Chapter 22
chapter twenty-two
LUCKY
The world finally stopped burning, but I still smell the smoke.
I don’t think my hands have stopped shaking since my family erupted my show. They’re steady enough to drive, to hold her hand as we walk to the elevator, but now, standing in the quiet of the penthouse, they tremble like the adrenaline’s a permanent resident in my blood.
I don’t know how to feel, being back here in the penthouse. I should be able to relax. It’s over. The bastard is gone, Willow is safe. But I’m having a hard time pulling my whole being back into the present.
Willow should be dead. I know it. Every rational cell in my body knows it.
But she isn’t.
She’s alive, warm, soft. My miracle in black.
The sound of a hard rattle draws both our eyes to the cage where Hattie is impatiently waiting for attention.
“Hi, beautiful,” Willow breathes as she crosses to it. She opens the cage door and extracts the ball of white fur. “Did you miss me?”
Willow hugs Hattie into her chest, pressing her face into her fur. I just stand here, leaning against the wall, watching them. My chest does that stupid achy thing it does whenever she does something unbearably human.
She almost died last night—killed by a monster pretending to be holy—and the first thing she does when she gets home is coo over a rabbit.
That’s Willow. A hurricane with a heart.
I run a hand down my face, feel the grit on my skin, the ache deep in my knuckles. The mirror across the room catches my reflection—bruises blooming, dirt-caked eyes too wild. I look like I crawled out of hell.
“I need to shower,” I say as I push off the wall and step toward the bedroom. My voice is hoarse, scraped raw from screaming her name in that desperate drive from the desert to the hospital.
Willow looks up, still cradling Hattie, like she’s coming back into her body one slow blink at a time. “Go,” she murmurs. “Careful with your knuckles. They look one flex away from splitting open.”
I just smile at her concern, watching my girls for a beat longer.
The fight’s over. Phoenix is gone. My family’s handling the body disposal, the mess—and if there’s one thing Torvik’s are good at, it’s cleaning up messes.
You can relax now, I try to tell myself. Everything is finally under control.
I strip my shirt off as I head toward the bathroom, the fabric sticking to my skin. The plastic liner of the trash can crinkles as I drop my shirt straight into it. My body aches everywhere, deep and low.
Steam curls up around me, the sound of the water roaring in my ears, too loud, too clean after everything that’s happened. I brace my hands against the tile and bow my head, watching the filth run off me in thin brown rivulets.
It’s not just dirt. It’s blood, dust, smoke, the desert. Him.
Phoenix.
Even now, even dead, that bastard clings like residue.
I scrub hard, until my skin stings. I scrub hard enough that one of my knuckles does indeed split open. But no matter how hot I turn the water, I still feel him—the echo of his voice, the way Willow screamed, the terror and pain I pray to Odin I never hear from her again in my fucking life.
I almost lost her.
The thought alone is enough to twist my stomach. I grip the tile harder.
If I’d been five minutes slower… ten… if my family hadn’t shown up… if she’d—
No. I cut the spiraling thoughts off.
She’s alive. She’s safe. She’s here.
That’s what matters. That’s what’s real.
Still, I look back toward the door. Just these thirty feet between us, it’s unbearable. The separation feels like someone scraped out part of my chest and forgot to put it back.
It’s ridiculous. It’s insane. We’ve been apart for maybe five minutes. I’ve survived ten years without anyone, but I can’t handle five minutes without her.
But like the fucking miracle witch she is, I’m halfway through rinsing the soap off when the bathroom door opens, and Willow walks in like she owns the air itself.
Without a word, she peels her shirt off.
I watch every single movement through the glass.
She drops it on the floor. She shimmies out of her pants next, and I don’t resist for even a second as I study the finest ass on the planet.
And my dick twitches as she hooks her thumbs into her thong at her hips and drags it down, bending, and giving me the most beautiful view I’ve ever seen.
I bite my damn knuckle, the intact one, as she unhooks her bra and lets it fall to the floor.
She steps into the shower, water gliding over her skin, and my damn knees almost give out.
I’ve seen her powerful. I’ve seen her furious, unbreakable, lethal. But this? Her quiet. Her peace. Her living. It’s the most breathtaking I’ve ever seen her.
She looks up at me through the steam. “You missed a spot.”
