CHAPTER 11
FALLON
Relief like I’ve never known before threatens to pull me under the moment I’m back in Hutch’s arms. I know we’re not in danger anymore or else he wouldn’t be here and wouldn’t have let me out of the safe room. That doesn’t mean all my worry has ebbed, but it does help me breathe a little easier.
People came for me. Here. Where I should have been safe.
But Hutch kept his word, he stood between me and the danger. I’m under no illusions, I know he took out the threat to me. I have no doubt that he would do it again and again.
My voice is a squeak, filled with the remnants of my fear and uncertainty, “You’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” he assures me as he carries me away from the safe room. “How are you?”
I let out a watery giggle, totally enraptured by this man who just had to go out in the middle of the night and face unknown opposition to keep me safe. And then, after that, he’s here and asking if I’m okay?
“I’m fine, Hutch. Much better now that I’m back in your arms.”
His fingers snake through my hair until he’s gripping the strands at the base of my neck. His touch is firm, but gentle as he pulls my head far enough back to look down at me. There isn’t much light as we move toward the bathroom, but I don’t need it.
You don’t need to see well when everything he’s feeling is like a neon sign against my senses. I can feel it all.
His relief.
His worry.
His drive to ensure that I’m really okay and that I’m safe.
But I’ve never felt safer than I do right now.
Here’s a man who has killed for me, but there’s no violence in the way he’s touching me right now. The chaos that rages in his soul, brought forth by his past and his own insecurities, is nothing in the face of how I feel about him.
“I love you, Hutch,” the words are a whisper from my lips, but their depth ripples from me creating waves that I know will change everything.
After hating change for most of my life, this is one that I welcome. I embrace it with open arms and an open heart. I accept that it means my life will never be the same again.
And I’m glad for it. Why would I want to return to a life that ended in danger and fear?
No. I’d much rather have what I’ve found here with him—peace. Solace. Redeeming love. And a passion that sets my soul on fire.
Hutch’s lips curl up into a devastating grin and everything else fades away. He sets me down on the bathroom counter just long enough to shed all his clothing. It feels like he’s shedding so much more than the cloth encasing him.
My breath catches in my throat as I watch every inch of him being uncovered for me. All for me.
Tears gather in my eyes and I’m powerless to stop them from falling over my lashes and sliding over my cheeks. He’s there and cupping my face before I can wipe them away.
The worry in his eyes and the way the light bathes his form from behind him makes him look like an avenging warrior. There is blood splattered across his face, but it doesn’t scare me. It’s a reminder that he didn’t turn away from ending a life because it was a threat to me.
It makes me love him even more.
His voice is rough, “What’s wrong?” His eyebrows pull together and a fear fills his eyes. Shame colors his words, “Can you ever look at me the same way?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know,” he swallows hard and looks away, but I can’t allow that and cup his jaw in my hands to make him look at me again, “you know what I had to do.”
“Hutch,” I whimper at seeing the darkness swirling in his eyes, the stark fear that I’ll see him differently now. Doesn’t he know? Doesn’t he understand? “I could never look at you any differently. You’re the man I was put on this earth to love; I know it deep in my soul. Because when my soul sings, yours joins me. Can’t you feel it?”
His entire body deflates, and he presses his forehead against mine. I know he hasn’t said the words back to me. I don’t need him to. I can feel his love for me. It echoes around us and wraps around me.
Words can be cheap. They can be used without thinking. Placations whispered with lies in the hearts of those who push them past their lips.
But this? It’s more than words, it’s sensation. It’s truth.
“I was so afraid you wouldn’t be able to look at me knowing what I had to do,” his words are raw, and they slice through me like knives.
As I slide off the counter, he steps back, and I see that my words have fallen short. He can’t feel the truth of them. That’s okay. I can give him more.
I can give him everything.
I slide the shirt I’m wearing, his shirt, off my body and his gaze rakes over my skin. The way he looks at me might as well be his hands gliding over my body. I could ask how he can question the way I feel about him, but I understand that fear.
How powerful it can be. How hard it is to trust. How faith is hard won and can still feel like sand slipping through your fingers.
When I step away from him, his hands reach for me but then fall to his sides like he doesn’t think he is worthy of touching me. I turn the water on in the shower without looking at him. With my back turned toward him, I slip my panties off and test the water.
It’s only once I step inside the shower that I turn toward the man who has protected me with shards of his soul, given them to the darkness in order to bathe me in light. My heart pounds in my chest as I hold my hand out for him.
How many times has he given me this same choice? And each time I’ve slid my palm into his, giving him my trust and all of me.
His hazel eyes are wide as he stares at my hand. Then he takes a step. And another.
It’s only when he reaches for my hand, gripping it tightly in his own, that it feels like I can breathe again.
No words are needed as I reach for his body wash and clean the night away. The remnants of what he had to do, what I know he will always do, mix with the suds to slide down his body. They flow down the drain and away from here. From our peace. Our solitude.
