51. Chapter 51 - Rosalyn
Bomb.
I don’t want…anything.
To think. To breathe. Every sound, every thought, I shut it all down.
I can’t be in control. It’s all too much.
I give everything to Cade. He holds the reins to my movements.
My legs are wooden sticks under my hips when he guides me to the truck. His whiskers brush my cheek when he buckles me in.
I can’t.
No reaction.
Bomb.
More will die.
So many cattle. Zeus. Cade’s parents. Ava.
No matter how hard I rub the sea glass on my wrist, the flood keeps hitting me.
Who else? A stadium of people?
How many? Children? Mothers? Fath—
“Ros? Baby, come on.” Cade helps me out of the seat.
Did we climb the stairs?
Where’s my shoes? By the door.
When did I get on the bed?
Cade crawls in next to me, pulling me against his chest, then covering my hand with his until our rings touch.
“Ros, can you feel me? I’m here.” His thumb traces mine, smoothing over the torn skin along my nail. “Tell me one thing. A single item that you’re thinking of.” His voice is a deep rumble against my spine.
Calming me.
“One thing?” I repeat in a monotone.
“Yes.” His fingers close over mine until only my index sticks out.
“Bomb.” The word drags out until the end disappears into the mattress.
His hot breath works down my neck when he exhales. “That is a big one.”
I love how his body molds around me. The heat melts away some of the ice that’s infiltrated my veins.
“Wade’s men are going over the rodeo grounds with a fine-toothed comb tonight and there’s guards posted. They’ll find anything if it’s there.” He shifts his hand until my second finger extends. “What’s the next one, baby? I know when there’s too many it’s harder to process.”
“Zeus,” I blurt out before I even realize it was next. “No. I mean…what happens to the house when they catch John and Eli?”
His thumb works along mine. “It’s yours, Ros. You’d be able to do anything you wanted with it.”
“I want to burn it down.” A visceral hatred for the building bubbles out of me.
How can I love the land I’d spend so much time hiding in but detest the prison at the center of it? It holds too many bad memories.
“The barn too where Zeus’s body is. That’s where Mama used to take me so the rest of the house wouldn’t be bothered if I screamed.” Telling him is getting easier.
He chose me, despite the terrors of the past.
Evelyn reminds me all of the time, honesty is the fastest way to healing.
It doesn’t make it pleasant.
Cade’s body curls tighter and his whiskers brush the shell of my ear. “I’ll bring the fuel, you bring the flame, baby. Whatever you want to do with that place, it’s yours to ruin, to sell, shit…even to rebuild if you ever wanted. Give it away. Nuke it. I’ll support your choice.”
My fingers weave to knit with his, pulling him around me like a safety blanket. “I love you,” I whisper. “What if I gave it to Black Gulch?”
His breathing stills. “Ros…” He draws out my name. “I don’t ever want you to feel as if you’re somehow responsible for what they did.”
Even he has gotten out of the habit of calling them my brothers.
They aren’t kin to me anymore.
“Maybe they can just use it until I decide.” That makes me feel better. “Yea, they can put cows up there or whatever they want. That way when we have kids, they’d have someplace here too. A way to belong.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “That sounds like a great solution.” His palm flattens over my belly, snugging me even more firmly.
That’s when I feel him hard against my ass.
“I like that you said ‘when’ not ‘if’,” he husks against the hollow under my jaw.
I find myself rolling in his arms so I can look into his blazing amber gaze.
“I know I want them.” Touching him is my happy place.
I give in to stroking his cheek. “You’ve taught me just how much love I have to give, that I never got to use.
It’s scary but in a normal way. It isn’t bombs and torture.
” The thought brings another shiver through me.
“No, Ros.” He cups my fingers to his jaw. “It’s hope. It’s the future that we get to pick.”
“Do you think if we—” I follow the line of his neck over his Adam’s apple. “—chose tonight, that we’d still be chasing evil in nine months?”
“Mmm.” The rumble that comes out of him makes heat condense into a throbbing ball in my belly. “I think no matter what I’d walk away from it forever. You are my priority, baby.”
My hand moves lower, threading through the gap between the buttons of his shirt to press against his skin. “Cade?” I nestle closer, my body begging for every point of contact. “Kiss me?”
A smile flickers over his lips before they crash into mine.
In a torrent of clothes, our mouths and limbs move in a whirlwind of frantic need.
It’s only as he hovers over me, the tip of his rigid cock poised at my entrance, that he pauses.
“Ros?” His panting bathes my throat. “I choose you, forever. If you want us to walk away from Montana tomorrow, I will. Baby or no baby.” He brushes his nose against mine.
“You are my wife. Black Gulch left me behind a long time ago.” Peppering kisses over my temple and down my jaw, he raises again to meet my eyes.
“We can leave for Texas in the morning. I just—” His belly presses mine when he takes a long breath.
“—as bad as I want this, I don’t want you to feel like this is the only option for all the bullshit to end. ”
My nails rake lightly over his ribs and I wrap my heels behind his thighs, coaxing him further. “It has to end, one way or another or they’ll never stop.” Rolling my hips sinks him into me. “But the hope of starting a family with you will give me the strength to survive it.”
His groan when he fills me removes any doubt that may have been clinging to the shadows of my decision.
And as he starts to move, every thrust builds me higher, lifting me to a pinnacle of the foundation he’s built with his patience and love.
Whatever happens tomorrow, I know that tonight, as we shudder in ecstasy while wrapped in each other’s arms, that the past no longer defines us.