Chapter 19
19
H aven House was bustling with noise and voices, laughter and excitement. We’d survived the four galloo monsters; our friends were safe. Louis and Bramble were gone for the moment and, with the exception of Corb, we’d all made it through alive. Or at least those of us who’d started alive.
Savannah was safe for another day or two if we were lucky.
Eric and Suzy’s happiness was contagious within the house, laughter and joy spilling out around them.
I sat out on the front step, leaning against the stair railing, a double whiskey in my hand. The inside of my head felt like it was buzzing with bees, and the noise was too much for me—I wasn’t ready for joy, not yet. Corb ghosted out to sit down beside me.
“Hey.”
I glanced at him. “Hey.”
Awkward? Not as much as you might think. The dead don’t have as much motivation to be dicks as they do when they are alive. Except for maybe Alan, but he was a case unto himself.
“You didn’t leave me behind,” he said quietly as a burst of laughter erupted from the house. “Why?”
I took a sip of the whiskey and let it pool in my mouth a moment before swallowing. “Because even you, with all the shit you’ve pulled and lies you’ve told, don’t deserve to be in that place. It’s for the worst of the worst. Not someone who’s just been an idiot.”
He laughed. “Like that Steve prick?”
“Yeah, he deserved to be there for sure. I wish I’d kicked him in the dick.” I tipped my glass in Corb’s direction.
“Do you wish you’d kicked me in the dick?” His laugh was only a little bitter. “That’s fair. I do love you, Bree. That much is true. It’s why they needed me, the Dark Council. They primed me in so many ways to try and take your heart from the beginning. Only I think they knew somehow that you’d end up taking mine.”
I sighed. “You know, in my life—long, short, whatever you want to call over forty—I’ve learned that there are all kinds of love. First love. False love. Love stemming from need. Love built on fear.”
“True love?” he offered. We both looked over our shoulders to the house where Suzy was regaling the others with the story of how she’d escaped the Melusine and came back to us—with Corb’s reluctant and black-mailed help.
Sarge was out on a boat, giving Corb’s body its last rights. Had they been true loves? I wondered. They had something special, the two of them.
“Yes, true love.” I nodded. “That’s rare. And even if you have it, there is no guarantee that you’ll be able to enjoy it.”
“Like you and Crash,” he said softly. “You went to hell for him. Fought to get him out. Never gave up. Just like Suzy.”
I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter now. Does it?”
The door behind us opened, and Dr. Mori stepped out into the night. “Breena O’Rylee, I wish to speak with you. Alone if you don’t mind, young one.” He motioned to Corb, who stood and went back into the house. I had no doubt there would be more conversations with Corb. Maybe good ones now that he was dead.
“Dr. Mori. Thank you for everything. I just needed a few minutes to—”
“He’s not dead, you know. I waited to see if you would realize on your own, it is best that way. But I can see you need a little more help,” Dr. Mori said quietly.
“Who, Corb?” I frowned at him. “I’m pretty sure that he’s as dead as they come.”
“Crash.”
Everything in me tensed. “What?”
“You brought his soul through the gateway, Bree. You brought him out of hell, but then your power was being pulled so many different ways you couldn’t hang onto him. Which was for the best anyway.”
I spun on my ass to face him fully. “What are you saying?”
He tucked the bracelet with the blue stones into my hand, I didn’t realize that it had come off, must have been after I returned from hell, and my fingers flexed around it.
“His soul went to rejoin his body. It is the way of a fae soul to seek out its body. It’s why I suggested we bury him in a shallow grave.”
I was up and moving, running down the stairs, fumbling with my hip bag, sliding the bracelet on—all in one move. Keys, I had keys in there for Suzy’s car that had sat idle for weeks. “Suzy, I’m stealing your car!” I yelled as I let myself into the driver’s side and revved up the engine. She might have shouted something back, but I wasn’t sure.
The Hollows Graveyard, that’s where Crash had been buried.
The drive was a blur of stop signs and lights, of other cars with drivers honking madly at me. In short, I drove like Suzy, as if I was racing for my life.
And maybe I was.
