CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
RENA
T hat damn plodding drone of the shower berates me once again. The last time was when Ty had killed the wrong group of people and was preparing to marry me in a pointless ceremony. Now, it’s because the splish-splosh of the water is crooning a dirge to the end of something. I’m not sure what yet.
Ty and I bid good night to the guys and moved to our bathroom. The walls pulse around me, the unforgiving lights leering with warning, the slate-tiled floor glinting with an intuitive censure.
It’s been ten minutes since I uttered Jax’s name. The wrath and disappointment radiate off Ty. It doesn’t matter that I answered him. All he’s focused on is that I hid it, drawing countless wrong conclusions for my reasoning at this point. But I’d prefer to wait until he’s regained some semblance of tranquility, relaxed. Maybe when we crawl beneath the covers and he sees me as a gateway to solace again .
He’s got waterproof bandages on his freshly tended wounds and a determination to sulk in a hot shower, so when I swing open the glass door and step inside, he follows.
Silent and broody. He’s stuck. And that feels like failure, like I’ve fucked up at being part of this family when I fought so hard for the opposite outcome.
Without a word, I lather him up, trying not to gag at the pieces of flesh and body matter I pluck from his hair and skin. This is a prime example of why he was begging me to stay away, probably why my brothers were disturbed by the marriage. It’s a far cry from being the Noire princess—the smiling face of hospitality that never glimpses the gore behind the curtain.
But there’s no place I’d rather be, so my instincts to leap with Ty were spot-on.
Even if we did escape the Grim Reaper by the skin of our teeth tonight, we made it back to our blueberry fields.
After he soaps me up in return, his hands start to roam— roam might not be the most fitting word. He desperately peruses my body, like he’s committing every curve, texture, cell to memory.
Seeking. Searching.
“You are my first priority.” His voice cracks through the heavy steam, slicing it with an imploring vulnerability. “My everything. How many goddamn times and ways do I have to say it for you to understand there’s nothing I won’t do for you?”
It seems rhetorical, so I don’t answer, providing the space for him to verbally vomit his despondence. That alone is a milestone for Ty. He used to bottle everything up. So, I’ll gladly be his unloading station.
He leans into me, pressing me against the marble wall to crowd me the way he likes. One arm rests above my head while his other hand teases my opening, tantalizing dips and swirls. “ Love is not even a strong enough word for what I feel for you. Obsessed doesn’t cut it either. You are … life. I can’t breathe if you’re hurt. Any part of you. I will do anything and everything to keep you whole, Rena. Fucking anything . So, of course, I’d protect your brothers. They’re a part of you and my friends—my family too.”
For a stretched-out beat, I say nothing, choosing to make him wait because as disappointed as he is in my supposed lack of trust, I’m as irritated that he doesn’t see who we’ve become. That he doesn’t grasp that I have a much bigger picture in mind for all of this. He’s the one who taught me to hold on, and yet it eludes him.
My fingers curl around his steel cock, working him over to release some of that rage he’s carrying. Maintaining the rhythm he enjoys, I finally lock on to those cognac embers that harbor so much anguish. “I know you’d do anything for me. You could never say it again, and I would still know it.”
He shakes his head, blowing out a stilted breath, dismissing my confession. But he doesn’t speak. He grunts as he hoists me up to his waist and thrusts inside me with an unrelenting piston of his hips. It’s not his playful ownership over me, his passionate domination, or the soothing cuddles and cock warming he generally offers.
Every touch and slam and plunge is a reckoning. Maybe directed at us both. Punishing himself is how Ty copes. You’d think he’d be too spent, too sore and weak for this level of rigorous decimation. But he melds my body to his, plasters my spine against the sticky tiles so that each vertebra declares its presence, and covers my mouth with his, blowing several puffs of air into me and rendering me heady.
It’s one of the safer forms of breath play, limiting my oxygen intake to accelerate my body’s danger response, in turn producing an endorphin rush—something I’ve always been curious about.
My nipples harden even more than their traditional resolute state, the bars instantly tighter. My hips rock, mining for the friction I’m ravenous for, managing to angle enough that my clit is met with a titillating cadence. And this steam-filled box jostles around me. I purr my retort to his puffs, my senses enhanced, an awareness of every pore in my body seizing me as the humid air abandons my lungs. Lightheaded and hazy.
His eyes coast over my face, gauging the response as he continues his savage pumps, inflicting my sentence for a transgression he’s wrongly accusing me of. “You don’t trust me. And I don’t know how to—”
I cut him off, veering toward my climax, but unwilling to tip with that allegation hanging over me. “You’re wrong. I trust you more than anyone.”
His eyes go wild, be it the blood loss, the pain meds, the stress, or his chagrin, but something snaps. He wraps his hand over my throat, his thumb and index finger biting into my flesh in a prove-it gesture.
Well, fuck me . I think I mentioned once that I wanted to be choked, so teach me my damn lesson, sailor.
My brows arch for the dewy ceiling in a you-don’t-have-the-guts challenge. “Do it.”
