Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
YOU GOING TO PULL THAT FLASHLIGHT OUT AGAIN?
LOUISIANA
Later that night, after we got back from Aunt Joe’s—bellies full, leftovers packed in foil, the kind of tired that settles in your bones after a long day of love and noise—I help Dally into his pajamas.
The house has gone still, quiet in that sacred, after-holiday kind of way.
The only sound is the soft hum of the heater and the occasional creak of settling wood.
I tuck him in tight, smoothing the blanket over him just how he likes it, and lean down to kiss his forehead.
Before I can pull away, his small hand wraps around mine.
“Louis…” he says, voice soft and unsure.
I sink down onto the edge of the bed, giving him time. Letting him gather whatever is sitting too heavy on his little heart.
“I know earlier I said I was thankful for fishing…and Thunder Lake,” he mumbles, staring at his hands, “but really, I meant you, and Henry.”
“I’m thankful for you too, Dally,” I whisper, brushing a thumb over the back of his hand.
He looks up like he isn’t sure he heard me right, like part of him still expects to be let down.
So I give him the truth—plain and fierce.
“I’m so damn thankful the universe gave me you,” I say, barely able to get the words out through the lump in my throat.
“I love you, kid. More than if I’d carried you inside me for nine months.
More than if you had my blood. I look at you every single day and think—how the hell did I get so lucky that you landed right here, in my neck of the woods? ”
He doesn’t say anything. Just leans into me, arms wrapping around my middle, his face pressed against my side like he is anchoring himself there.
I stay like that, one hand in his hair, the other rubbing circles along his back, grounding both of us in the truth of the moment.
He isn’t just mine, I’m his too.
I step into our bedroom, and for a breathless moment, I just stand there—letting it all settle in my bones. The fullness. The quiet rightness. The strange, steady truth that I have everything I ever wanted…and more.
It doesn’t feel foreign. It doesn’t feel like something I’ve stolen. It feels like arriving.
Because this—he—was always where I was meant to end up.
Henry’s stretched out across the bed like some half-wild God at rest, tattooed arm propped behind his head, a book in his hand, and those damned reading glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose.
He looks up at me over the cover, and whatever he sees on my face stills him.
The book closes without a sound, and his gaze lingers—soft, steady, dismantling.
Like always.
He opens his arms wide. “Come here, baby.”
I crawl into his warmth like I’ve done it a thousand times in dreams, and the second I’m in his arms, he holds me like something precious. Something known.
“You told him you loved him,” he says, not as a question, but a truth already understood.
“How’d you know?” I whisper, tracing the wildflowers blooming across his chest—the ones inked close to his heart.
“Because everything you think you hide paints itself all over that beautiful face, and when you look at that kid…” He pauses, presses a kiss to the crown of my head. “You glow.”
I smile, but it trembles. “I forgot you could read me so well, Sheriff.”
“That’s because you’re mule-stubborn and always two steps deeper in your own storm than you need to be,” he says, not unkind, but honest.
The words find a bruise I didn’t know was still tender. I look away, the old ache stirring—the years I wasted running, hiding, telling myself I wasn’t enough. That I was defective because I couldn’t have children. That love like this was meant for other people.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur. “I know I need to be better at…all of it.”
Henry exhales slowly, brushing his thumb beneath my chin until I meet his eyes.
“Wildflower,” he says, voice thick with truth, “I don’t want your apology. I never have, and I sure as hell don’t want you to be better at anything.”
He cups my face in his rough palm like it’s something sacred.
Henry lets out a long breath, presses his forehead to mine. “I’m not asking for your apology. I’m not asking you to change. I love you as you are. You feel everything with the volume turned all the way up, and yeah, that means you sometimes can’t see past it. But it’s also what makes you, you.”
I laugh, watery. “Merc says my theme song should be Blinded by the Light.”
Henry chuckles, the sound rumbling through his chest. “Merc lives to stir shit between you and Maddox, but he’s not wrong.
Doesn’t matter though. I don’t want you dimming anything.
Feel it all—loud, hard, messy. Just know that from now on, I won’t be giving you any room to run.
I’ll be right here, pushing you to see beyond your tunnel vision. ”
I lean back just enough to meet his eyes. “Oh yeah?”
He grins, crooked and sure. “Don’t doubt me for a damn second.”
I laugh, low and wicked. “What are you going to do—fuck me with your flashlight again Sheriff?”
Henry grins like the devil himself. “Baby, don’t pretend. You fucking loved that.”
My whole body flushes at the memory—how wild he’d been that night, all growl and rough hands, like something feral had taken over him. God, it was delicious. The fading bruises that had bloomed across my ass ached in the sweetest way, like a secret only we had known.
I hum as I press my mouth to his chest, lips trailing a lazy path over warm, inked skin. He’s molten beneath me, muscles twitching with every kiss. I graze his nipple with my teeth, and he shudders—shudders—like I’ve stolen the breath from his lungs.
“Did I enjoy you being completely unhinged and downright fucking deranged?” I murmur against his skin, smiling when he grips the sheets. “Oh, absolutely.”
My hand slips beneath the waistband of his boxers, cold fingers closing around the heat simmering beneath. He hisses, sharp and ragged, eyes wild and fierce, like a cornered animal daring me to push harder.