I could have restrained myself a little I suppose. But I couldn’t stop thinking about him waiting for me. About him being alive . Maybe my love story wasn’t over yet. Maybe we could finally, after all we’d been through, see this thing through.
I reached the gates of the graveyard in record time. They hung off their hinges, barely held together with a single chain. I pulled over and threw the car into park, yanked the key out, and was out the door and running before it came to a full stop.
Squeezing through the opening in the gates, I paused at the edge of the graveyard.
He’d been buried out toward the far end of the graveyard, as far from the Hollows training ground as possible.
The sky above me rumbled as I ran through the graveyard. Like in my early training days, the ground under my feet became slick and snotty as the rain poured down on me, heavy, fat droplets.
A flash of lightning lit up the sky and the graveyard.
He stood near a tree, his back to me, but I would know him anywhere. “Crash!”
He turned around, the moment stretching out.
Was this real? He wore jeans and a shirt, nothing different than any other day. I hadn’t been there when he was buried, I couldn’t face seeing his body put into the ground. All my thoughts dissolved as I took that first step toward him.
And then he was racing toward me the way Eric had run for Suzy.
Crash scooped me up, and I wrapped my arms around him, feeling his warmth. Crying? Yes, you bet. There weren’t a lot of words between us. Laughter, tears, kissing.
Joy.
The heavens opened above us, and the rain fell as if we were under a waterfall, but I didn’t care. The moment was perfect. He was here, I was here.
There was nothing else but us.
“Gods, Bree, how is this real? How? You did this, you truly did the impossible!”
“I don’t care how. I’m just… you’re here . I’m not letting you go, Crash. Never again.”
His hands skimmed across my back and over my hips. “I’ve never…”
“Really? I’d have thought you were rather experienced in this area.” I winked at him.
His laugh was everything, the sound bouncing around in my chest and filling me with a joy that I’m not sure I’d ever felt. “Sassy. I’ve never felt this way, I’ve never loved this hard, Bree. Not for anyone. I won’t deny my heart again, I won’t deny that you light my soul on fire.”
He breathed out, and then his mouth was on mine, and the world disappeared under the taste of him, under the feel of his body against mine.
He snapped his fingers, and something sprung up behind us. I glanced back and raised both eyebrows. A canopied bed, made of tree boughs and strung with gossamer material between the boughs had just kind of…appeared. I mean, it surely had not been there before.
“A bed? In a graveyard? That is not subtle.”
“I’m not bedding you in the mud, but I’m also not waiting another second, too many hours have already been wasted,” he growled.
I laughed. “It would be a memory, wouldn’t it? Mud sex.”
His smile flashed as he started to peel out of his clothes. Damn, he was not wasting time.
I followed his lead, my leathers coming off in record time until I was down to my bra and panties.
“What’s happening?” Nancy yelled. “Holy shit, you’re going to…in a graveyard? Kinky bitch, I like it! Can I watch?”
“Not a chance,” I bent and stuffed him into the thigh sheath, wrapped it up in my leathers and tucked it all deep into my hip bag, which I then stuffed under the bed. I was not taking any chances.
I turned back to Crash, who stood naked, the rain sluicing down his body, following the hard planes of his muscles.
“It makes me think of the shower,” he said.
The shower where we’d almost…but not quite. “I’d prefer it if this ends differently.”
“Deal,” he whispered as he stepped toward me, his fingers sliding…
Go ahead, skip to the next chapter if this lovemaking is too much for you. Mind you, your partner might appreciate you getting all wound up, hot and bothered…just saying…
As I was saying, his fingers slid over my shoulders, pushing the bra straps down my arm. Then his hands went around my back and found the clasp of my bra, letting the girls free. He went to his knee and hooked the sides of my panties and worked them down my legs, his mouth following them, planting kisses.
“Beautiful,” he whispered.
And I believed him. For the first time in my life, I believed someone when they said I was beautiful.
Droplets of rain slid down my body, cooling the places he touched, only to have my body heat in other places.
Crash did not stand back up.
His mouth stayed on the inner edge of my thigh, pressing outward, gently pushing my legs apart.
