Epilogue
Isla
While Will was making his nightly rounds before bed to check on Linc and make sure he was asleep, then review the security feeds for the cameras he had all over the property, I headed to my nightstand.
Sitting on the edge of our bed, I opened the top drawer and pulled out my second cell phone, the one my brother had given me, and powered it on.
Then I sent a text.
Me: Ebb tide.
The little circles appeared, and a return text came through.
Wolf: He’s treating you well?
Me: The best.
Then I quickly sent another text when I didn’t see the circles appear again.
Me: I miss you. Will you come visit soon?
Wolf: I’m glad you’re happy.
Me: Thank you, but that’s not an answer.
Wolf: Stay safe.
I started to type a reply, but got the notification that the phone had been silenced. Deleting what I was about to say, I instead typed a different response. One I hoped he would get before I checked in next month.
Me: I love you.
I powered down the cell and was tucking it back into my nightstand when Will strode into the bedroom.
Tracking my movements, he withdrew his ever-present Sig from his back waistband and set it on his nightstand. “Texting Legend?”
“Yes.” I lay back on the bed and fingered the gold infinity symbol resting against my throat.
“I’m trying to be better about keeping my monthly promise to check in with him.
” Before a green-eyed dominant Navy SEAL with all of his protocols had moved me into his house and his life, I’d been regretfully awful about staying in touch with my brother. Now, I was trying to be better.
“Good.” Fishing his cell phone, my barrette, Linc’s folded wrapping paper, and his wallet from his jeans’ pockets, Will dumped them onto his nightstand as he stepped out of his boots.
I almost laughed at the notion of Will using the word good in any context with Wolf. “You don’t even like my brother.”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t respect the warfighter in him.” He pulled his T-shirt over his head, and his new dog tags briefly glinted in the soft light from the lamp I’d turned on.
Thoroughly distracted by his ridiculously incredible physique that I now knew came from daily workouts in the home gym and runs on the beach or treadmill, I almost missed the slight difference in his tone.
Sliding under the covers, my core already pulsing, I stared at him. “Are you trying to recruit Wolf to work for you?”
Will let out one of his very rare, very ironic half laughs, complete with a devastatingly dominant half smile. “No.” He shucked his jeans. “But I did let him know he had a place at Paragon Operations.”
“Really? When?” I didn’t know they’d been in touch.
“At the cabin.” Eyeing the necklace he’d given me that I was still running a finger over, he shoved down his boxers as his hard, veined, enormous erection stood proud against the backdrop of his perfectly cut V and lower ab muscles. “Come here,” he demanded, whipping the covers back.
My nipples suddenly hard, fighting a smile, I crawled across the bed to my warfighter.
Raising an unimpressed eyebrow at me, he issued another order. “Turn around.”
I did as he asked, giving him my ass as I stayed on all fours.
“You forgot to take off your bikini. Again,” he added, chiding, as his deft fingers undid the top half of my swimsuit.
I shivered at his ghost of a touch on my neck and back, but he was wrong.
I didn’t forget. I loved his hands on me.
I loved him undressing me. But I especially loved when he pulled the ties on my bikini bottoms because it reminded me exactly who this deeply sexual, heartbreakingly compassionate, dominant warfighter was.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, apologizing only for my willful disobedience of one of his intimate rules between us—no clothes in bed.
“No, you’re not.” My bikini bottoms fell away, his palm cracked across my ass, then two of his fingers were pushing into my wet, aching pussy.
Heat bloomed across my ass cheek as my core clenched, and I groaned. “Will.”
“You purposely get into bed every night with at least one article of clothing on so I’ll do exactly this.” With a firm hand between my shoulder blades, he pushed my chest down to the bed. “Finger my tight cunt until she comes for me.”
Oh my god. “Yes,” I moaned, all but forgetting what he was saying.
“You’re swollen.” His deft ministrations twisted magically inside me as his lips ghosted across the slight but lingering sting from his slap. How sore are you?”
I loved that he always checked in. But I loved it more that I was sore. “Please don’t make me answer that.” I’d already learned that not only was he a human lie detector, he would stop touching me altogether if I didn’t give him the complete truth.
“I know you like a little pain, Isla. I’m asking if you’re too sore for me to come inside you again today.”
I looked over my shoulder at the man I loved. “It’s your birthday. You get to do whatever you want.”
His voice softened a mere fraction, but the slight shift had the effect of an emotional avalanche. “Intruse.” His flat palm coasted down my spine as his fingers slid out of me. “Bonne fille.” With a steady but slow thrust, his hard length filled me.
My moan filled the room, and I was never more grateful for his forethought of soundproofing the bedrooms.
“That’s it,” he coaxed, grasping my hips as he drove in and out of me in long thrusts meant to both drive me to madness and send me over the edge. “Let me hear how good I feel in this tight little cunt of mine.”
Stroking that spot deep inside me, filling me so completely, I felt the remnants of his previous release as it mingled with the new need he was igniting with every thrust. So turned on, loving how he had forbidden me from showering after coming inside me before our dinner party, I barely knew what I was saying.
“So good, so big. Oh God. Please, please come inside me.”
