”
Jesus. He’s so pissed off. I’m not even sure why. Because I mentioned Wells and Ivy? Being in love? This is what I feared. That it was all alpha, possessive, caveman bullshit.
And everything that’s happened, it’s all confirmation of what my mother voiced. It may have been the political world that started it, my brother stealing a book, but she’ll see it as me choosing the enemy or the wrong side of the tracks either way. I’m giving them up, and for what? A fleeting affair with someone who doesn’t want a life with me.
“You’re fucking doing it right now. Goddammit!” He slaps his palm against the steering wheel and grunts as we pull up the steep driveway with a jolting halt from the emergency brake. “Stop fucking overthinking and strategizing. It’s enough!”
“What exactly is enough, Liam?” I twist back to the front, whipping the blanket into the back seat, packing up the discarded contents of my bag, and slamming them inside, as though each item has personally affronted me. “Please enlighten me as to how I fucked with you this time,” I grit out with an acidic tenor.
I’m so exhausted. Nothing is making sense. He wouldn’t shatter my heart like this.
He throws his sunglasses on the dash, jumps out of the car, strides around the front, swings my door open, and hauls me against his chest. His body is vibrating with a current of either anger or lust—maybe both. Or maybe the lust part is just me. He’s so beautiful when he’s unhinged. Muscles taut and flexed in his Henley, eyes hungry, rosy lips parted on a heavy breath.
Not sure if he wants to fuck me or bury me. Maybe both. Back to square one.
Lifting me into his arms, he sets me on the hood and consumes all the air. Even outside in the crisp, wintry mountain breeze, he sucks it all from existence. His long, sculpted limbs encase me so that I’m trapped like a hood ornament, breathless and sweaty and sopping wet.
“I’m not fucking asking,” he snarls, lips grazing mine, “and I’m not going to tiptoe around what this is. I thought I’d made myself crystal clear at the restaurant before that motherfucking prick …” His jaw snaps rigid, cheek muscles pulsing in and out. “And afterward—the week and a half I took care of you. Then again in the steam room and when my family gave you a role and reiterated everything I’d been saying. You. Belong. With us.”
My heart stutters. I want that, but I’m still afraid. A lifetime of coded messages and veiled truths tampers with trusting people at their word.
“It’s just … I’m not sure we want the same things—”
“Fuck that,” he hisses, leaning so far into me that I find myself bending back to accommodate him. “I’ve put up with too much bullshit, Celeste. Now, we’re doing things my way.” His midnight forest gaze is in full bloom, winter evergreens, muddy and frozen. He dusts his knuckles over my cheekbone, trailing them down my throat as my breath hitches. “You touch another man or even consider going to dinner with him, and he’ll be six feet under by dessert. A man touches you, and cutting his tongue out and choking him with it will seem like child’s play.”
That gives a whole new gory overlay to our non-fairy tale. “Who knew you were such a Romeo?”
He ignores that, his incensed glare boring into me like lasers threatening to burn my soul as he smacks his chest with every word. “You. Are. Mine, Ace.”
Stroking his scruffy chin, he groans, but then he’s back on me, fingers lacing into the loosened sweep of my hair, palms cradling my face. “I’m so fucking in love with you; I can’t see straight. I’ve been dizzy since you danced through my front door and probably long before that if I’m honest with myself. Don’t come at me with this bullshit that we don’t want the same things.” His voice softens slightly, so much vulnerability shining through. My golden god is a fragile demon. “You can have anything you want,” he rasps, tucking a feathery strand behind my ear. “Anything. All I want is you.”
Jesus, that balls up in my throat, like the ghosts of dreams I swallowed years ago clawing their way back for oxygen. He loves me. Wants me. I should leave it at that, tell him I reciprocate his feelings despite the eerie delivery. I will. But I enjoy goading him too much. It’s like picking at a scab. Shouldn’t do it, but can’t help myself.
“What if I said I wanted something other than us?” It’s not only goading. I’m curious. As much with him as myself. What do I want to hear?
His fingers curl around my jaw, wrenching my chin higher. “That’s a damn lie—one I plan to take out on your ass.”
Yeah. That’ll do.
