Epilogue
Feralyn
Helios was naked and sprawled on his stomach with his heavy arm over my waist.
Sometime during the night, the covers on his side of the bed had been kicked to his feet. Every one of his muscles was on full display in the early morning light, and his veins were a veritable roadmap of masculine sexuality. His chest steadily rose and fell.
Nervous, I glanced over his shoulder at the clock on the nightstand.
Without lifting his head, let alone opening his eyes, he muttered with his sleep-rough voice that was so deep, it sent chills across my skin, “Got somewhere to be?”
“What?” I didn’t ask how he did that. How he always knew what I was doing or thinking. He had a sixth sense, maybe a seventh. I didn’t know, but it was why I was nervous in the first place.
“You heard me, woman.” Rolling to his back, keeping his arm locked around me, Helios brought me to his chest. “It’s fucking dawn, and you don’t get up this damn early. Why are you looking at the clock?”
Tucked against his side, my head now resting on his shoulder, I looked up at him. “Good morning.”
He smirked. “Nice evasion. I’ve taught you well.” He opened one eye and scrutinized me. “Too well.” The other eye opened, and he carefully made his expression go blank. “What’s up?”
“Nothing.” Only everything I’d been planning for weeks.
Perceptive as always, he asked, “You nervous about the flying tomorrow or being on the island again?”
For the past three weeks, he’d been easing me into the idea of going to his island. We were due to fly over tomorrow on his Citation. But I’d been making my own plans for two weeks, and today, in an hour, we were doing something else.
“I definitely want to see the island.” We’d talked about it a lot, and he’d been more patient with me than usual, but this was Helios. Talking wasn’t doing. He called it one step ahead. I called it emersion therapy. Either way, we were going to his island.
“Yeah. I got that much when you agreed to go. Doesn’t mean you’re not having second thoughts. You gonna talk about it?” Not kissing me, not stroking my arm, not touching me in any way except for his arm wrapped around me as I used his for a pillow, he lay perfectly still.
It was his version of bracing for impact. Also, it was one of the rare times he showed vulnerability. But it hurt to see because I’d inadvertently caused it by keeping my plans from him, and he’d picked up on it.
I kissed his chest. “No second thoughts.” Not about going to the island. But I did want him to get up and go to the home gym like he did every morning because I needed five minutes alone.
Without warning, but with a stealth quickness I was becoming intimately familiar with, he rolled on top of me, shoved my leg out with his knee, and grasped my face.
Searching my eyes, he narrowed his as the hard metal of his piercing and the head of his cock pushed against my entrance. “You’re up to something.”
Wrapping my arms around his neck, desire already pooling between my legs even though I was tender from him making love to me twice last night, a shy smile curved the sides of my lips. “I think you’re up to something.”
Grunting, he thrust his hips just enough to tease my clit.
“Woman, my cock’s always up for my tight little cunt.
But I fucking feel you. You’re still swollen from last night.
Not fucking you till later.” He kissed me once—slow, lingering, gentle.
Then he pulled back and gave me the storm-eyed version of his gray-blue gaze and a rougher variant of his voice. “Morning.”
“I love you.” I sifted my fingers through his hair.
He made me a promise. “You’re gonna be fine tomorrow. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
A twinge of guilt pinched my conscience. “I know you won’t.”
“Soul deep, woman.”
My heart fluttered. “Soul deep,” I whispered.
He kissed me again, this time brief but hard. Then he pulled back and made to get up. “Going to the gym. Take a bath. Soak that swollen cunt for me.”
I hadn’t loved baths or even liked them, not until he’d started drawing them for me three weeks ago. Adding Epsom salts, making them too hot, then plunging me into them as he held me down and kissed me hard. He called it aftercare. I called it Helios.
“Actually, I was hoping we could go riding after you work out. Before it gets too hot?”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered, but there was humor in his eyes. “I’ve created a speed junkie.”
I smiled.
He groaned. “Fine. But take a fucking bath first.” He rolled off me, got out of bed, and donned a pair of gym shorts sans boxers. “Give me thirty minutes.” He pulled on his trainers.