“Stay with me, Bree,” he said, his mouth moving against my skin. “I know you, don’t go anywhere. Let yourself enjoy every moment of this.”
Stay present. That’s what he was asking of me.
“I’ll try,” I gasped as his tongue slipped between my legs.
His tongue and fingers started a slow dance across my lips and inner thighs, brushing across my clit but not staying there, sending waves of need and want through me. A soft whimper that might have been a word, I’m not really sure, it could have just been a noise of anticipation, slipped out of me. I reached down and wove my fingers through his dark hair, holding him right… there .
His chuckle was all masculine pleasure as he flicked his tongue over my throbbing clit, pressing against it in a slow circle, giving and taking pressure as he drove me up that climb toward an orgasm.
I wasn’t going to be able to stand in a few seconds if he kept it up. I gasped and struggled to lock my knees as he sucked my clit gently, pulsing, until I was on the verge of coming.
He pressed a kiss to my inner thigh and made his way back up to standing. “Okay?”
“Why did you stop?” I whispered. Okay, I might have sounded a little bit panicky, because let’s be real, we’d been interrupted enough times that I was starting to think we were cursed.
“Stay with me.” He bent his head and took control of my mouth next, one arm around my back, the other sliding between us to continue to work a thumb slowly over my clit.
I moaned into his mouth, and he helped me lift my legs up to wrap them around his waist, feeling the head of his cock pressing against my wet center.
“Don’t stop,” I whispered between kisses.
“Not this time,” he growled as he lowered us to the bed. He paused, the tip of his cock right at my very wet entrance, both of us breathing as if we’d been running, staring into each other’s eyes.
He slid into me, slowly, inch by aching inch, filling and spreading me to accommodate his length, never looking away. That same whimper spilled up my throat as I struggled not to writhe against the sensation of him in me. Connecting to me in a way I’d never thought possible.
His magic wove around us, licking its way across my skin, like the heat of a flame as it touched every part of me.
“Beautiful,” He whispered as he started to pull out of me, sliding back in slower even than before.
“Tease.” I smiled and then gasped as I arched up to meet him, rubbing my body against his, so primed I was on the verge of coming immediately.
“With me, stay with me.” His mouth was on my throat, then he lowered it to my nipple and pulled the soft flesh into his mouth, sucking and nipping with all kinds of gentle. His hips moved slowly, a groan sliding from him.
“I’m not going to last long.”
“Don’t care. Neither am I.” I whispered.
I matched his pace, though part of me didn’t want to go slow. I pulled his face up to mine, kissing him, tasting myself on him as his thrusts became more frantic.
“Stay with me, Bree.”
The orgasm that had been detoured earlier began to build again, rapidly, the pressure between us growing with each breath, each brush of skin on skin, mouth on mouth.
He hooked a hand under one of my legs, holding it up higher, driving deeper into me, his skin hot, his eyes locked on mine.
“With me,” he growled again, and I didn’t understand until a warmth slid over my body. The magic that was purely his—warm and demanding—slipped between us and settled over my clit, pulsing in time with his thrusts. Warmth and pressure, rapidly worked me into a frenzy.
“Holy shit.” I gasped as the build of pleasure double timed. With the feel of his cock, his magic around my clit, and his mouth on mine, he was everywhere.
He was everything.
The dam burst and we rode the wave together. I might have screamed, I’m not sure. He might have yelled. All I knew was that in that moment, I was free from all worries and fears. I was with a man who loved me despite my flaws and mistakes—and I loved him the same way.
This was all I ever wanted and more.
We came down from the high slowly, our bodies sinking into each other and the bed. The rain pelted our skin, but it was…the way it was supposed to be. Every moment that we’d spent together had been pushing us here, to each other. But only once we were ready.
Only once I believed in myself.
Only once Crash finally allowed himself to love me fully. And to trust me.
His hands brushed over my face as if he would dry the rain from it. Or maybe the tears that were spilling down my cheeks.
“Happy tears, I hope,” he said softly, rolling so that he was on his back, and I was on his chest.
“Well,” I sniffed. “They could be happier.”
I looked down at him and he looked up, frowning. “Happier?”
I grinned. “You up for round two?”