He arches a haughty brow. “You’ve been warned about that sass. But to answer your question, I guess I’d say, well played. You exposed my lie. ’Cause you can’t have that. Anything but that.”
Best answer ever.
Anything but thatis also a lie though, so we might as well hash it all out. I need to grasp all this life will be, and I don’t want to play the hide-and-seek games I’m used to. No more chess strategy.
So, I poke. “What if I don’t want you to be part of KORT?”
“Fuck.” He cackles, as if I asked him how he’d handle me becoming a unicorn, and abandons me on the hood of the car to retrieve our bags. He closes the trunk and saunters by me, smacking my leg so I scurry after him. “You really don’t get it, Carver. First of all, I’m a lifer with KORT. No going back. And so is the rest of our family. Including you. You’ve been named and claimed, baby girl.”
I’m nearly a dewy-eyed puddle from the our family comment. Not the first time he’s said it, but it hits different after he declared he loves me. And yet that’s not what trips me up as I dash into the house behind him, unwilling to pause to drink in the stunning decor—walls of windows jutting out into the scenic view, soaring ceiling, rich woods, and warm stone. Paling in comparison to this discussion though. I’ll explore later.
“You claimed me? I thought—”
“Yes. It’s done, and so is this conversation.” He makes for the steps, carting our duffel bags over his shoulder. “Get upstairs. And strip.”
Okay, so he’s going to fuck his rage out on me, like last night. That does nothing to solve the drenched situation in my panties.
I chase him up the stairs, rounding the corner into an unbelievable master suite with a view of the mountains that practically cements me in a trance before I regain my spark. “So, by anything, you actually mean—”
He drops the bags with an irate thud that crashes through my snark. “All the shit you were actually asking about.” His arm waves around like my current state is a nuisance. “I’m not sure what this feisty pushback is. If it’s some urge to rile me up so I fuck you like an animal, done.”
God, this man melts me into a sick little slut.
“But,” he continues, hands in his pockets as I stare at the beauty of him against this awe-inspiring backdrop, “none of that is what you’re wondering. You’ve spent too much time with politicians, waltzing around issues instead of just fucking pulverizing them. Too cowardly to ask for what you really want. Not sure if that’s because you’re afraid or you think you’re not allowed to want things.”
Cowardly?My skin heats with my fuming, hands gripping my hips. “What the hell does that mean?”
He swaggers closer, erasing the breathable space between us. “It means, as much as you love your family, you’ve suffocated every dream you ever had to fulfill whatever fucked-up plan they devised. Your aspirations were nothing more than phantom whispers. And those people you have on a pedestal let you, but I won’t.”
That is a spearing truth, gutting me to my core. They did. I already came to that conclusion, but I also know who they had been before. Grief changes the best of us. I won’t stop loving them for that.
“And you think you know what I want?”
“Yes.” He slides one hand across my lower back, anchoring our hips together, and lifts my chin to him with the other. “You want to know where I stand on marriage and kids and living in the same house as Ivy and the guys. You want a role, not just at the shelter, but also with the business side of our operation. And you want to know that I’ll love you even if you’re not perfect.”
Holy hell. How does he do that? My thrashing heart plummets into the depths of my stomach, sloshing around with all my unease and hope, as tears prick the back of my eyes.
“I see you, Carver. Every infuriatingly beautiful facet of who you are. And whether you like it or not, I’m your forever. I told you our first night together that I’d take whatever you offered. If that’s you settling, so be it. I’ll make my peace with that. But I sure as hell would like to see you fight for us. That’s when you’ll get your goddamn epic love story.”
I can’t seem to speak. So much has happened in the short time we’ve been together. And all he wants is for me to fight for him. He’s waited his whole life for someone to do that. It’s such a simple request.
Letting me go, he saunters to the door. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes. You’d better not have any clothes on.” With that, he shuts me in the room, alone with my racing pulse. All I’ve ever wanted is to be truly seen, and he’s gifted me that.
If he needs me to fight for him, I will. He’s worth it.
Keith’s words about Liam hammer into me, far more impactful now. Wisdom from the fallen. “Seems like if you were going to pick a time to fight, it’d be when the stakes were the highest.”