39. Chapter 39
Chapter thirty-nine
Lucy
Icurled up into Dax’s chest, breathing in the masculine, intoxicating smell of him.
It was intermingled with sweat and dried blood, but that didn’t matter.
I didn’t care we weren’t alone, because now we were reunited, I never wanted to let him go again.
My mind was still in tatters as we sat in the deep leather seat, Clay a couple of rows in front of us, pretending not to notice.
We’d boarded Emile’s private jet a few hours ago, and we would be landing back in San Francisco soon.
Even though I was exhausted, the adrenaline that still tingled inside me kept me wide awake.
Every joint in my body ached so much I basically felt like one giant bruise.
The CIPHER medic, who apparently was Emile’s cousin, had stitched up the wound on my shoulder and given me instructions on how to care for the long cut down my middle to avoid scarring after it started to scab over.
He said Phoebe couldn’t fly for a couple more days while she recovered, so she had to stay behind in New York. Emile surprised all of us by choosing to stay behind as well.
“Yeah, I have some business to take care of here anyway. I’ll head back with her in a few days,” was all he said before slamming the black doors of the private ambulance, taking Phoebe somewhere away from the scene.
Even after all this time, I hadn’t really understood what CIPHER was really capable of until I saw the strike team enter the building after we’d finished our mission.
That was how I was trying to look at all of this. It was all part of the mission. Yes, I had just endured the most harrowing experience of my life. Yes, I almost died. Yes, a lot of other people did.
But I’d also accomplished what I had set out to do when I decided to return to Bellissima after the first night. When I thought about it, I wasn’t sure it could have gone down any other way.
I pressed my lips into the warm crook of Dax’s neck, where the top of a tattoo swirled on his skin. I heard him take a deep inhale, then he whispered low in my ear so only I could hear,
“Careful, Luce. If you keep doing that, I might choose to ignore the fact Clay’s sitting right there and take you right here on this plane. How’d you feel about joining the mile high club?” His breath tickled my ear, and heat surged between my legs.
Actually…?
“Well, you shouldn’t get to be the only one in special clubs, right?” Apparently, I’d left any sense of reserve in that damp, dark building.
I felt Dax chuckle into my hair, and the sound sent a pleasant shiver down my spine. “Sure, but I’d much rather wait to do it on my own plane.”
He had a fucking plane? Of course he did.
The indication we would have the chance to fuck on a plane in the future did something to my insides.
I didn’t know what was going to happen between me and Dax now that we’d finished the job.
I didn’t want to think that we would go our separate ways, even though that’s what he said would happen before.
I had no idea what my future looked like now, but the idea of my life without him seemed like the worst kind of hell.
And I could now say I knew what hell looked like.
My courage was starting to wane, so I decided to rip off the band aid while I still had some left inside me.
“What happens when we land?” I asked him, keeping my face tight against his skin so I wouldn’t have to look him in the eyes while he broke my heart.
I felt the muscles of Dax’s back tighten, and the hope inside me started to wilt. “We’ll go home,” he said simply.
My eyes stung and I tried to hold in the sniffle forming at my nose. “You mean, you’ll go home, and I’ll go back to my apartment?”
Dax tilted his neck away from my face, running his fingers through my hair and tracing the side of my cheek. His touch left a hot trail down my jaw until he lifted my chin up to him. He ran his finger over my bottom lip in that maddening way, making my insides burn.
His dark gaze glittered like constellations in the blue-black sky of midnight. “I want to go wherever you go, Luce.”
I never thought I would be so grateful to see the billowing fog of San Francisco.
It was already the middle of the morning when I’d unlocked the door to the small studio on Haight Street, the gray light bursting through the small window into the apartment.
It felt like I hadn’t been there for weeks, even though it had only been a few days. I lived lifetimes in those days.
Everything looked exactly the same as it had when I’d left it. My pile of laundry sat on the edge of my bed, Tara’s books piled high on the bookcase that divided our two sides of the room. The polaroids hung on the wall like a reminder of the life I’d had before.
My stomach clenched when I saw the half-eaten pint of Ben & Jerry’s still propped up on my nightstand. The ice cream inside had melted and curdled in the still air of the apartment. I wrinkled my nose and tossed it in the trash.
