23. I Think What Your Hulking Friend Meant Was Justice
23
I Think What Your Hulking Friend Meant Was Justice
GREYSON
A lethal kind of calm anchored me into the floor when I closed the door behind the last police officer. Only Detective Rivera remained, alongside Jax. A few of our Thunderstrike buddies were on their way over now that the chaos died down. Thankfully, Ollie and the kids were out at the cinema, but I’d sent both my team and city brass through to sweep his property, as well as Emmaline’s, though she was two states away.
It wasn’t the first time I took a life. Just the first on United States soil.
I had a sinking suspicion it wouldn’t be the last.
Though I felt him wander up, I still flinched when Jax set his hand on my shoulder. “You alright, Pinman?”
“They put hands on my wife ,” I ground out.
“She’s alright,” Luke reassured from where he hovered, leaning against the archway to the living room. But they hadn’t just laid hands on her. The whole ploy had been for Alice. Targeting Alice. At least according to a candid photo of her at DeLuca’s —the one they’d pinned to the front door with a blade through her throat, splitting the wood beneath. We hadn’t bothered to bring that bit to her attention. Seemed an unnecessary burden.
“There will be time for retribution later,” Jax promised.
“ Justice ,” Luke corrected. “I think what your hulking friend meant was justice.”
“Same thing,” Jax insisted. “We’re in touch with MARSOC and FBI, Grey. The team has prepped everything we have on the Gilberts, and that’s at least a start. They’re inside our borders. They’ve got to deal with this.”
“We have a hole in our security,” I growled. I didn’t want to talk about internal terrorism defense for the nation. I wanted to spill the blood of any motherfucker who thought they’d come up my beach to take my girl right out from under my nose. They’d come out of the goddamned water—like Seals .
“I know,” Jax said gruffly. “We’ll find it. The guys are on their way.”
“You hear from the vet yet?” The sound of Luke’s footsteps had me turning.
I didn’t want to be touched.
Not by anyone but Alice.
Alice , who they’d bruised and shaken but was respectively okay.
Alice, who’d seen two men killed tonight. Who’d seen me kill a man tonight. Jax had dropped the other after the bastard successfully gashed open his side. EMTs had stitched him up, but he refused to leave Hart House to go to the hospital.
If I were Wyatt Earp, Jackson Reynolds would be my Doc. He wasn’t going anywhere. Certainly wouldn’t be leaving our side unless we exterminated every spider in that web. Ride or die took on a very different meaning in our world. But…a threat against my woman and my best friend in doggy ICU made this a code red.
The detective seemed to sense my need for space because he wisely kept his, instead stuffing his hands in his pockets as he assessed me.
“Cap’s in surgery,” Jax explained when the silence stretched. “She’ll call us when we know more.”
“He did good,” I said lamely, my throat tight as I stared at the floor, trying to pace my breathing. “Went right for her.”
“He’s a good boy. He’ll be alright, Hart,” Luke said with a lot more confidence than I felt. The fucker I’d shot had stabbed my Shepard six times. Six blunt knife wounds. But Cap saved her. Wouldn’t let up until he had to. Bought me time to catch up. “You should go check on your girl. Medics okayed her, but she wouldn’t let us call her siblings—didn’t want them here for this.”
Alone. My Alice was sitting all alone.
The shake had only left my hands once the adrenaline trickled out of my system, replaced with a deluge of questions and a long string of law enforcement. Lucky for me, our night vision cameras had caught the conflict and triggered the alarms. Pretty irrefutable evidence we’d done what we had to do. Between that and Captain’s injuries, we had Emerald Bay’s finest planted firmly on our side. Their investigation would be focused on identifying the assailants and looking into their motives.
They’d find nothing. We hadn’t had to tell each other as much.
My eyes found hard navy-blues, and Jax nodded.
“We’ve got some retired battle buddies headed over to reassess our security setup and team,” I pointed out, though now that I was thinking about her—what this must have done to her—I wanted nothing more than to go to her and wrap her up. Count every finger, toe, and hair on her gorgeous head to ensure all was well.
“I’ve got the guys,” Jax argued, squeezing the shoulder he still had a hand on. “You do what’s important, do you hear me? Only you can be what she needs right now.”
“Yeah,” I said numbly, my mouth suddenly sandpaper dry. Guilt tore at my insides. She’d known I was affiliated with something dicey, but she was never supposed to be in the crosshairs. Never supposed to see what that world looked like. I’d assured her I wasn’t an active pair of boots on the ground and that should have bought her some protection.
But it hadn’t.
I hadn’t.
A bodyguard hadn’t.
