Chapter 57 Ghost
GHOST
I’M STILL INSIDE HER.
Geneva’s pulse beats against my mouth where my lips rest at her neck, hot and fast like mine. Her skin is damp, her chest rising and falling beneath me, and I swear I can feel her heart hammering in time with mine.
Neither of us speaks. Neither of us moves. I don’t want to. Because the second I do, this moment ends. And I’m not ready for that.
Her hands are in my hair, trembling, gripping me like she’s afraid I’ll disappear again if she lets go. Maybe I’m afraid too.
I breathe her in. Sweat, salty tears, and the unique scent of her I thought I’d never get another chance to taste.
“Geneva.” My voice is hoarse, wrecked from everything. “Look at me.”
She doesn’t.
Her gaze stays fixed on the ceiling, eyes glassy, unfocused. Like if she meets my eyes, she’ll break apart completely. Like if she looks at me, she’ll have to face what we just did. What we almost lost.
I shift my weight to keep from falling, my hand brushing her cheek, my thumb catching a tear.
“Baby.” My voice is lower now, coaxing. Pleading. “Look at me.”
Her lip trembles, but still she doesn’t.
I press my forehead to hers, our breath mingling as she closes her eyes. I stay close, so close, until there’s nowhere left for her to hide from me.
“Please, Geneva. Don’t do this. I’m right here,” I say, softer now, so soft it hurts. “I’ll never leave you again.”
Her breath hitches. Another tear slips down her cheek. And finally—finally—her eyes find mine.
What I see there destroys me. All the pain she can’t let go. All the fear. All the love she’s too furious to admit.
I cradle her face, my thumb tracing the curve of her jaw, and I swear it feels like the first time I’ve ever touched her.
“Good girl,” I murmur, my chest aching with how much I need her to believe me. “That’s it. Just look at me. At us. Together.”
Her breath is shaky, uneven, like she’s drowning in the storm we both created. But she holds my gaze now, and it guts me—the wreckage, the fire, the desperate need burning through her eyes.
I don’t move. I don’t dare. I slowly caress her cheek, like maybe if I’m gentle enough, I can soothe what I’ve torn open.
“I see you,” I whisper, voice frayed at the edges. “I see all of you. And I’m not going anywhere.”
Her lips part, but she doesn’t speak. Her tears answer for her. They fall, one after the other, and I catch them with my thumb, my mouth, anywhere I can.
“I hate you,” she breathes, and it’s not venom. It’s heartbreak.
I nod, my forehead still against hers, steadying both of us. “I’d hate me too.”
“I can’t lose you.”
“You won’t.”
I brush my mouth over hers, softer this time. No fury. No punishment. Just a promise.
“Ghost is dead.” The words come out steady, but inside I’m shaking from everything I am and everything I’m not anymore. “I buried him so I could have this. So I could have you.”
Her eyes glisten, wide and lost, like she’s trying to find Ghost. But there’s nothing left of him.
“It’s just me now. Just Liam. If you’ll have him.”
Geneva searches my face, like she’s trying to see the man beneath the mask I wore for too long. The man who almost didn’t make it back to her.
Her hand rises slowly, trembling, and cups my cheek. I almost sigh in relief. She brushes her thumb over my scar, the one she once traced in the dark, back when we were still pretending this was something we could control.
And I hold my breath, waiting for her answer.
“I don’t want Ghost,” she whispers, eyes locked on mine, her fingers resting on my scar. “I want you. Whoever you are. Whatever’s left of you.”
My chest tightens until it hurts, until I can barely breathe, because she means it. Every word. No conditions. No demands. Just me.
Liam St. James.
I turn my face into her palm, press a kiss to the center of it, and close my eyes for the first real moment of peace I’ve known since this all began.
“I’m yours. Always was. Always will be.”
She kisses me. It’s soft at first, tentative, like she’s testing the truth in my words. But I kiss her back harder, deeper, until she melts into me, until there’s nothing between us.
Geneva wraps her legs around me, pulling me in, and I’m moving without thought. My hands roam her body, relearning every curve, every scar, every inch I almost didn’t get to touch again. I thrust into her, savoring the way she gasps, the way her nails dig into my back.
“Liam,” she breathes.
Hearing my real name from her lips undoes me.