“I’ll take a bath later.” Much later. “After we ride.”
Standing next to the bed, hands on his hips, he stared down at me. Then he shook his head. “Woman.”
“Helios.”
He leaned over and brought his mouth a whisper away from mine. “I fucking love you.” Then he stood without kissing me and turned toward the door. “Get your leathers on. And whatever the fuck you’re up to, it better not piss me off.” He walked out of the bedroom.
Not replying, not moving, I lay perfectly still until I heard his jarringly loud music turn on in the gym.
Then I was up and grabbing my backpack from my closet.
Five minutes later, I surveyed the contents I’d rushed through packing, going over my mental checklist. Board shorts for him, my bikini, and three outfits.
His and hers running shoes, socks, and flip-flops.
His protein bars and a few toiletries for each of us completed my haul.
His giant shoes alone took up most of the space, but I fit everything in, and it should be enough.
Fifteen minutes later, after a quick shower, I was dressed in running clothes with my riding leathers over them, boots on, and my hair pulled into a low ponytail as I stood next to the kitchen island with my backpack on a stool.
Holding my cell, I sent a quick, prearranged, secretly coded text.
Me: Good morning.
Helios’s music shut off, and a texted reply came through.
Ares: Good morning to you.
I was all set. Exhaling, smiling, I tucked my cell into one of the zippered pockets of my leather jacket.
“What’s with the smile and the backpack?”
Startled by Helios’s silent approach, I refrained from showing it, barely, but I didn’t miss the chance to gawk at his gorgeous, sweat-slicked body. “Just… happy.” Very, very happy. But the word was still foreign on my tongue.
Eyeing me, Helios tipped his chin at my backpack. “And that?”
“A picnic lunch.” It wasn’t a complete lie. Helios would eat those protein bars for any meal. “Meet you in the garage?”
He held my gaze for a breath-suspended moment. Then he smirked. “Yeah, okay, speed junkie. Give me two minutes to shower, but you’re not riding with that pack. I’m fucking carrying it.”
Panic spread. “Then you’ll ruin the surprise… lunch.”
“Didn’t say I was gonna look inside.”
“Helios—”
“Nonnegotiable, woman.” He turned toward his room. “Two minutes. Gear up. Leave the pack on my Panigale. I’m riding the V4 R today.” He disappeared down the hallway.
I headed to the garage.
By the time my backpack was perched on Helios’s bike, and I was straddling my Ducati Monster, helmet and gloves on, Helios was striding into the garage. In jeans and a T-shirt, wearing his heavy boots, he opened the bay door.
I started my bike.
Winking at me, he push-started his. Then he grabbed his custom-made leather jacket and zipped into it before he lengthened the straps on the backpack to fit his frame and shouldered it. Straddling his bike, he put on his gloves and helmet, then tipped his chin at me.
Knowing the wordless command, I tapped my helmet mic on and checked the connection. “Hi.”
“Woman.” His deep voice filled my head. “You’re fucking sexy on that bike.”
Heat flushed my entire face. “Thank you.”
“Welcome. Where to?”
I loved his man so much. “Follow me.”
Helios
Royally fucking pissed, I sat there. On my Ducati. At the motherfucking marina.
Haven smiled at me. Smiled.
I glanced again at the berthed Paragon. Gull wing doors open, ramp out, that fucking traitor Nix stood in the full-beam tender garage. “You have got to be shitting me.”
Haven glanced from the boat to me. “No?”
Nix tipped his chin and called across the dock. “Ready?”
My woman held up a gloved finger and yelled back. “Just a minute!”
Oh, come the fuck on. “You’re actually fucking serious?
You think I’m gonna drive my Panigale onto Nix’s boat so he can fucking ferry us to my island?
” I didn’t know what I was more pissed at.
That she’d circumvented me and gone behind my back to avoid flying out to the island, or that I’d had no fucking clue what she was up to.
Straddling her Monster, visor up, she nodded once. “Yes.”
