Chapter Thirty-three – How Do I Live #2
Before I could get in another stroke, he’d stood and snagged me in his arms once more. We were out of the tub and on the thick, plush carpet before I could protest. He was inside me, strong and hard and powerful, before I could do more than let out a titillated little laugh.
His eyes were dark as he moved above me.
That feeling of coming home, of being one, of reaching nirvana, returned.
This was what life was supposed to be like.
Moving as one entity. One love. The universe took complete souls and broke them apart like a scientist splitting atoms, but when the halves found each other again, that was when the true power formed.
When the atoms rejoined. When the souls glided back together.
When he was inside me, when we rode this wave, it felt like we were invincible, as if nothing in life could ever tear us apart.
I dug my nails into his hips and did my best to flip us.
He didn’t protest. He just moved with me and then watched with stormy eyes as I rode him.
And when I finally crested the wave, he was right there with me.
Pleasure and love and joy filled the room as I called out the new name, the new word, he’d been desperate to hear.
Husband.
He was my husband.
I was his wife.
Nothing on this earth, nothing in the universe, would break us apart.
? ? ?
My eyes felt heavy when I woke with my back tucked up against Parker’s chest and his hand spread wide across my abdomen.
My body was beautifully sore. My heart happy.
We’d made love again before the sky had started to lighten, and then he’d insisted on sleep.
Or maybe my body had. I’d done too much the day before, but I didn’t regret it.
This was completely worth it.
Nothing could be better than the sunlight filtering through the windows while the man I loved was wrapped around me .
I was happy.
It might have been the most inappropriate time for me to be so with the danger hovering around us, waiting to return, but I couldn’t deny it. I was so happy my heart felt as if it had wings…as if, at any second, it would take flight.
Eventually, between rounds of lovemaking, Parker had told me his idea of starting a jump school.
One used to train people before they joined the military but also for Special Forces units.
The land around Rivers provided plenty of obstacles.
He believed some of his teammates would join him as they wound up their SEAL careers.
Sweeney had already planned on leaving and might join him sooner than the others.
I loved the idea. Loved that it meant he’d be with me, Theo, and the baby more than he’d be away, but I also couldn’t help the twinge of worry at the pace at which he’d switched gears. It wasn’t a one-eighty. It was more like stepping outside of his body and pulling on a new one.
A nip to my ear had me yelping.
“I can practically feel the vibration coming off that motor in your brain,” Parker said. His voice was husky and low from sleep.
I was on my back with him above me before I could think of an adequate comeback.
I expected his mouth to land on mine. I expected his hands to slide over me. Instead, he stared for so long it felt like our souls collided before our bodies did.
“I’m where I want to be, Fallon.” He’d read my mind again. How did he always do that? “More, I’m where I was always meant to be.”
I kissed him in response. I didn’t have any other words.
Just as he deepened the embrace, my stomach rumbled loudly, and we both chuckled.
Parker glanced over at the clock on the bedside table. “We have time for breakfast before leaving for the jail, but not for what else I had in mind.”
He pulled us both from the bed and set me on my feet.
“Maybe I want the what else more than food,” I said, raising a brow and taking in his naked form .
“No,” he said and then smiled when I let out a grunt of annoyance. “My baby needs food to grow, Wife.”
My heart did all sorts of cartwheels and tumbles. His baby. Wife. I might just die from the sweetness of it all.
He dragged me into the shower with him, which caused another slow embrace that quickly could have become more but he stopped once again. Before I was ready for it, we were back in reality, sitting at the café in Dad’s hotel, ordering crepes on the terrace.
But it wasn’t until we were in the SUV and heading north toward the prison that I thought to be nervous.
I’d never met Ike Puzo in person, but his twin sister had nearly ended my life and my dad’s as payback for Dad’s giving the Feds the evidence they needed to put Ike away.
What would it be like to sit across from him, even knowing he was in jail and couldn’t hurt me personally?
Would the same evil I’d felt facing his sister be in the room with us?
I hadn’t been nauseated this morning, but now the crepe I’d eaten twisted nastily.
Parker grabbed my fingers, bringing them to his mouth and kissing the knuckles before setting our joined hands on the center console. “Talk to me.”
“If he’s behind this, how will we get him to admit it?” I asked.
“I doubt he’ll say anything that can directly incriminate him, but he’ll hint at it,” Parker said. “Like most bullies, he’ll want you to know he’s responsible for the pain he’s caused. What’s the point if he can’t gloat about it?”
“I should act as if I’m terrified, don’t you think?”
Parker considered it for a moment. “As much as it goes against my grain, or yours, to show him any of our emotions, you might be right. If he thinks you’re there to beg him to stop or to bargain with him, he might tell us more than if we threaten more years on what’s already a life sentence.”
I nodded and turned to look at the high desert speeding by outside the windows.
The rugged, harsh land made me miss the forest and meadows of the ranch with an ache that was almost painful.
I wanted to be home. I wanted to be back with Parker and Theo and to have all of this behind us with only a beautiful future in front of us .
I would do anything I needed to get Ike to admit he was behind everything that had happened.
Except, we still had no clue why he would wait this long. Why wait ten years?
Parker’s phone rang, and he hit the button on the steering wheel to accept the call.
“Hey, Park, you’re almost at the prison?” Jim’s voice rang through the speakers.
“About fifteen minutes out. You’re on speaker. How did things go with Adam?” he asked.
“It didn’t.”
Parker and I shared a startled look.
“What do you mean it didn’t?” Parker demanded.
“Adam is dead.”