With that, he sticks the loofah in my hand—something to drop if things go awry—tethers us closer with an arm snug around my lower back, plants his crazed gaze on my face, and squeezes the sides of my throat, pinching off my airway while his fervid tempo of punishing thrusts prevails. Within seconds, my vision spots and blurs, lashes fluttering as my body suddenly feels weightless. Warring urges to fight and flee surge through me.
Every sensation heightens while also seeming distant and jumbled somehow. I dig my nails into his taut back muscles on the opposing side from his wound, branding him with crescent moons that cause him to hiss as the loofah scores my palm, taunting me to give up.
“Eyes on me.” His demand is an echo from beyond, curling around me like the clammy droplets of condensation and the rebuking stream of trepidation raining down on me.
So, I affix myself to the only destination that I’ve ever been truly me—not a name or an empire. Not a trophy or a flighty girl. The place where I matter, the only soil I want my soul to bloom from. No matter how many graves lie beneath it.
And as that world goes dark, Ty releases his grip, and everything flies back to the light at a million miles a second. Shooting rockets of silver soar between us. My clit and pussy thrum, muscles and bones throb, veins and nerve endings vibrate. Not plummeting off the euphoric cliff—floating in ecstasy, leaping from the precipice into a cloud of rhapsody. A strained scream rips from the depths of my depleted lungs—fierce and gravelly and utterly deranged—ricocheting off the marble and glass, slate flooring and brass fixtures, to cocoon us in the symphony of my climax.
“Fuck,” Ty wheezes, gaping at me in a reverence I want emblazoned on my every waking moment. Never forgetting who this man believes I am.
He hammers into me with equal measure ferocity and love until his cum shoots inside me. Even my inner walls rejoice at his offering, sucking up every drop of him.
“So goddamn beautiful,” he rasps.
He doesn’t pull out when he’s done, which isn’t surprising. He holds me closer, his long, slender fingers weaving into my sopping hair to angle my head, the spouting water pinging off him and prancing in new directions. “You trust me to hold your life in my hands, to be a thumbprint away from ending it.”
It’s not a question, but rather an astonished observation.
Still, I answer, “Of course.”
“Then why the fuck didn’t you trust me with seeing Jax?” So much hurt threads that query.
I’m too dizzy to hold back any longer. Maybe that’s what he was aiming for. After another craggy exhale, I swallow and hope this sinks in. “Because you’re not God, Ty. You are not responsible for every person in your sphere. The weight of everyone’s safety and choices and morality is not for you to carry. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”
His jaw clenches, his spine stiffening, his entire being refuting my assessment. “ You are my responsibility. And as your husband, it’s my job— my right —to protect you.”
A scoff huffs out of me because he missed my whole point. “There’s a huge difference between protecting me and shouldering the responsibility for things outside of your control.”
He drops my legs and pulls his cock out, creating the distance he needs to cling to his saving-the-world bravado. “This could’ve been in my control—”
“No, Ty. It couldn’t.” I glide my hand over his scruff, drawing him back to me. “Not that piece. I don’t know what they’re up to, but I do know that you being involved would only complicate matters or get you killed.”
He says nothing, but his glare shouts how impossible that truth is to accept, so I unload my rant. He’s not the only one who needed to grow. And being here, being away, being forced into this twisted society is somehow liberating.
“And it’s not only the Jax piece. There are a thousand things concerning me that you can’t control. That you can’t promise. That you can’t prevent. No one seems to understand this except me. My brothers did the same shit, assuming they could shield me from everything—pain, life, heartbreak. When what they should have been doing was allowing me to fail, letting me hurt, and teaching me to get up again. To live through it. Sheltering and shackling are not the same. It’s fucking different.”
He steps back into me, flattening me to the marble tiles, his rigid pecs and abs molding to my soft and subtle curves. His arms bracket my head, and his eyes flicker with curiosity, like something I said penetrated his armor. “You’re not worried about what they’ve gotten themselves into or what could happen to them?”
“Of course I am,” I whisper, my fingertips tracing over the inked trident and raised warrior scars, “but I don’t expect you to rescue them. I mean, if they were reaching out, needing us, that would be a whole other discussion. But they aren’t. They didn’t want me involved, and by default, that includes you. They’ll make their own choices and mistakes. All I want from you is honorable decisions regarding them. It’s two different things, Ty.”
He drags a hand down his face, and for a millisecond, all the versions of Ty collide—the boy who found his murdered family; the soldier who needed a home; the prisoner of war who grasped at straws of hope while being beaten; the sniper who sees the world from the sky and wants to play God; the man who thirsts for the blood of those who terrorize; and the man who tenderly rebuilds the tormented. The one who finds connection through movies and lyrics, who celebrates others, who gently rocks Felicity. Who smiles to shield people from his pain.
His eyes are swimming with bits and pieces of them all. “Not to me. Not when it comes to you.”