Losing my shit over the fact that she’d been talking to Nix, I jerked my chin at the sixty-five-meter mega yacht. “You want to take that over the Citation? Do you know the fucking statistics on boating accidents?” I didn’t. Didn’t fucking care. I wasn’t going to the island without wings.
“I know the track record on flying with you.”
My index finger shot up. “ONE fucking time, Haven. One goddamn time, and I had that shit under control.”
She ignored me. “If we take the yacht, we can take the bikes.”
“There’re only four miles of roads!” Jesus fucking Christ. “Where the fuck are you gonna ride a sportbike?” I sure as fuck wasn’t taking my superbike on those sanded fucking paths around the island.
“Up and down the airstrip,” she answered, calm as shit.
I caught the fuck up. “No. No fucking way. You’re not doing goddamn wheelies on my fucking airstrip while we’re marooned on the island with no fucking wings.
” She’d been asking me to teach her for two fucking years.
I’d stupidly told her when she owned the road, she could do whatever the fuck she wanted.
Well, now she—we owned a goddamn road. Airstrip.
Whatever. “Do you know where the closest hospital is? Actual fucking hospital?” She wasn’t stunt driving on my watch.
“You promised to never take me to a hospital again,” she argued.
“No, I fucking didn’t. I never agreed to that bullshit. I just didn’t argue when you were beaten to hell and fucking traumatized.” If it was a life-or-death emergency or dire fucking circumstances, her ass was going to the hospital.
Nix strolled up. “Marina needs the berth for a scheduled reservation. What’s the hold-up?”
“I’m not going to the island without wings. And before you offer the fucking Sikorsky, I don’t mean a goddamn helo. I mean my wings. As in my fucking Citation.”
Nix glanced at Haven. “You didn’t tell him?”
Her face turned red as hell. “Not yet.”
Nix looked at me, and I fucking knew what was gonna come out of his mouth before he said it.
“Ares flew your Citation in early this morning. He’s already on island.
He’ll cruise back with me on the Paragon.
” Fucker turned toward Haven and grabbed her handlebar.
“Hop off. I’ll drive the bike onto the ship. You can ride with Helios.”
My woman got off her Ducati for him.
I was breathing fucking fire.
Then an amber-eyed, golden-haired, leather-wearing little menace put her hand on my shoulder to mount my bike, and I fucking felt it.
Haven.
“Christ, woman,” I muttered, swinging her backpack around to my front as Nix took off on her Monster.
“What the fuck is in this pack anyway?” We were supposed to fly to the island tomorrow.
Our shit was packed in two suitcases that were back at the house.
Or they had been. I didn’t fucking check the damn closet this morning.
For all I knew, Ares had picked up our shit before he’d flown out.
“Your running shoes, flip-flops, and swim trunks.” She got on the bike behind me. “And your protein bars.” She wrapped her arms around my waist.
I looked back at my woman. “You packed me fucking protein bars?” I didn’t give a fuck about the other shit. I had clothes and boots on the island in the bunker. Also had a supply of protein bars because I was lowkey addicted, but I didn’t have the fucking heart to tell her that.
“Yes.” Her voice went submissive as fuck. “I know how much you like them.”
Cock-blocked by a fucking mega yacht and her plans, I sighed. “Which flavor?”
“Chocolate.”
My favorite. “It’s a good fucking thing I love you, woman.”
“Soul deep,” she whispered.
Just like that, my anger flatlined. “Soul fucking deep.” I shifted into gear. “But don’t fucking ask me to teach you wheelies on the goddamn airstrip.” She didn’t have to ask. I was already gonna do it—while I was on the bike with her, on her six, where I could protect her.
Because that’s what I fucking did.
I protected my Haven.
“Okay.” She tightened her arms around me as I followed Nix down the dock. “And Helios?”
“Yeah?” I drove up the ramp onto the boat.
“Thank you.”
“Welcome.”
Fifteen minutes later, the bikes were secured, we were all on the bridge, and the Paragon was underway. Five hours after that, we were on the island.
Our island.
Just me and her, blue ocean as far as the eye could see, and a fixed-up house.
I lifted her onto the kitchen counter, immersion therapy style.
Then I sank inside my Haven.