Chapter 49
Dixie
At the cabin on the ridge, we locked the door and fell on each other. No hesitation. Nothing but love driving us on and an endless kiss.
Tyler carried me to the bathroom and hit the button for the shower. He stripped our clothes. Carried me under the water.
With steam rising around us, he held my face and delivered a kiss that could’ve broken me. So much had taken place. Too much fear had guided us and shaped our world. Now, everything else faded.
I held his shoulders and he picked me up, his solid body mine to wrap around. Tyler notched to my entrance and hesitated. We both needed this. To be as close as we could get.
“I was tied up when I realised you’d walked into the house,” he whispered. “I never felt so scared. So useless. I couldn’t protect ye.”
“That was my job. I was there for you.”
“But—”
“No. I was there for you.” I put emphasis on the words, spoken while the hot water pattered around us. While it slid off his skin and onto mine. “I chose to go. I would do it again. We’re equals, remember? I get to come for you too.”
Tyler gasped something that sounded like pain and pushed inside me.
My body gave way. My heart let him in. He was mine.
He made love to me against the wall, and when I came, this time, I didn’t cry. The emotion had changed. Moved up and on.
Tyler surged. I felt every bit of the feelings he was working through. His capture, the fear at not being able to protect me. Everything he’d heard.
When he was close, so thick inside me I was right back on that ledge with him, he pulled back to see my eyes. Without looking away, he thrust slowly. Giving me what I wanted and letting me feel everything he was doing. How different we could be with the rules gone.
“I love ye.”
“You’re mine. My whole world. My love.”
He dropped his head to my shoulder and came.
It sparked a fresh wave of pleasure through me, and I rode it, clutching him. Loving him.
After, once we’d washed up and dressed in sleepwear, Tyler checked his phone and rubbed his eyes.
“When was the last time you ate?” I asked.
“A day ago. More. Convict offered to get me something at the hospital but I couldn’t manage it.”
“Then let me.”
I sat him down and went through our supplies, whipping up a fast sandwich and decaf coffee. It felt good to do something so normal. No one was trying to kill us. For the first time tonight, no one was chasing us.
Tyler devoured the meal then asked a question. It was cautiously posed. “Tomorrow, with the vote, will ye go?”
“I’ll go. Will you come with me?”
Love flared in his eyes. “Of course I will.” He hesitated over what he had to ask next. “What will ye do?”
My smile spread. He’d asked. Which meant he thought I’d answer. I needed him to take all the liberties. My decisions affected him, too. “Mila loves that company. It made a lot of money. I can think of a lot of good uses for that.”
His brow furrowed. “The hospitals and care homes.”
“Not just that.” I worked through the thoughts I’d been having, sharing with him what I’d been unable to put into words.
“What if it did more? What if it could be made to repay for all the pain it caused? That doesn’t mean it will be easy.
We still have to deal with the fallout from tonight and everything that happened before it.
Wallace, our grandmother, a thousand other things.
But I’m sick of being a victim of it. This time, it answers to me. ”
Tyler’s expression resolved to something better. To pride. “Whatever ye want to build, I’m with ye.”
I hugged him hard.
“Take me to bed.”
He hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours, but we stripped those clothes off and fitted together like we were made to be joined.
In the sheets, he held me. “I need to hear it again.”
“I love you. I’m so in love with you.”
At last, the two of us released our hold on the world.
We slept knowing one thing for certain. Whatever happened tomorrow, we had this. And I wasn’t letting it go.