17. Halo
One month later…
“I can’t believe they’re all dead…”
The words tumbled from my lips. I could hardly believe my own words. I could hardly believe my eyes as I scrolled the online obituaries for my old hometown of Clear Lake. My three stepbrother’s faces stared back at me.
And the only thing that I felt was relief.
Ashton sighed as he spun the laptop back around to him and closed it. “Apparently, your stepfather orchestrated all of this stuff with Jacob.”
“Judging by the date, they died a year after I left,” I sighed.
“Halo, what those people were planning to do to you,” Ashton’s face had turned pale.
He’d handed over Baby’s diary. The nasty dirty leather book had detailed every single depraved thing they had planned for me. I’d always known they had it out for me but to read that they’d planned on breeding me.
I sat at the kitchen table for a long while, deep in thought. My brain seemed to be trying to process things. That weight that had been on my chest for so long was finally starting to fade.
Ashton was quiet as he fixed himself a drink and then he walked outside to sit at the pool. I had no idea how he’d acquired Baby’s journal either. But I needed to know, I wanted to know.
I stood up from the table, taking a deep breath I exited out into the backyard. Ashton was sitting on the pool chair and the wind was whipping up and ruffling his dark hair. The glow from the pool cast an aura about him.
My dark and brooding husband had so many layers to him. He looked up as I approached and then I sat down beside him.
His voice was quiet and calm. “You want to know how I got the journal, don’t you?”
I nodded my head, my head feeling heavy from thoughts and my curls piled on top of my head in a messy bun. “Yes.”
Ashton picked up the drink from the table beside him and sipped deeply. The ice clinked around in the glass when he sat it down.
“I’m not sure that you should know, Sakura.”
“Ashton…” I took a deep breath. “I think from the very first moment I met you, I’ve been in love with you. Especially the parts of you that you let me see.”
He smirked. “Halo, I’m not some knight in shining armor.”
“Then what are you?”
“You should stop, Sakura. Don’t poke the beast.”
Slowly, I eased up and came in close to him. I could smell the bourbon on his tongue and I wanted to taste him.
Whispering when I was close, “Let me see you, Ashton. Don’t hide from me.”
Our eyes locked, our mouths dancing close until he pulled me into his lap, and I straddled him. “You’ve known what I was the entire time, Sakura.”
“Say it,” I whispered. “Tell me what you really are.”
My husband, the man who I was desperately in love, stared into my eyes without breaking eye contact. His gaze seemed to consume me but I wouldn’t look away. Ashton leaned forward slightly, his fingers digging deeply into my waist as he pushed up against my core. The thin yoga pants that I wore seemed to be splintering against his hardness.
“I…” He took a breath.
He had me on the edge of my seat.
“I’m death without mercy, my sweet little Sakura,” his voice was nearly lost in the wind whipping up against us. “Is that what you want to hear?”
I swallowed searching his eyes, realizing that nothing had changed. I still felt exactly how I’d felt the first time I saw him. How I felt the first time he’d smiled in my direction. I still felt exactly how I did the first time he buried himself inside of me and took my virginity.
A sane person would have been running by now.
Running like I’d done all those years before.
He touched at my hair and I knew he was aching to wind his finger through my coils. Slowly, I reached up and pulled the hair tie away and my hair fell around me. I knew I looked like some sort of manically depressed lion with my hair this way. “I’m the son of a Yakuza boss, Halo. You should be trembling in fear but you’re still here…”
I knew I sounded desperate as hell but I couldn’t call my words back as my voice cracked slightly, raw with emotion. “I made a vow, Ashton. That day in the courthouse, I did mean my vows to you. But now, I’m vowing to be by your side no matter how dark it gets. I’m vowing to be there for our nieces. I vow to be an anchor for our family. The three of you are everything to me. I…do you feel the same?”
Ashton’s response was to push up against me again. “Don’t you see what you do to me, Sakura? I can’t go half a second without wanting to be inside of you.”
My lips hovered above his mouth. “Tell me. I need to hear you say it.”
Hesitation ran across Ashton’s face and I knew it had nothing to do with not wanting me and everything to do with offering me a way out. “Halo…”
“Tell me you fucking love me, because I love you.”
His hands worked their way up to my hair, his fingers winding through my coils. “If I say it, Halo. If I give us both what we want, I can never let you go.”
I moaned from him pulling on my strands. “Say it, Mr. Tanaka.”
“I love you, Halo.”
The wind began to pick up even harder now, and thunder boomed in the background. It shook and rattled everything around us but I didn’t care. Ashton’s fear of being electrocuted didn’t seem to be a factor either because he began to peel my top from my body.
I didn’t resist him.
I wanted it, and I didn’t care where we were but I was happy the girl’s bedroom were on the other side of the house.
When I was bare before him, he pulled my breasts into his mouth and began to suckle on them. He alternated between the two of them while my fingers worked through his midnight black hair arching against him and grinding my core against his thick dick that remain encased in his pants.
He flipped us around so that I was under him, his hands tracing a warm path against my skin.
Rain began to drop, slow and cool. The sound hitting against the bricked ground and our skin becoming a rhythm. It rolled over my skin feeling slow and soothing.
Soon he was shirtless, his pants gone and I wrapped my legs around him. I arched against him trying to pull him inside of me.
“Say it again,” I whispered.
He groaned inwardly, rubbing his dick all along my slickened folds. He entered me swiftly and hard. A shiver ran through my body, and immediately I quivered. Ashton always felt so good when he was inside of me.
Slowly he rocked his hips. “I love you, Mrs. Tanaka.”
The rain began to pick up, and our hair became heavy and matted to our skin. We were entwined and breathing hard and slow. I wanted to drown in the storm that was Ashton Tanaka.
My husband…
He was never going to let me go.
He loved me.
Ashton began to pick up speed, and I held his face in my own and he braced himself above me. The white pool chair hadn’t been made for all of this. It threatened to break under the weight of us but I prayed we would find our release before that happened.
“Sakura, I belong to you…”
His eyes closed tight as he gave his final thrust. Ashton and I reached our climax together, dizzy and strong. My walls clenched taking in every single inch of him as he spilled inside of me.
We lay there spent and tired as the rain beat down against us. Ashton had eased off to the side of me and we stared at each other. Thunder crashed and boomed nearby once again rattling the ground.
“I worry about losing you,” he admitted.
“Never,” I whispered. “But we should definitely get inside this storm is going to get crazy.”
The two of us collected the clothing that we could find before sprinting into the house soaking wet. We laughed as we stood in the kitchen, shivering before our mouths crashed together.
“You move into my bedroom permanently tonight,” Ashton pulled me in close offering his body heat.
“Our bedroom,” I smiled.
Quietly, hand in hand, Ashton and I started up the stairs to our bedroom. We’d peek in on the girls in a bit but for now, I wanted to snuggle him. Give him reassuring kisses while we made slow passionate love a few more times.
I had never felt safer than I did when I was in the arms of my husband, a man who was the heir to a Yakuza fortune.
I no longer needed to run from anything.
And if I did, his arms were waiting.
THE END