Dax seemed to fill half the room when he followed behind me. I turned to him, noting the dried blood on his arms. I shuddered when I considered how I probably looked.
“I’m gonna take a shower,” I decided. I’d been given a clean, plain long-sleeved T-shirt by one of the CIPHER squad members, but my body underneath was crusted with blood and grime.
I winced as I pulled it over my head, a reminder of the state of my shoulder.
I finally took off my bra, vowing to burn it the moment I had the chance.
Dax watched me with heated eyes as I ran the water, steam clouding through the small bathroom. I stepped into it and relished the warmth, scrubbing the layers on my skin with one of the fancy bodywashes Tara stocked our shower with.
After I finally felt like I’d washed away the evidence of New York, aside from the stitches and bruises already welted all over my skin, I took in a deep breath and poked my head around the shower curtain.
“I thought you said you wanted to go where I went,” I called through the puffs of steam.
I heard Dax’s dark chuckle from the other room. “I’ve been waiting for you to invite me in, Luce.”
“Okay, Dracula. You can come in,” I jeered back sarcastically. Moments later, he appeared in the doorframe.
My throat closed when I saw the ripples of his tattooed muscles. His lips parted into a soft smirk, and I swear I felt my heart melt right inside my chest. He reached softly for my neck, moving in to graze his teeth against the wet underside of my ear.
“Dracula, huh?” he murmured against my sensitive skin.
“I think it’s better than Chef.” I laughed.
He pulled back and scowled at me, a glimmer of humor in his eyes. “I didn’t realize you just wanted me to come in here to insult me.”
I gave him a tired laugh and pulled his arm.
He was way too big for the small shower, but he managed to squeeze in next to me somehow.
Droplets of water slid down his dark hair, and I reached up to brush my hands against the stubble on his jawline.
I poured some of the body wash into my hand and motioned for him to turn around.
I ran my hands across the planes of his back, and he arched into my touch, the water spraying down on us in a steady, warm stream. As I slid my hands around his chest, I heard a deep moan catch in his throat. He spun around and pulled me against him, his hands splaying across the curve of my ass.
His lips crashed down on mine with fervor as he twisted us around so the water fell over our faces.
Stars exploded behind my eyes as I melted into him.
The soreness in my bones was forgotten as I pressed against him and felt his hard ridges against every sensitive nerve in my body, but I couldn’t help the little flinch as the water shot across the stitched slash on my shoulder.
Dax paused, lifting himself back from me a little. “Are you sure this is okay?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
“Yes,” I whispered through the rush of water. It was more than okay. It was the only thing I wanted at that moment. “Make me forget it all, Dax.”
That was all he needed. He reached back and shut off the water before grabbing me in his arms, and my legs shot around his waist. His thick length pressed right up against the nerves at my center. Ripping back the shower curtain, he didn’t waste any time drying us off with towels.
He carried me straight to my bed, which was better fit for a small, broke college student than a billionaire vigilante, but he didn’t seem to notice.
I shivered as he hovered above me, slick heat pooling between my legs.
My wet hair tangled against the cool sheets of my duvet, and his lips came down on mine in another blistering kiss.
They trailed down my neck, leaving a hot, tingling sensation down my neck and collarbone.
He was careful to avoid the length of the thin cut that ran between my breasts and down to my bellybutton, but I caught the stormy flash in his eyes before he moved lower, that deep blue brimming with desire.
His warm hands trailed up the length of my inner thighs, spreading me wide with his palms. His mouth slid down to my pussy, circling his tongue with deliberate, riveting pressure around my swollen clit. I cried out, waves of hot, throbbing pleasure striking through my system.
My fingers found the damp hair at the back of his head as my body moved in accord with his touch, magnetic and consuming. I would never get tired of this, never not want this.
“Is it working?” His rough whisper brushed across my sensitive skin.
All the stress, anxiety, and terror of the past twenty-four hours released from my core, replaced by the most paradisal sense of refuge.
He slid a finger up my leg, joining his lips on my hypersensitive flesh before entering me with agonizing slowness.
“Fuck, Dax,” I said, a deep, carnal hurricane forming in my core. “I…can’t be sure. I might need more,” I gasped as he added another digit inside me.
