Chapter 55
FIFTY-FIVE
Harry
The day passes by far quicker than I anticipated.
One more day, that was all I asked, before Hudson takes her away. Now it’s nightfall, and Gigi will be gone by morning. I need more time, clutching onto misplaced hope we’ll make it out together.
We’re hunched in her small hospital room, Hudson on the sofa, his arm draped to the floor, legs stretched over the armrest. Poppy’s nothing but a small ball tucked in the corner.
The beeping of the heart monitor is the only thing that breaks the silence, ticking time away slowly. I lie on the stiff hospital bed beside Gigi tracing lazy patterns on her back, trying to settle into this fragile peace knowing it won’t last much longer.
Her breathing is shallow, twitching every now and then, but the minute she settles into my side, it eases her. Though it lasts only a minute before she jolts awake.
“Hey, you’re safe.” I reach out. “It’s just me.”
She blinks, adjusting to the dim light. “Harry?”
“I’m here.” I slide my hand over hers. “What were you dreaming about?”
“I … I was back there … in that house.”
She hesitates for a beat, so I say, “You don’t have to talk about it if you’re not ready.”
“It’s not that.” She clears her throat, finding the courage. “When the nights got particularly bad or I was overworked at Pixies, I made myself dissociate, knowing it was the only way I’d get through. I used to imagine I was somewhere else … somewhere safe. I’d think of you.”
My heart clenches tighter with each broken word. I don’t deserve to be her safe haven when I failed to protect her.
“Gigi …”
“What I went through isn’t your fault.”
Every ounce of guilt she should have never had to carry sits within her gaze.
I let out a harsh, ragged breath. The sting of everything she suffered forces me to decompress, and I don’t realise my fists have absentmindedly clenched until she pries my fingers apart.
“You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone.” Her hand cups my cheek. “I just wish you could see everything I see in you. You deserve to feel chosen, Harry. I choose you. I’d do anything for you.”
This. I can’t lose this. Not when the world hasn’t allowed us our chance yet.
Before I do anything foolish, such as kiss her too hard while she’s in the depths of her recovery, I lean to the side of the bed. “I’ve got something for you.”
She asks, surprised, “For me?”
I reach into the bag, shifting through it until my hand wraps round the cold metal. When I turn back to her, Gigi looks eagerly into my palms. She freezes for a split second, then she blinks.
“How … how did you get this?”
I hand over her Glock. She takes it, twisting it in her palm.
“I had Poppy find it for me. She’s not completely useless.”
She runs her thumb over the neck of the gun, “G+H” still ingrained into the handle, slightly faded now, but still there. Despite the tilt of her lips at the memory, I see the slight twitch. She might have to embrace the darkest parts of her to survive tomorrow, and the gun is a memory of that.
“I’ve believed in you from the very beginning.
” I brush a piece of hair back from Gigi’s forehead.
“Even while you were watching Greg, I was always watching you, fighting heartbreak for the woman who didn’t know I existed.
I have loved you since the moment I first saw you nine years ago, and if our forever is only twenty-four hours in a hospital room, it was still worth it. ”
Her eyes meet mine, tearful and full of something far stronger.
“I loved you then, and I love you still, Gigi, and I swear to fucking Christ, I’ll do everything in my power to bring you home tomorrow.”
Her mouth crashes into mine. “I love you,” she breathes. “God, I love you so much.”
Her confessions are mumbled against my mouth, her tongue tasting like nothing short of heaven. She shifts to straddle my lap. I bite back a moan, my hands curling round her breasts through her gown, my thumbs brushing over her nipples until they harden.
“I love you,” she says again, her hot breath fanning my ear as desire floods through her. A low groan rumbles in my chest as she brings her hips down against my straining cock.
The bed creaks under us, and Gigi freezes, her eyes darting towards Hudson and Poppy. She hesitates but turns back, screwing the consequences. My fingers dip between her thighs, finding her already wet despite the risk. Her chin tilts up on a breathless moan.