I crawl down the bed with deliberate slowness, tongue dragging a wet, filthy line from the tip of his cock to the swollen balls, leaving slick saliva like a mark of possession. His breath hitches deep, rough and ragged, muscles tensing beneath me.
I pump him hard and fast, letting my palm slap his cock against my tongue with a harsh smack, the way I know gets under his skin. His hips jerk up, frustration burning in his throat when I pull back.
“Get the fuck back here, little viper,” he growls, dark and dangerous, voice low and rough like gravel scraping steel. “Let me fuck that pretty throat.”
I smirk, peeling off my rattlesnake pajamas slowly and savage, bare skin flashing in the dim light. His eyes darken, wild hunger snapping to my pierced nipples, and he licks his lips like a predator eyeing prey.
“Fuck…I love those,” he rasps, voice thick with something sharp.
I cup my hands around them, squeezing just enough to make the tendons in his neck flex like he’s barely holding back. His cock twitches hard, leaking thick pre-cum as he strains against the sheets.
I grab the rope, the soft paintbrush, and the jar of blue paint from the nightstand, my fingers tight and possessive. Turning around, I catch the hunger burning in his gaze—half rage, half worship.
“Oh, fuck yeah,” he breathes, voice hoarse, “tie me up.”
I straddle him, yank a fistful of his hair, pulling his head back until his throat is exposed, vulnerable—my favorite place.
“Hands where I say,” I growl, voice dark and dangerous, “or I’ll make you regret it.”
A crooked, defiant smile curls his lips. “You don’t scare me, little viper. Not even close.”
“That’s the point.”
The ropes dig in tight around his wrists, pulling his arms up high, leaving him completely exposed beneath me. His breath is ragged, chest heaving, but his eyes—those fierce, fire-lit eyes—are no longer challenging. They’re burning with surrender, with raw desperation.
I drag the cold, paint-dampened brush across the hollow of his throat, the slick blue paint leaving a slow, slick trail that cools and tingles against the heat of his skin.
Every stroke presses like fire into his muscles, sending tremors through his body.
His hips twitch, rubbing instinctively against the bed, slick pre-cum leaking out and coating his hardness.
He’s aching—aching—but his body is still, pinned and silent, waiting.
“Look at you,” I whisper, voice thick with promise and danger. “So eager to be marked…to be mine.”
His hips jerk involuntarily against my hand, veins pulsing with desperate need. I press a finger just beneath his aching tip, and he shudders, eyes locked to mine, silently begging for release.
“Not so fast,” I growl, leaning in close so he can feel my breath, hot and fierce against his skin. “I decide when you get to come. Not you.”
His wrists are raw from straining against the rope, knotted tight above his head, arms stretched and trembling from tension—not just the kind that comes from restraint, but from the storm building inside him.
I sit astride him like a reckoning, brush in hand, trailing thick streaks of midnight blue across his chest in slow, punishing strokes.
The paint cools against his burning skin, contrasting the heat of my breath when I lean in close.
Every stroke is controlled. Every twitch in his body is surrender.
He’s hard beneath me—aching, leaking, bound and undone—but I don’t give him what he wants. Not yet.
I drag my soaked center along the length of his cock, not letting him in, just letting him feel it. Letting him suffer.
“Beg,” I whisper, low and cruel, nipping his lip until I taste copper. “Beg me like you’re starving.”
His jaw clenches, eyes glassy with desperation. “Please, Lou…” he rasps, voice fraying. “I need—fuck, I need you.”
I press the brush over his racing heart, slow circles, a mockery of gentleness. “No. Not like that. Mean it.”
His entire body jerks beneath me—rage, lust, and something primal clawing its way to the surface. The ropes creak. Then groan. Then—
Snap.
They break.
His arms tear free, fists slamming down beside my hips as he surges up with a sound that’s not quite a moan and not quite a growl—it’s a war cry. His mouth crashes into mine, bruising and breathless, and all that I need twisted tight inside him uncoils like a whip.
“You don’t want me to mean it, little viper,” he murmurs against my throat, voice thick with heat and history. “You want me to show you—prove it in the way only I ever could.”
He drops onto all fours, eyes blazing as he catches mine in the mirror. With a rough tug, he grabs a fistful of my hair, pulling me flush against his front.
“Play with that pretty pussy, baby,” he rasps, lips dragging fire-hot kisses along my shoulder blade. “Let me see how fucking messy you get as you finger yourself.”
My fingers brush my clit, and his other hand clamps down hard on my breast, tugging the piercing until a tremble shakes through me.
His cock presses heavy and demanding at my entrance, and without hesitation, he slides in one brutal, slow motion, stretching me open and setting every nerve aflame.
Our eyes lock in the mirror—dark, unblinking, electric. Neither of us breaks the gaze. It’s a silent promise, a reckoning.
“This,” he growls, “this right here? This is why I fought. Not just your body, but you. The fire behind those eyes that kept me coming back. The way you look at me when the rest of the world finally shuts the fuck up.”
Tears burn behind my lids, but I hold them back. No grief here—only scorching heat, raw and pure.
Only this.
Only us.
When we come undone—sweat-slick skin pressed tight, breath ragged, hearts pounding loud enough to drown out the world—there’s no chaos.
No wild fire.
Just the fierce, hard-won peace that settles when the war is finally done.
When you’re wrapped in the arms of the one person who made every God damn second worth fighting for.