I felt his lips curl into a grin against my wet heat, his torturous pace quickening.
My hips ground against him feverishly, ravenous.
I chased his hand, pulling his hair between my fingers, racing toward that imminent downpour of release.
He held one hand against my hip, angling himself against me so his tongue could explore languorously as my legs started to quiver around him.
A swell of heat curled through my abdomen as he licked and sucked at me.
My abdomen twisted tight, shivers racking my body as I came apart around his fingers.
A high-pitched buzz fell into my ears as Dax lifted himself up with feral grace.
I’d never have guessed mere hours ago he’d been shot by a throng of trained criminals.
I barely caught my breath before he stood in between my legs, his hard shaft at full, tantalizing length. My legs wobbled weakly, but he hooked them over the sides of his hips, holding me up beneath my thighs as his thumbs dug deliciously around the curve of my ass.
He leaned forward and brushed his lips against mine in the most delicate, soft, magnetic way. I felt the crown of his cock line up with my entrance, still throbbing from the waves of my release.
He pushed in, a tight, fluid movement, until his strong thighs met mine.
Yes.
Fullness. In my heart, mind, and soul. Every inch of him completed me in ways I never imagined possible.
Parts of me had been missing my entire life, suddenly found and at home like every broken piece of me had been seamlessly sewn back together.
It was the epitome of bliss and carnage, desperation and fruition.
Two stars collapsing into one giant supernova.
He rolled his hips back before plunging into me with a force that hit so deep inside me I thought I was going to shatter. His rhythm was frantic, making me delirious as my body pulsed in ecstasy.
His groan rumbled through my veins. “Let it go baby, let it all fucking go.” His finger found my hypersensitive clit again, rubbing in torturously slow circlets. My pulse jumped into my throat, my fingers digging into the sheets.
I cried out as I climaxed, trembling around him as fire erupted in my center.
“That’s it. Ride it out, baby, release it all.
” His voice was choppy, his words dousing the explosion rocking through my body with gasoline.
I felt his cock start to throb as he sank himself inside me, his breaths coming out in heavy pants and then stilling as he reached his own apex, my name rolling from his lips like an invocation.
His arms gathered the shaking, weak remains of my body and pulled me up into the bed, the springs creaking with the weight of us both, the sound a poignant reminder of the different sides of the universe we hailed from.
It dawned on me suddenly, breaking through the barriers of hazy contentment and lust that cocooned us in this tiny studio.
I wouldn’t be able to let this go. To let him go.
It didn’t matter what happened in this world, what horrors I’d lived through or whatever the future had in store for me.
I wanted him to be with me, one way or another.
I didn’t care what it took, I would stay by him. Wherever he went was also where I wanted to be, and even though the emotions of the past few weeks had wreaked havoc on my life, I knew one thing for sure.
“I love you, Dax. Please don’t say anything, I just…I thought you should know.” I pinched my eyes shut so I wouldn’t have to watch as he crushed my soul. He probably thought I was crazy, that I—
“Open your eyes, Luce. I need you to look at me.”
I felt his fingers find my chin, sweeping his finger against my lip.
I held my jaw tight as I prepared myself for the worst, for the moment he’d tell me to go to hell and that his job here was done.
My lashes felt damp as I pried them apart.
The way he looked at me reminded me of the glittering water of the lake moments after the sun set and the vibrance of the sky was eclipsed in its boundless blue depths.
“I can’t lie to you and pretend I am a good man.
A good man would leave you alone and let you pursue your own life, far away from the kind of darkness that lives inside me.
But I can’t do that. It doesn’t matter if it makes me selfish or vindictive, I will follow your light across the goddamned multiverse if I have to.
And all I can do is hope you’ll let me because I am so unequivocally, recklessly in love with you. ”
Heat cascaded across my prickled skin, washing me in such delirious wholeness it felt like I glowed.
Tears ran down the sides of my face. Happy tears, the first in a long time.
Dax was more than a good man—he was my savior.
My missing piece. The cool winter to my warm summer, and the one I trusted with every part of my existence.
There were a thousand ways I could try to describe why I felt so reassured by it, but it all came down to something simple. A gut feeling.