Yet again, the best wasn’t enough. Nodding, I repeated, “Yeah.” I patted his hand where it rested on my shoulder, his hard gaze tracking my face as I slowly lowered his arm away and walked toward Luke, to whom I extended a hand. “Thanks for being here.”
“Anytime. Let’s not do it twice.”
Forcing a chuckle, I said, “Sounds like a plan.”
Their dulcet tones continued on as Jax saw Detective Rivera to his car, but my ears were straining for signs of Alice as I took the steps two at a time. Upstairs was auspiciously calm. However, that somehow made my nerves worse. I’d just…clung to her in the sand until police arrived. If Obsidian had infiltrated our local law enforcement, tonight could have gone a very different direction, with me in the back of a patrol car and Alice left here alone. That concept had tortured me from the moment his body hit the sand, slowly staining it crimson.
When I finally reached our room, I crept inside with the same care as that first night we’d finally given this thing a chance. The light was off this time, and the entire space was silent. The only similarity was that the bed was empty, where it sat in the faint stream of window light.
“Baby?” A floorboard creaked beneath me as I edged into the space. “Alice?” When no response came, my heart hammered harder, but then a soft throat cleared, and I heard her voice crack from the bathroom.
“ Grey ?”
On tentative feet, I crept into the ensuite and found her sitting with Chip, her back against a still-draining tub, wearing a blue nightgown I would normally die to strip off her. Not tonight. Tonight, my eyes fell to the bruises blooming across her biceps, and the desire to rain down hell consumed my vision.
The gurgle of the last swirl of water filled the space as she turned to me, the numbness fading from her face as she looked me over, her lips trembling.
“Baby,” I breathed, rushing for her. I gingerly set Chip aside and scooped her up onto her feet, pulling her against me. She finally released all the fear from the night into my T-shirt. Security had brought me a change of clothes after everything had been ruled self-defense. My sweats were stained with Captain’s blood, and it took two hand towels to clean it off my skin. She’d held it together so well, but it was only a matter of time before it caught up with us. All I wanted to do was touch her. Memorize the way she felt beneath my hands, commit the lines of her exquisite face to the deepest part of my mind. She buried herself in my chest, and all I could think to say was, “I’ve got you.”
But she was sobbing. Sobbing and clawing at the hem of my shirt, pulling it over my head. Her dress went next, leaving nothing between us. Something about our skin contact finally seemed to soothe her, and she just breathed against my chest. Slowly, I leaned down to scoop up her thighs, and she wrapped herself around my neck, clinging on for dear life as I got her to bed.
“You’re safe,” I whispered, pulling the covers back and setting her down before clamoring over her into my spot. “I’ve got you, baby.”
With her cocooned inside my arms, my heart finally seemed to settle. Safe . She was safe. For now, at least, the threat had been mitigated, and we would sort this out and dismantle these motherfuckers from the top down, even if it was the last thing I ever did. “Did you take your migraine medicine?” I asked into her hair. If paparazzi had been high-stress enough to trigger one that severe, I didn’t want to know what this could do to her. She nodded. “That’s my good girl.” Stroking long lines through her hair, I just held her. Skin on skin, we just steadied ourselves in the safe harbor of each other. Alice offered me a kind of sanctuary I’d never known existed. And I’d almost lost her. I would make this right. Come hell and high water, I would make this right for her.
My fingers came to a halt in her hair when she whispered a broken, “I love you.” Every single inch of my body went rigid, the bridge of my nose stinging as I blinked away what her words did to me. “You don’t have to say it back. I just…all I could think was that I was going to die, and after all of this, you’d never know that I love you.”
It took longer than I’m proud of to steady my breathing and choke back the emotion of her declaration. Longer than she deserved for me to slowly ease her onto her back so that I could reposition myself, ranging over her, studying the sincerity in her eyes that carved the lines beside them into a timid, terrified little smile. Silver-lined gray-blues studied my face as frantically as I studied hers, her hand coming up to cup my jaw, even as I said nothing. Even as I fought to level my breathing and not crawl out of my skin.
I was never supposed to have anything or anyone worth taking. But she was here. Looking at me like I was the anchor in a tempest.
Easing onto my forearms while I held her gaze, I cupped both of her beautiful cheeks, studying her eager vulnerability. Gently, I pressed a soft kiss to her lips before finally brushing the hair away from her forehead and admitting, “That’s a relief, Mrs. Hart. Because I love you, too.”
Alice
I didn’t hide my tears this time. My surprise at him saying it back gave way to some cosmically overwhelming, soul-deep relief when he gently pressed his lips to mine. Reverent strokes across my face gave way to desperate fingers twining in my hair as he shifted to cradle my head in his broad palms. The man looked nervous, out of his depth, which was likely the first time I’d ever seen him make a decision with any ounce of uncertainty.