I tip up on my tiptoes and pepper his face with kisses, anointing him with my love and my acceptance. Every kiss has him breathing deeper. As I move down his neck and over his jaw, my tongue laps at his skin, tasting him and the love he has for me.
My mouth trails over his chest and his hand shoot out to grip my hips, his fingers flexing on me and holding firm. “That’s right,” I murmur, “you can feel it.”
“You love me,” the awe in his voice as me smiling right over where his heart is pounding in his chest.
“I do,” I vow.
“I love you,” his own vow mixes with mine. He echoes me, “I do.”
I have to close my eyes at the sweetness of the feeling that washes over me. Complete. That’s what I am, and I’ve never been lucky enough to feel this before. It’s overwhelming, but perfect.
This is what I’ve been searching my entire life to find. I thought I could find it in a scent. In some way, I was right. But it’s not the scent of roses; it’s the scent of pine and Hutch.
A gasp falls from my lips as Hutch lifts me and presses me against the shower wall. The hard ridge of his cock nestles between my pussy lips. I’m grinding down against him, the sweetness of our love bleeding into a neediness that takes my breath away.
“I love you so fucking much, Fallon,” he grits out through clenched teeth. “From the moment you stepped out of that car, I knew. There was just one thing I couldn’t figure out.”
“What’s that?” I’m barely able to moan the question as the head of his cock finds my entrance and he starts to fill me.
“How to make you stay once the threat has passed,” he whispers, the words pained.
I want to tell him that he doesn’t have anything to worry about, but I don’t get the chance. Not when he thrusts into me and that excruciatingly beautiful stretch has me fighting for breath and sanity. He doesn’t give me time to adjust, not this time.
But I don’t want him to.
I just want him.
My nails dig into his shoulders, and he stares down at me, his hazel eyes intense and focused. Like he’s branding me from the inside out.
As my heart pounds inside my chest, I melt against my man and give myself over to him. There is victory in his eyes and it’s sexy as hell.
A warrior.
Snow driven and calculating.
His only purpose to keep me safe and protected.
How did I get so lucky? How could he even think I’d leave him? It’s an impossibility now.
Every one of Hutch’s thrusts is designed to give me pleasure and I’m spiraling up and up into the heavens. Closer. So much fucking closer.
“That’s it, Beautiful,” he growls. “You’re going to coat my cock in your arousal. I want to be covered in it.”
Fuck. The mouth on this man would be more than enough to tip me over the edge. But then add in the way the head of his cock keeps dragging over my g-spot? I’m not going to last long.
“Please,” I whimper, “don’t stop.”
The smile that curls his lips is sinister in the best of ways. “Never,” he snarls.
He fucks me faster and harder, my mind blanking on anything beyond the way the water rains down on our skin. Anointed. Reborn.
My protector. My love.
Visions of the future dance in front of my eyes and I can’t look away. He holds me steady. He holds me captive.
The feral glint in Hutch’s eyes is made of promises and pleasure. As his muscles bunch and relax under my grip, he somehow finds a way to hold me up and send me flying at the same time. His pelvis batters against my clit with every stroke and I’m lost.
“Give it to me,” he demands. “Come.”
Everything explodes and, for a second, I can’t hear anything beyond the rushing of the blood through my veins. My pussy squeezes his cock, and he buries his face against my shoulder. His teeth sink into the sensitive skin there, marking me for all to see.
“Yes,” I keen. “I’m yours.”
“Damn right you’re mine,” he grunts. “Never letting you go.”
He might mean it as a promise, as a threat. It’s one I’ll be holding him too. Because I never want him to let me go.
I belong right here.
With him.
Forever.
His cum is hot as he fills me up and I close my eyes as tears prick the backs of my eyes. I won’t cry again; it’s clear he doesn’t like it when I do.
It’s just that this feels so big. Bigger than love. Bigger than forever.
I wrap that feeling around me and burrow into it the same way I wrap myself around my man and grip him so tight that I can only hope he knows I’ll never let go.
Our hearts pound together, our breathing fast and erratic. He doesn’t pull out of me as he yanks me away from the shower wall.
I’m shifted in his arms slightly and the water stops raining down from above us. He doesn’t bother to dry us as he strides into our bedroom and lays me out on the bed, coming down on top of me and covering me with is strong frame.
As I blink up at him, I squeeze the walls of my pussy and find that he’s still hard. For me.
Hutch flashes me a grin. “Not nearly done with you yet, Beautiful.” His face softens and he pleads, “Say it again.”
My hands slide up his shoulders until my fingers are buried in his hair. “I love you, Hutch.”
When he starts to move this time, it’s not a frenzy of movement. It’s slow and sweet. Every movement has a buzzing feeling moving under my skin. This time as we come together, we make love, and he whispers his truth against my skin.
“I love you, Beautiful.”