I thrust deeper, harder, until we’re both shaking, until the air between us is nothing but ragged breaths and whispered promises. My mouth finds her throat, her jaw, her lips—kissing her like it’s the last thing I’ll ever do, like I can erase the hell we’ve been through.
“I love you,” I whisper against her skin as she arches beneath me, her body clenching around mine. “I love you so fucking much.”
Her answer comes in the way she holds me tighter, the way she cries out my name as she shatters around me, pulling me over the edge with her. I spill into her, every thrust, every breath, every beat of my heart a promise I’ll never leave again.
Afterward, we stay tangled together. I brush her hair from her face, kiss the tear-streaked skin beneath her eyes, and rest my forehead on hers.
“I want the fairy-tale ending. I want picket fences, two-point-five kids, and a dog,” I say. “Not someday. Today.”
Her breathing stutters, tears shining in her eyes, but this time they aren’t from grief. They’re from the weight of everything we survived. Everything we thought we’d never have.
She looks at me like I’m offering her the impossible. And maybe I am. But for once, I don’t care. I have to convince her, while I’m still inside her, while everything between us is laid bare.
While I have the fortitude to walk away if she says no.
Her lips part, and for a second, I see the fear, the years of blood and loss, of ghosts we couldn’t bury. But then she smiles.
“Okay. Today.”
Relief crashes through me. I kiss her gently this time. Like she’s my salvation. Because she is.
I force myself to pull back, to ease out of her, every inch a struggle because I don’t want to leave her warmth, her body, not even for a second. She makes this soft sound that damn near drags me right back in.
“Wait,” I murmur.
I take a breath, forcing my hands to steady as I step back just enough to right my clothes.
My pants hang low on my hips, but I drag up the zipper and button them, all while my heart won’t stop hammering for her.
Geneva smooths her hair, tugging her shirt down over her hips, wiping at her cheeks, trying to look composed. She’s as wrecked as I am.
But this… this matters. And I need to do it right.
I look at her, and I know. This is it. I’m only going to do this once. There is no second time. I’ll never ask again.
I reach into my pocket, my fingers closing around the box Benedetto gave me on the way here. Then I drop to one knee, and fuck me, I’ve never felt so vulnerable.
“I told you there were only two reasons I’d ever get on my knees,” I say. “One is for you. And the other… is this.”
I open the box, revealing her parents’ wedding rings. Geneva gasps before bursting into tears, her entire body trembling.
As difficult as it is to keep from touching her, soothing her, I continue. “I had Benedetto get these from your aunt. She’s safe, but he probably took ten years off her life when he banged on her door like a damn mobster.”
Geneva laughs through her tears, the sound breaking and beautiful all at once. “Liam.”
“You’ve always had me, since the first moment I saw you. Now I’m asking for you… to have and to hold, for the better because we’ve already seen the worse. I’m asking for forever and whatever is beyond eternity. Marry me or kill me, Geneva Lynn Andrews, ?cause I’m not going anywhere.”
Her tears fall faster, but she’s smiling now—broken and whole all at once. Like I’ve handed her something she didn’t dare let herself want. Like she’s terrified of saying yes and even more terrified of saying no.
She sinks to her knees in front of me, her hands shaking as they come up to cup my face. I feel the heat of her palms, the tremor in her fingertips, and it moves me.
“You’re insane,” she whispers, breathless, tears still falling. “You’re absolutely insane, Liam.”
I nod, because it’s true. “For you? Every fucking time.”
“You didn’t have to ask.”
But I did. And she knows it. Because this is the only thing I’ll ever ask of her. The only thing I’ll ever need from her that I can’t just take.
“Say it,” I murmur, voice rough, heart pounding like it’s trying to break free of my chest.
“Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you.”
Relief slams into me so hard, my eyes burn. I slide the ring onto her finger, my hands shaking as I do. When it’s on, I can’t stop staring at it. Can’t stop believing what it means.
My throat is tight, but I manage to speak. “Your turn, Doc. Make me yours.”
Her eyes glisten, tears still clinging to her lashes as she takes the ring with trembling fingers. She pauses like she’s memorizing the moment, and then slides it onto my finger.
“There,” she whispers. “You’re mine.”
“That’s all I’ve ever wanted to be.”