Chapter 46
Lucy - Present
“Did you two sleep okay?” Maria asks me as soon as I cross the threshold into the small kitchen.
“Yeah. Thanks.” I walk round the island where Maria sits, nursing a cup of tea, the mug clasped in both hands as she stares vacantly out the window.
“Are you okay?” I ask, noticing how pale she is.
“Yes, yes, dear.” She shakes her head, but I frown.
“You can tell me if you’re not okay.”
She pulls a tight smile and stands suddenly. “Yes, of course. Where’s Owen?”
“In the shower. Is it alright if I check your phone?”
“Sure, I’ll get the breakfast going.”
“Maria.” I place my hand on her shoulder and stop her from faffing around the kitchen. “It’s okay,” I say, my voice quiet. “It’s weird. All of this.”
Her chin wobbles and tears bite at her eyes. “I feel so guilty. Having you both here is lovely, but it does bring up the memories.”
“I know.” I sigh. “Do you think it will ever get easier?” I voice the question that claws at my brain most days.
Will it ever get easier to be around him, to forgive him, to move forward?
“I think it will. With time.” She smiles and one of her hands reaches up and rests on top of mine. “I meant what I said, though. It’s nice to have you both here. Will you be leaving today?”
“After breakfast probably. I’m going to go for a run, clear my head. Do you think you can drop us at the station?”
She frowns in question. “The car isn’t ours,” I explain. “I need to return it, hence the run. I won’t be long.”
Need to return it is code for drive it to the car park I noticed down the road and abandon it after I’ve wiped it of our fingerprints.
“Oh yes, of course.”
“Brilliant, won’t be long.”
It took longer than I thought with my blood on the leather seats, but thank God for them being leather, as at least I was able to wipe it off.
And as I jog back to Maria’s little cottage, a plan starts to form.
We get Owen back to his normal routines, whilst we wait for Luca to reply.
I’m also thinking of risking reaching out to my own contacts to see whether they can salvage anything from the hard drive, or whether it’s completely wiped.
With the added risk of me being completely compromised, the question is whether it’s worth it.
The contract is still most likely on me and on him.
Which means putting him back in the public eye is the safest thing for him right now, just like Andrews suggested. No one is going to try to take him out if he’s at public events.
Well, in theory, and hopefully not again. But with that being Andrews, I don’t think anyone else will make such a bold move.
If Levi and Duchess are moving forward with their plans, the Covenant soon won’t have the resources they need to take us out.
The government angle, though, that is my biggest concern right now.
Desperate men do desperate things, and if what’s on the hard drive is as vital as Owen says, those people will do anything.
My feet pound the pavement, the crisp morning air biting my lungs as I work my way home.
I say home easily, but it’s not.
It’s homely.
But it’s not home.
I’ve never really had a home.
Not the bricks-and-mortar type, anyway. But maybe I think of it as home because Owen and Maria are there.
Huh.
Interesting.
Boom, boom, boom, my heart beats.
Pound, pound, pound, my combat boots hit the pavement.
My mind clears.
Running is something else that helps clear my head—as well as mind blowing sex with Owen, it would seem.
I totally need to unpack all these feelings. Not the past ones. No, they are in my box, but there is no ignoring the warmth that spreads across my chest when I think about him. The way my face heats, a flush across my cheeks as the memory of him thrusting into me last night.
Owen King has a mouth on him.
Gone is the young man I knew, gone is the awkward teenager, gone is the little boy who once was my everything.
He’s so much…more.
I feel so much…more for him. Such little time we’ve spent together, but all the emotions of the past, the good, the bad, the ugly. They all swirl through me in a confusing torrent.
I wish I could talk to Andrews.
I run harder.
Andrews.
Pain flickers in my chest, like a small crack breaking through my heart as disappointment and betrayal rip through me.
I run faster.
Did I mean so little to him? A hard drive was more important?
So na?ve, I am so na?ve. Na?ve to think I was more when Owen was right. I was just some lost soul from the street that he could manipulate.
And manipulate he did.
I run faster and faster, harder and harder.
My chest burns with every breath. My muscles scream at me for how hard I’m pushing myself, but still I run.
I run along the road towards Maria’s until my footsteps crunch over her gravel, and only when Owen opens the front door with a confused expression on his face, eyes widen in concern seeing how quickly I’ve run into the little driveway, so I slow down.
He must have thought I’m being chased. He must have thought I’m in danger looking at how tense he is, how his knuckles are clenched at his side.
How my name crosses his mouth in a panic.
“Fine,” I heave as I walk past him, unable to look at him more than a quick glance. “Everything’s fine.”
I fucking hate that word.
Fine.
“Lucy.”
Of course, the fucker can’t leave it. Of course, he wants to follow me. Of course, he wants to fucking talk. I peel off my t-shirt and throw it onto the bedroom floor, then peel off my boots and black trousers.
“What?” I ask between breaths as my heart starts to slow.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Yeah.” I shrug, peeling off my bra, completely brazen.
His eyes drop to my breasts, but they don’t stay there long as my fingers hook into my thong, and I pull that down.
He turns to the door and closes it.
“I know what you’re doing.”
“Yeah, so do I.” I turn my back on him and walk to the ensuite, turning on the knob and letting the warm spray free.
“You never did tell me how you got these scars on your back.” His fingers pepper over the burnt skin that knits across my back, and I let him take a good look at my body.
I pull my arms over my breasts, my chin dipping to my chest as he looks at my flaws.
“It was a mission; it didn’t go well.”