“Always, ma petite intruse.” He pulled back, then drove in hard. “This sweet cunt was made for my seed.” He drew a finger through my slickness. “But you’re coming first.” He drove a thumb into my forbidden entrance at the same time he thrust against my womb and ground his hips.
The orgasm slammed into my core and ripped through every fiber of my being.
Commanding my body and stealing my agency, my warfighter kept his word. His hot release, pulse after pulse, pumped deep inside me as he covered my back, wrapped an arm around my chest and roughly fingered my clit, sending me into an immediate second orgasm.
Whispering dirty words and affirmations of praise in equal measure, my warfighter, my dominant, he held on to me through every shaking aftershock and ensuing tremor, until I was nothing more than a wrecked, blissful mess.
Then, without pulling out, he rolled us to our sides and adjusted until his body was cocooning mine, surrounding me in the strength of his arms and thighs.
His new dog tags shifted between us, the steady beat of his heart thumped against my back, and his lips touched my shoulder. “Sh, ma petite intruse. Settle.”
I didn’t realize I was crying until he swiped a thumb over my cheek and brushed it across my lips.
The dominant gesture made my core constrict around his still-hard length, and in turn, he pulsed once inside me.
Emotions I still didn’t have a description for, ones only he had ever elicited, fell down my face with renewed measure.
“I’m not crying,” I foolishly whispered, my voice hoarse like it always was after he brought me to this place of release so deep, I felt nothing except him.
“It’s just…. I just need—” A sob came out of nowhere.
“It’s sub-drop, ma petite intruse, and I know what you need. I’m not going anywhere.” He pulsed inside me again. “I’m right here.”
“Don’t leave me,” I cried, even though I knew he wouldn’t.
Turning my head, he fed his tongue into my mouth, and he kissed me. He kissed me until he stole the tears and turned the emotions into a new well of need.
My nipples achingly hard, my pussy pulsing, I reached between my legs.
He caught my wrist. “No, intruse.” Gentle, but firm, he moved my hand to his thigh, then readjusted us until he was completely surrounding me from behind again. “You’re going to sleep now. Close your eyes.”
“It’s your birthday,” I whispered petulantly, not liking how he wasn’t seated deep inside me anymore, but merely halfway.
“It was my birthday,” he corrected. “Thank you.” He kissed my temple. “Best birthday I’ve ever had.”
I smiled. “It was a good birthday, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. Now, you need sleep,” he ordered, pulling me in closer, giving me a little more of his length as if he knew I needed it to fall asleep peacefully.
“Thank you,” I murmured, suddenly so tired I couldn’t keep my eyes open. “I love you.”
“Infinity,” he quietly replied, brushing his lips against my ear. “Good night, beautiful.”
Inhaling deeply, then letting it out slowly, I settled against my warfighter.
The next thing I knew, my eyes blinked open, and I glanced at the clock.
But the two a.m. time wasn’t what caught my attention.
My journal was on the nightstand, and I didn’t remember leaving it there.
I also didn’t think Will had put it there.
His arms were still locked around me, his breathing was deep and even, and the lamp was still on.
I smiled at the thought of him falling asleep as quickly as I had.
I also smiled at the thought of my journal and what he’d written in it.
Slow, so I didn’t wake him, I reached for it.
Then I quietly opened it to the page near the front where I had written an entry almost a decade ago.
I am strong. I am safe.
Sometime weeks ago, Will had written underneath my words in his neat handwriting.
You are mine. You are home.
I ran my finger over the words. Then I turned to the page Linc had written in and read his entry.
Thank you for making me pancakes. Love, Lincoln.
Smiling, I closed the journal and set it on the nightstand. Then I reached to turn off the lamp that Will always left on until after I fell asleep.
“You missed an entry.” Deep, quiet, dominant, his voice blanketed me.
I rolled over, and my smile turned shy at the intensity of his gaze. “I thought you were asleep.”
“Last page,” he stated, his expression firmly locked down.
“There isn’t an entry there.” Surprisingly, after all these years, no one, including myself, had ever written on the last page.
My warfighter, my dominant alpha, he stared at me.
I turned and reached for my journal, but sudden nerves made my hands shake, and I almost dropped it to the floor. When I had a good grasp and lay back with it on my chest, Will’s hand covered mine.
Then, with his gaze locked on mine, he opened it to the last page.
I looked down.
My heart leapt, my breath caught, and instant tears welled.
Two words.
Written in his hand.
Marry me.
Stunned, I looked up.
My warfighter said them out loud. “Marry me.”
Dropping the journal, I threw my arms around him. “Yes! Yes, yes, yes.”
Pushing me back just enough to grasp my left wrist, he brought my hand in front of us. Then, with his green-eyed gaze full of reverence, he slid a ring onto my finger.
The familiar cut of the diamond, set in a delicate gold band, caught a shimmer of light, and suddenly, I glanced to his ear, to where the earring he used to wear was missing.
The earring I’d asked him about. The same diamond that’d been absent for days now.
“Will.” Oh, my heart. “Is this your mother’s diamond? ”
“It was, ma petite intruse. Now, it’s yours.” He kissed the ring. “Ma femme.” He pressed his fingers to my necklace. “Without limits, without boundaries, I love you.” Then my dominant warfighter, my future husband, he kissed me.