10. Violet
VIOLET
Duke’s hips snap into me, and I bite my lower lip to keep from screaming.
His hand pins my thigh against the mattress, pushing my leg up and open, and the angle sends him so deep his cock is hitting my cervix. His free hand is braced next to my head, his body covering mine, and every thrust drives the breath out of my lungs.
“Quiet.” His mouth is at my ear. “You’ll wake him up, and I’m not done with you.”
I grab the headboard with one hand. The wood creaks. Duke’s hips grind against mine, and the friction on my clit makes my whole lower body seize.
He pulls back, almost all the way out, and pauses. I make a sound I’m not proud of. My hips chase him, trying to pull him back in.
He slams back in. One long, brutal stroke that fills me completely, and my mouth drops open in a silent scream. He does it again. And again. Pulling out slow, driving in hard, and every time he bottoms out, my toes curl.
“Harder, Duke,” I whisper. “Faster.”
His laugh is low and filthy against my throat. “Ask nicely.”
I dig my nails into his shoulder blade. “Please.”
He drives into me. Hard. Deep. The headboard taps the wall, and I shove a pillow against my mouth and moan into it.
His pace shifts. No more teasing. No more control games. He’s fucking me like he needs it to survive, and my body matches him thrust for thrust, my hips rising off the mattress to meet every stroke.
His hand leaves my thigh and slides between us. His finger presses my clit and works tight circles while he fucks me. My hips tilt up to meet his, chasing my release. His forehead drops to mine. His breathing is ragged, and his thrusts are primal.
“Come on my dick, Violet.” His fingers press harder. His movements get rougher. “Soak my cock. I want to feel it.”
My body obeys him. The orgasm rips through me, my thighs clenching around him, my back bowing off the mattress, and I bury my face in his neck. He groans against my hair and drives in one last time, deep, and holds, and his seed spills into me as he finishes.
He stays inside me. Neither of us moves. His weight presses me into the mattress, and I don’t want him anywhere else. His breath is hot against my neck, slowing down, and his thumb drags across my collarbone.
We lie there. He’s on top of me, and I don’t want him to move. His face is in my hair, and one of his hands is tangled in the sheets beside my head.
“We have approximately four minutes before the kid wakes up,” I remind him.
“Less than that.” He rolls off me and lies on his back. “He’s been waking up earlier.”
“Because you feed him cookies before bed.”
“I would never.” His hand goes to his chest like I’ve accused him of a crime.
“There were crumbs on his pajamas.”
His mouth twitches. He reaches over and pulls me against his side, my head on his chest. His skin is hot and damp, and his arm wraps around me and holds on.
The morning is quiet. It’s been a week since I sat in a truck with zip-tied wrists while my blood dripped onto my shirt. The bruise on my jaw has faded to yellow. The split in my lip closed days ago.
Duke hasn’t left my side. Not once. He sleeps with one arm hooked around my waist, and when I get up to check on Leo in the night, he’s awake before my feet hit the floor.
He doesn’t say anything. He listens until I come back to bed, and then he pulls me against him, and his arm tightens, and he goes back to sleep.
Leo’s room is set up now. A real crib, not the pack-and-play. Duke built it while Leo sat on the floor and handed him the wrong screws.
I love seeing them together—father and son.
Duke is quiet for a long time. His fingers rest on the curve of my hip.
“I have to ask.” He swallows. “Because I need to hear you say it, and I’m scared shitless of the answer.”
I prop my chin on his chest and wait.
“After everything that happened. The kidnapping. The gun. All of it.” His eyes find mine. “Are you staying?”
I open my mouth to respond, but he doesn’t let me.
“If you’re going to run again, I need you to tell me.”
I press my palm flat against his sternum. His pulse is fast under my hand.
“I left because I was terrified Leo would grow up in a world where his father might not come home. I told myself I was protecting him.” I hold his eyes. “But all I did was make sure he didn’t have a father at all.”
His hand comes up and covers mine against his chest.
“Is it dangerous? Yes. I’m not stupid, and I’m not pretending it isn’t. But a week ago, your brothers put their lives on the line for Leo and me. That’s more protection than I can ever give him on my own.”
I press my forehead against his chest.
