Chapter 24 Kelly
Twenty-Four
Kelly
He thinks he scares me. I think he anchors me.
For a long moment after Jonas Greene is dragged away, I can’t move.
Finally knowing Ledger would be with me soon, I manage to cut the connection from the television that came on not long after Riot left me to go find Jonas.
The smart screen came on without warning and the man with the narrow eyes came on the screen and told me to stay online if I wanted to make sure Riot stayed alive.
Of course I wasn’t about to cut him off.
Now, I watched him beat a man in the shadows of a strange room praying no matter what was to come it ended with Riot coming home to me.
I never thought I would be that woman. The one that can set aside violence and danger as long as it means her man comes home to her.
But here I am, waiting like a hopeless, lovesick fool.
In what felt like hours and seconds at the same time he is back with me. Riot stands in front of me, breath ragged, blood on his knuckles, sweat slicking his temples, his chest rising and falling too fast. He’s a storm barely leashed, violence and devotion woven into the same scarred skin.
And I’m not scared.
I should be. Every rational part of me should be screaming to back up, get away, put distance between myself and the man who just beat someone nearly unconscious with his bare hands.
But I remember now. More pieces than before. They click together slowly, like beads sliding down a thread.
Riot holding a door open for me at the bakery. Riot laughing under his breath when I teased him. Riot fixing the light in my kitchen without me asking. Riot touching me like he was afraid I’d break. Riot staring at me like I was the last bit of good in his world.
My heart feels full and tight all at once.
He stands there now, every muscle tense, hands curled like he’s afraid to reach for me, afraid of what I might do, afraid of what he’s shown me.
“Kelly,” he rasps, voice shredded, “I didn’t, I didn’t want you to see that.”
“I needed to,” I whisper.
He flinches. “No. You don’t need that in your head.”
“I needed the truth.”
Slowly, painfully, he lifts his eyes to mine.
His breath catches. “What you saw tonight, Kelly, that is part of the man I am.”
My voice softens as I nod. “You saved me.”
He shakes his head. “I became everything I told myself I wouldn’t be when I’m with you. Everything I didn’t want you to see.”
“You are a man protecting the person he loves,” I counter. “I don’t see where that should be hidden or something to be ashamed of.”
His entire body goes still. Frozen.
“Don’t say that right now,” he murmurs.
“Why not?”
“Because my hands are still shaking,” he whispers. “Because I’m still bleeding. Because I’m one breath away from losing control. And if you say you love me right now, sunshine,” He swallows hard. “I don’t know if I can hold myself together.”
My heart pulls toward him, fierce and aching.
I step closer. “Then don’t.”
His eyes burn. I lift trembling fingers to touch his jaw. He doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe, just watches me like I’m rewriting every rule he ever had for himself.
“You didn’t scare me,” I whisper. “Not even for a second.”
He exhales shakily, like he doesn’t believe me. So I give him truth the way he understands — slow, steady, sure.
“You want to know what I saw?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer. He might not be able to.
“I saw someone protecting me,” I explain. “I saw a man fighting someone who tried to destroy my life. I saw someone choosing me over fear. Over pain. Over everything.”
He presses the heel of his hand to his forehead, breath breaking. “Kelly,”
“And I remembered us,” I continue softly. “More than before. More clearly.”
His head snaps up.
“You remember it all?”
“I remembered you holding me in the dark,” I share with a rasp of emotion in my voice. “I remembered telling you not to fall in love with me. I remembered,” My voice trembles, “that you did anyway.”
He closes his eyes, pain and relief strangling his features.
“And I remembered loving you,” I whisper.
“I remember knowing you were in love with me as much as I love you. It was in your eyes. And it scared me. It scared me to think I could feel so deeply and what if you took it away. I needed to have control. The anxiety we consuming me waiting for this good thing we shared to fall apart. So I pushed you away and I did it hard, baby.”
He remains silent. The kind of silent that feels like gravity shifted. Then he moves slowly, as if he’s afraid to spook me, stepping forward until our bodies almost touch. His wounded hand rises, shaking, and he cups my cheek. “You loved me,” he repeats, voice barely audible.
“I did and I still do.”
His breath catches like I sucker punched him.
He doesn’t speak. He just looks at me. Like he’s been starving and I’m the first real meal in front of him. Then his hands are on me.
Strong. Certain. Shaking just enough to tell me this isn’t about control, it’s about need.
He grips my hips and lifts me clean off the floor like I weigh nothing, my back hitting the wall with a soft thud that knocks the breath from my lungs. The cool surface contrasts with the heat of him pressed against me, the solid strength of his body bracketing mine in.
“Riot,” I breathe.
My legs wrap around his waist without thinking, muscle memory and instinct taking over. His forehead drops to my collarbone as he exhales, slow and wrecked, like holding me upright is the only thing keeping him grounded.
“I thought I lost you,” he murmurs into my skin. “I thought I’d never get you back.”
“You have me,” I say, threading my fingers into his hair, holding him there. “I’m right here.”
That’s all it takes.
He lifts his head and kisses me like he’s been holding himself back, slow at first, then deeper, rougher, full of all the things we didn’t say when we were pretending this was just fun.
His mouth moves to my neck, my jaw, the place under my ear that makes my knees weak, and I gasp as his grip tightens, grounding me against him.
The wall is solid behind me. He is solid everywhere else.
Every inch of space between us disappears. Clothes come off and skin to skin the fire between us is hotter than ever before. His fingers slide between my slick heat before he lines his cock up entering me, stretching me, and filling me in a level of ecstasy I have never felt before.
His breath is hot against my skin, his voice low and broken when he says my name, like it’s a prayer he’s afraid to say wrong. My hands roam over his shoulders, his back, feeling the tension there finally start to give, like he’s letting go of something he’s carried too long.
“I love you,” he says again, like he needs to hear it echo back.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I whisper.
He presses his forehead to mine, breathing hard, and the world narrows to the sound of our hearts, the heat between us, the way my body responds to him like it always has—like it always will.
Time blurs. There’s no fear here. No past. No what-ifs. No more reserve. No need to hold back.
Now we are holding each other. Him holding me up, holding me together, kissing me like this is the moment everything finally lines up.
When it crests, it’s not explosive—it’s overwhelming. A rush of relief and want and love all tangled together, leaving me clinging to him, breathless, my face buried in his neck as he groans softly, arms locked around me like he’ll never let go.
We stay there long after, pressed together, breathing each other in.
His hand slides up my back, slow and delicate, like he’s memorizing the feel of me now that he knows he gets to keep it.
“Still here?” he murmurs.
I smile against his skin, heart full, body warm, finally whole.
“Always.”