Tears cascade over my cheeks, merging with the shower drizzle that seems to usher our heartaches. “Well, it should be. It was with your sisters. You made an honorable choice. You tried your best. And something beyond your control happened. None of it was your fault. Not that day. Not the day the bomb went off at the dress shop. Not the day that guy threw me into the wall. Not. Your. Fault.”
He chews the inside of his cheek, his stature weakening as he finally succumbs to the stress of the day—the suffering of a lifetime—and burrows his face into my hair. “I can’t … I don’t … I don’t want to make the wrong choice.”
“Sometimes choices aren’t right or wrong,” I muse before driving home my point a little more. “What happened to your family is no more your fault than being the product of an affair that tore my family apart and eventually killed my parents was mine.”
His chest shudders—my trauma easier for him to cradle than his own. His good arm tangles around my frame, squeezing reassurance into me. “That’s not even close to the same thing. You are a miracle, a gift.”
“It is the same,” I insist, my tone rising with the billowing steam. “You’re my miracle. And your family’s. You said you’d be my true north, Ty. That means one direction, not ten, not divided, not backward. We face what’s coming for us, for our family.”
His head pops up on our family , a cocktail of relief and shock painting his features. “And if one of your brothers doesn’t survive? Think about that. Because I cannot let you lose your beautiful light, to become … to shatter like me.”
The mere thought has me trembling because I don’t understand how my brothers and I went from flitting around our resort two months ago, contentedly running our business, to half of us with our lives hanging in the balance. So, my sobs break free, my chest quaking so violently that I find myself wheezing again, grasping for oxygen through gasps and whistles. But Ty coils his long, sinewy limbs around me, peppering me with kisses and eclipsing my distress until I eventually regain my composure.
Lifting my chin to him, I speak some of the hardest, truest, and freest words I’ve ever vocalized. “It would hurt like hell. And maybe a piece of me would die with them. But shattering doesn’t have to mean broken—for either of us. We’d hold each other through it and live in a way that kept them with us. That’s the only plan I have, Ty. It’s what I’d want them to do, so it’s enough for me.”
He kisses me with the gentleness that was lacking from that unhinged fucking, licking the seam of my lips and coaxing me to let him in. But the rhythm of the strokes and his quiet intensity alert me to the apology before it’s even birthed.
His hands cup my face, eyes capering all over me. “I’m so sorry I’ve done this to you. This shouldn’t be your life. You deserve more. To be spoiled. To be safe. Everything.”
“I had all that, and I was a shell of who I could be. I’d rather have fleeting moments of freedom with you than a long, sheltered life of nothing spectacular.”
He nods, which I hope translates to a seed of deliverance taking root within him. “So”—he brushes the wet tendrils of hair off my forehead, sweeping them and the pebbles of water away—“you’d prefer to run or continue?”
“We have to continue,” I affirm, and at the furrow of his brow, I realize that seems in contradiction to everything else I’ve stated. “It’s the only chance for all of us to reach the other side. We shouldn’t get involved in their mess, but this we can do. This is our part.”
“Okay,” he concedes, an ashen shadow descending upon him, the exhaustion finally setting in before he tacks on, “But if I can’t unravel what the fuck this is all about by tomorrow, I’m calling it.”
“Let’s go to bed,” I suggest, knowing this isn’t the time to fight him on anything, but throwing out the one question rattling around in my mind instead. “Any idea what’s coming?”
He groans, “I really don’t, baby,” scrubbing both hands over his face before twisting the nozzle to off.
Once he’s done with his weird slicking-the-water-off ritual, he drags me out, swaddles me in a towel, and pampers me for five minutes—drying, lotioning, hair brushing.
When his gaze fogs over, I return the favors and corral him into the bedroom, tucking him under the sheets and climbing in beside him. Despite his injuries and difficulty finding a comfortable sleep position, we settle into our usual cuddling embrace—his cock snug inside me, his limbs engulfing my frame.
And even though I had my reasons, I extend my regrets. “I love you, Ty. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Jax. I never meant to hurt you.”
His eyes pop back open, glimmering in the dark. “I know you didn’t, Little Moon … Axel and Jax being in the mix was—” He halts abruptly and his scrutiny shoots to the ceiling. “Fucking hell. Ivy mentioned the book.”
“What does that mean?” I ask, having no clue what his mutterings are about.
“It’s just … shit, it was right there.” He pecks my lips, gripping my face like it’s a lifeline. “I love you so goddamn much. Listen to me . You were right. True north. One direction. Us. I was too fucking close. I needed to listen and take all the players into account. Think about where everyone was.”
“Ty, did those pain meds mix with the alcohol and make you loopy? Or are you trying to tell me that the final test won’t be so bad?”
“Painkillers—probably.” He yawns, and I briefly wonder if he is simply spewing nonsense, but his next sentiment sends a chill skittering up my spine. “I don’t know what it is, but the burn is coming, baby girl. And they’re gonna make it fucking hurt.” He presses me into his chest, nestling his face into my hair. “But I’ll get us through it. And then we’ll flourish. Eyes on me.”