Her fingers wipe at a place on my cheek. I see it in her expression when she realizes it isn’t dirt or grime. It’s yet another bruise.
“My pretty boy got all banged up,” she says softly. I hear the hurt in her tone, the grief that causes her. She doesn’t like seeing me hurt any more than I liked seeing her hurt.
“You should see the other guy,” I say, trying to put her at ease. I grab her wrist, pulling it around to my mouth as I press a kiss to her palm.
She smiles faintly. “I did. He looked a lot worse than you did.”
I can’t stop myself. I reach out, pull her against me. I wrap my arms around her, and it feels like home when she folds her own arms around my waist and lays her cheek against my bare chest. I feel her heart beating against me like it’s proof that we both made it through.
She breathes me in. I breathe her back. Against my wet skin, her hand raises to lace into my hair. And she takes what she wants as she pulls my lips down to hers.
She tastes like sin and divinity. The woman is dark flame and holy lust. I take her mouth, tasting her like she’s the last thing I’ll ever experience.
My hands come to her bare back. Willow is slender, trim.
But what someone who doesn’t have the privilege of touching her might not know, is that she is strong.
Hauling the corpses of full-grown men on her own takes strength.
And I feel it in every muscle in her back, in the defined curve of her shoulders.
My woman is capable in the deadliest of ways, and it turns me into a piece of rock-hard steel.
I slide my hands over the perfect globes of her ass before I hook them behind her thighs and hoist her up in one smooth motion.
Willow grins wickedly against my lips as she kisses me harder.
I back her up until I have her pressed against the tile wall.
I picked this one on purpose; it’s the one directly across from the mirror, where she’ll have a view to watch every second of what we’re doing.
“Eyes on me or the mirror, okay, Dagger Kitten?” I breathe.
Willow holds my gaze as she just nods rapidly.
“Hold on to me,” I say as I line the head of my cock up with her entrance. “Take a breath.”
Fuck, I love it when she does what I say.
It’s not about control or command. But that she lets herself go when I tell her what to do.
Everything that fucker did to her in college left her with shame tied to something beautiful, and she locked herself up for ten years.
So, when she trusts me? When she relaxes into the feminine, soft version of herself, and she lets me talk her through it?
It’s fucking spiritual.
Willow takes in a breath, holding my eyes, and I watch them widen as I sink myself inside her. A moan rumbles in my chest as she squeezes me so tight I can’t even think. “This pussy,” I growl. “I love every fucking inch of it, Willow.”
“You feel so good,” she sighs as her head falls back against the tile.
And I need more. More visual, more touching. I gather her wrists into my hand and pin them to the wall behind her above her head. I thrust into her again, and again.
My eyes scrape over her as I pump in and out, taking in every inch of her.
Her dark hair wet and plastered against her skin.
The slope of her neck. The rise of each breast. Her dusty pink nipples, hard and excited.
Her stomach before it disappears down between her legs, and the tiny bit of view I have of her opening.
“Look how fucking perfect you are,” I say out loud, even though I didn’t mean to.
Willow surges forward and kisses me, taking my lips.
She bites. She tugs. She claims my tongue.
She steals my air. She tugs one of her hands free, and it comes to my throat, her touch fiery hot.
She drags her hand down lower, slides it over my shoulder, dragging her nails into my skin as she explores the ridges of my back.
I growl in approval as I lower her to the shower floor.
Willow makes a noise of annoyance, but I’m still moving.
I turn Willow around, facing away from me, directly facing the mirror, and bend her forward over the shower bench.
I reach between her legs and swipe my hand over her folds, caressing her most intimate area.
“Spread those legs for me just a little bit, Kitten,” I breathe against her neck.
She does, her whole body trembling with anticipation.
I line back up, and without any resistance at all, I sink back inside her. A breathy sigh of relief comes from both of us at the restored connection.
My fingers dig into her hips, careful not to grip too tight after everything she’s been through in the past twenty-four hours.
I slide out most of the way, and then penetrate the entire length.
I lean forward over her and slide one hand up to cup her breast. “So fucking perfect,” I breathe out, feeling out of my damn mind.
My other hand slides lower, my fingers slipping between her folds until I find her clit.
I rub with pressure, praying it’s exactly what she wants.