“I’m not doing anything your body isn’t comfortable with,” I say. “If I have my way with you, I’ll only end up hurting you.”
Despite how much I want to worship her, she’s still recovering. I’m not jeopardising that, even if I want to express my undying love for her. My aching cock wholeheartedly agrees.
“I don’t want you to hold back.”
Voice strained, I warn, “Gigi …”
She’s already kissing the underside of my jaw. “Harry …” she mocks tauntingly.
I glance at Hudson and Poppy through the darkness. Their eyes are closed, chests rising and falling in the rhythm of sleep.
I take her wrist gently, guiding her towards the nest of wires dangling beside the bed. Oxygen lines, IV cords, a charging lead. I loop one of them loosely round my throat, pressing her knuckles over it.
“The second it gets too much, you pull.”
She swallows hesitantly.
“Tell me you understand.”
“I-I understand.”
“Good girl.”
I unzip my jeans, pushing my cock free, and then lift her hips.
She guides me, her wet cunt swallowing the tip slowly.
My hands slide up her thighs, pausing at the juncture where they meet her hips, and I buck mine impatiently.
Then my hands travel further, sliding up the curves of her waist, curling round her shoulders, forcing her down completely onto my cock.
“Sit. The fuck. Down,” I order. “Now—”
She meets me halfway, snapping my sentence in half and burying herself to the hilt. I’m completely incapable of forming words. My head kicks back, forcing the restraint of the wire, and my hands tighten on her skin.
The stretch makes her thighs quake round me. “F-fuck.”
“Quiet,” I growl, leaning up and nipping her chin. “Don’t make a sound.”
Balancing her weight on my stomach, she works my cock inside her, tilting her head back as if she wants to cry out, but she doesn’t dare.
Lost in the haze of euphoria, her fingers tighten round the wire.
But it’s her desire for control, taking back the memories that robbed her, that makes her knuckles clench.
“Tighter, Gigi.”
Her next squeeze steals my breath. Each time she slams herself down, my vision spasms at the edges from my crushed windpipe, and I tremble beneath her.
Grabbing her waist, I guide her, forcing her down deeper. The deprivation makes me drunk, the desperation ratcheting higher. Her pussy clenches like a fist round my cock as she loses control of herself.
“Who do you belong to?”
“You,” she rasps.
“Say my name.”
“Harry—”
Her breath comes in short, ragged gasps as the pleasure builds.
“St. James.”
My thumb finds her clit, circling with pressure. A muffled noise slips through her lips, but she’s too deep in ecstasy to care. Her eyes roll as she swivels her hips.
Her fingers flex. Stars squeeze the edges of my vision, my entire world collapsing into her. The way her gown pools round her waist, perked nipples underneath begging for my mouth.
I’m fading beneath her.
She tilts down her chin, realising I’m letting her kill me; realising I’d die for her without hesitation.
She unloops my neck fast, her movements erratic.
Then she’s smashing her lips down onto mine with an urgency even I struggle to match.
Her orgasm floods her hard, and I hold her down, grinding, fucking her as she shakes, her nails shredding my shoulders.
My lungs fight to draw in air, sucking it in hard.
I squeeze her hips, shoving her down further and using her like she’s mine. Because she is. Her kiss, full of lust, desire, and unmistakable love, pushes me over the edge.
I groan low into her hair, the thick pulse of my release filling her. My hands clutch her ass, holding her still as I spill every part of myself into her trembling body.
The air rattles out of me. Her cunt floods round my cock, her walls gripping me so hard it’s almost impossible to move. My lips close over the spot where her neck meets her jaw, her body moulding into mine as we collapse together.
“You own me,” I rasp through strangled breath. “You have every part of me.”
She’s breathless, damp hair sticking to her forehead as she brushes her parted lips over my mouth. I wrap my arms round her possessively.
“You’re mine,” she breathes.
“Yours.”