“But what happened?” His mouth peppers a kiss onto the tip of the angriest of burns that run to the edge of my shoulder blade.
“I was tortured, whipped with a rope that had been dipped in kerosene, and set on fire.” I glance over my shoulder where he hesitates. “Can you imagine how painful that is? Being whipped isn’t a fun experience, but with something that’s like molten lava.”
“I don’t want to imagine it.”
“Your skin breaks and is burnt straight away. The wound almost cauterises as soon as it’s done.
You wanted to know how my path crossed with Luca Knight?
He found me and Roman.” I hold out my wrists to him and point to some faint scaring.
“I was hanging from a meat hook, back bruised and bloody from their whipping, malnourished but not broken. Roman and I were imprisoned together, tortured together, and then saved together. By Luca Knight.”
“Life has been unkind to you.”
“Life has been life to me. We all walk different paths. Mine was more violent than yours.”
He stares at me, and I turn my back to him. Stepping under the shower spray.
“We’ll head back to the safehouse after breakfast. Maria will drop us to the station,” I say, tilting my head and letting the water wash away my run.
Wash away all the fines.
“Have you heard back from Luca?”
“Nothing,” Owen answers, sitting down on the toilet, watching me with a pensive look on his face.
“I don’t need a chaperone,” I say, wanting him to leave. Needing him to leave.
“You don’t need anything, do you?”
“I need some privacy. Unless watching is your thing now.” I drop my hands over my boobs, running them over my stomach to my pussy, and push my fingers into me.
I hate how easily they slide in.
I hate that being around him has my body reacting.
I hate how much he makes me feel.
“Mhhhm,” I moan, and Owen stands.
“For fuck’s sake.” He runs his hand through his hair. “You do my fucking head in.”
“Come on, Owen,” I goad, my other hand going to my nipple squeezing. “Sometimes talking is overrated, remember? Remember how good it felt? We need to put on a show when we get back in the public eye. Let’s practice some more.”
“I know what you’re doing. I’ll play your game,” he says and walks towards the shower cubicle and opens it. He reaches in and turns the spray off before joining me in the shower, his huge body encasing me in the small space. He’s fully clothed.
He pulls my hand out the way, replaces it with his own, and leans forward. His lips brushing up against mine as he pushes his fingers into me and starts fucking me with them.
Fuck me.
“Do you know what I think?” he whispers against my lips.
“I think you’re all messed up in here.” He taps my head.
“I think your mind is racing again, and I think you’re terrified to let me in fully because you know that I can stop it from racing without the need for me to fuck your brains out.
” He tilts his fingers, and I moan. “I think you’re conflicted. ”
“You don’t know shit. Fuck.” I grind against him and grip his biceps through his top, leaving a wet mark on his long-sleeved top.
“Maria‘s popped to the shop,” he says, dropping his forehead to mine, “which means you can scream, Lucy. Which means I can make you scream. And I will, because I hate that you’re spiralling. I hate that you can’t process.
I hate that you’re fine, when you should be fucking amazing. Because you are amazing.”
He works me with his fingers in and out, his hand reaching out to grab my breast before reaching down to my clit where he works it with his other hand.
I’m mewling and moaning, and he is milking every sound out of me as the noise reverberates around the small shower cubicle.
“I hate it,” he admits. “I hate that you can’t voice it, that you can’t speak your truth because you’re scared to say the words.”
My fingers dig into his biceps, my fingertips scratching at him. Between my noises, and the noise of my slickness coating his fingers, I’m building.
“Why won’t you say what you want to say?”
“Oh fuck. Oh fuck, Owen.”
“Yes, baby, ride me. Ride my fucking fingers. You’ll have my cock in a minute. Forget, baby. Forget it all.”
I want him to slam his mouth onto mine, but he doesn’t. He continues to rest his forehead on mine as he watches me come undone. I clench my eyes closed.
“No, Luce, keep them open, watch me. Look at me.”
I do, and his eyes are so mossy green.
“I need you to hear something,” he says as I climb, and I climb. “I need you to understand what you mean to me.”
“Oh God, I’m close.”
“I love you; do you hear me?”
I explode.
My hips pump against him, his fingers thrust in and out, his finger works my clit, and I grip on with dear life.
“I love you more than anything else in this entire world. Everything about you I love. Your stubbornness, your misdirection, your heart. I love every single inch of you, just like when I was a kid. It was only ever you, and it will only ever be you.”
My eyes slam shut as his voice washes over me, second to the pleasure of the orgasm.
“Do you hear me? I. Love. You,” he says it again, and he crashes his lips to mine.
And I don’t care that I’m wet and he’s fully clothed. I climb him, wrap my legs around him, and he carries me to the bed.
And he fucks me until I scream his name, just like he said he would.
I can’t say the words. I never could. Not as a young girl, not as a grown woman.
But I love this man, too.
Because he has had my heart since the day he passed me the teddy bear.
It’s always been Owen and Lucy, and it will only ever be Owen and Lucy. Together we can do anything, be anything, and beat anything. Because we did as kids, and we’ll do it again as adults.
He slides between me and rocks into me, in and out.
In and devilishly out.
Whatever comes next, nothing will be the same. Because Owen King has my heart, life, soul and protection. I will die to make sure he lives. Even though I lied to myself to make him the bad guy, to make him the villain by becoming the very thing I despise in this world.
A politician.
I could never hate Owen, because he’s nothing like the villain. He is everything good about this world, and I’ll die protecting it.