“Leo has you now. He has this family. Shelby buys him coloring books. Crash lets him steal fries off his plate. Trapper taught him how to high-five, and he won’t stop doing it to strangers.”
Duke grins.
“I’m done running, Duke. I’m staying. This isn’t temporary.”
His hand finds the back of my neck. He pulls me to his mouth and kisses me. Slow and thorough, his lips against mine, his palm warm on my jaw.
When he pulls back, his thumb brushes the faded bruise along my jawline. “Nobody touches you again. Nobody gets close enough to try.”
“I know.”
“This is forever.” He holds my eyes. “You’re my Old Lady. This is your house. That ring I’ve been carrying around for a week goes on your finger whenever you’re ready.”
I smile. “Ring?”
“Don’t act surprised.” He bites my lower lip. “I know you saw it.”
I did see it, and it’s exactly what I would have picked out for myself.
A sound from down the hall. A thump, then babbling, then the unmistakable rattle of crib bars being shaken by a two-year-old who has decided that sleep is over and the world needs to hear about it.
I push up on one elbow. “He’s up.”
Duke’s hand lands on my hip. “I got him.”
He rolls out of bed, pulls on some shorts, and grabs a T-shirt from the chair.
He pauses at the door. Turns back. Leans down and kisses me one more time, his hand braced on the mattress, his mouth warm.
“I’m going to get my son.” The corner of his mouth lifts. “Being a dad is the best goddamn thing that’s ever happened to me. Besides you.”
He disappears down the hall, and thirty seconds later, I hear him.
“Morning, buddy. You ready to go destroy the kitchen?”
Leo’s answer is a shriek of delight.
I pull the sheet up to my chest and lie in our bed, listening to my son and his father’s footsteps on the hardwood. Then I hear the refrigerator opening, and Duke’s low rumble narrating the breakfast options.
My phone vibrates on the nightstand.
It’s Camilla. I haven’t talked to her in a while, and I immediately feel guilty.
I pick up. “Hey.”
“Hi. How are you? How’s Leo?”
“Good. We’re good.” I tuck the phone against my shoulder and pull on a T-shirt. Duke’s T-shirt. It hangs to mid-thigh. “Leo is currently conducting a breakfast negotiation with Duke.”
“Duke.” Camilla’s voice is loaded. “So that’s still happening.”
“Yeah. It’s happening.”
“Violet.” She draws my name out. “Are you happy?”
Down the hall, Leo yells, “Pancakes!”
Duke says, “You can’t just yell pancakes and expect them to appear, kid.”
Then Leo yells “PANCAKES” louder.
Duke sighs and opens a cabinet.
“Yes,” I tell her. “I’m happy.”
“And you’re staying? In Ash Valley?”
“I’m staying.” I sit on the edge of the bed. “Leo and I are good. And Duke is… he’s everything. I’m in love with him, and he loves me.”
“I knew it.” She’s grinning. I can hear it through the phone. “The second he showed up at my door, I knew you were staying for good.”
“It was fate.”
“So I’m going to see you?” she asks. “Like, regularly?”
I laugh. “You’re going to see me all the time. Bring the baby. Leo needs a friend who isn’t a grown man in a leather vest.”
“Deal.” She pauses. “Vi, I’m glad you stayed. You deserve this.”
“Thanks, Cam.”
We hang up. I set the phone on the nightstand and walk barefoot down the hallway.
Duke is at the stove with Leo on one hip and a spatula in his free hand. Pancake batter is on the counter. A mess of eggshells is in the sink. Leo has a fistful of Duke’s beard and is explaining, with great passion and very few real words, what he expects from breakfast.
Duke catches my eye over Leo’s head. His mouth curves.
I lean against the doorframe and let this moment sink in.
I once ran from this man because I was afraid of what loving him would cost me.
Now I’m standing in his kitchen in his T-shirt, watching him burn pancakes with our boy in his arms. A property cut hangs on the hook by the front door with my name on it.
A ring is hidden in this house, tucked into a drawer or a pocket or wherever a man like Duke hides the thing he’s been carrying around, waiting for me to be ready.
I’m ready.
This is my family. Messy, loud, dangerous, and mine.
I’m not running again.