Kisses growing harsher by the breath, he worked his way over my face, like he would dab all the tears from my cheeks with his lips. I melted beneath his palms as they roamed, caressing my ribs, palming at my breast and then my neck. Greyson’s hands were frantic—as if he was still reassuring himself that I was with him, his eyes surveying each inch of skin.
Confirming my suspicions, he muttered, “I almost fucking lost you.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Too damn close.”
“ You saved me, Grey. You, and Jax and Cap.”
“You never should have needed saving,” he argued, pressing kisses down my jaw until he could nuzzle into my neck. I felt it then, the damp heat of tears on my skin. “I finally have you, and they nearly took you from me.”
“Baby,” I breathed, my hands giving up the deathtrap I’d had on his arms to grab his face instead, forcing his eyes to mine. “You put Jax with me a lifetime before they got anywhere near me. You knew I needed him, even when I was a petulant child about it. He warned me. He saw them come out of the water.”
“Shouldn’t have been so far away,” he growled, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to my neck before latching on and giving the skin a good suck. “Should kick his ass for that.”
“Life can’t be lived like an animal in a cage, Grey. I have to have room to breathe.”
“I know,” he growled begrudgingly before moving down an inch, stealing my breath as he sucked at my skin again. Marking, tasting, claiming. He wanted to eat me whole, I decided. I didn’t have any complaints to speak of.
“He was quick to react,” I breathed, struggling to keep any train of thought with his skin on mine. “You and Cap got to me so fast.”
“I can’t bear to think about the alternative.”
“There is no alternative,” I insisted, “I’m right here, handsome.”
Bowing his forehead against mine, Grey returned his gentle hands to frame my face, softer kisses pressing my mouth apart. This was… different . Reverent in his demand. Savoring as his tongue invaded.
I was desperate to memorize every inch of him. The taste of him in my mouth, the weight of his scent filling my lungs, the feel of his body over mine. Perhaps he was doing the same. Shoving the comforter away, he worked down my body, luxuriating in each inch of skin as he showered it in affection. Hesitating over the bruises on my arms and ribs, he spent an extra moment with his lips pressed against the blooming, livid red and purple.
Serving penance or giving thanks, I wasn’t sure.
“I need you,” I breathed, parroting what he’d said to me the night of the auction. Nodding against my belly, Grey raked his hands over my sides, determined to press his lips to every inch of my torso, down to my sex, before showering my thighs with his attention.
“You’re the only person who’s seen it all. My ugly. My laughter. And you’re not running.”
“I’m not running,” I repeated, earning a relieved huff of breath from the man paying homage to my body.
“Be my forever, Mrs. Hart?”
The ragged vulnerability in his voice sent my eyes burning all over again. Nodding, I managed, “Please, Grey.”
“You should rest.”
“I need to know that you’re real,” I admitted on a needy exhale.
“ My pace,” he said, tone both a warning and an order. I simply nodded in response. I’d take whatever he was willing to give me.
He wriggled out of his sweats a beat before bringing his mouth back to mine, leisurely running his palm down the length of my body, gaze endearingly tracking the wake of his touch as though he left a visible trail to follow. My fingers found his hair, weaving between strands, holding his face to mine as I memorized his scent. Memorized the man I never thought I’d willingly die for.
This man who’d just killed for me.
With the care of worship, he settled his hips between my thighs, which parted to make room for him. Mouths sealed together as though we’d cease to exist if we separated, Grey positioned himself, running the crown of his dick over my slick sex before lining up with my entrance. With the briefest lock of our gazes, he rocked into me, filling me with life and my lungs with air. Surprise gave way to adoration, and then he slid his hands beneath me, gripping my shoulders and setting the pace.
More of a steady rock than the fierce thrusts I’d grown accustomed to, our bodies connected deeper and deeper. Connected in a way I couldn’t describe.
Nobody had ever held me so closely.
Kissing me until my head was spinning, Greyson made love to me. We’d done sweet sex, but nothing like this.
Raw and real and just us.
Slow and steady, he rocked his hips, grinding up and in, dick hitting the depths of me with each roll until, together, we crested that edge. With a groan, his body went rigid, the telltale pulse and swell of his cock inside me, stealing my oxygen as my walls clamped around him. He held his position, even when his muscles relaxed, head bowing to mine, our breaths synchronized as we exchanged them like currency.
At last, he pulled back to look at me, but there was a shadow of something familiar—the same trace of panic I’d seen at the wedding. Softly, I said, “I’ve seen that look before. What are you thinking?”
His breath was a huff of disbelief as he stroked a hot palm down my face. “That I don’t deserve you, baby.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because it’s true. Forgive me, my love, for taking you anyway.”