Chapter 13
Grant stayed with Avery as the first responders arrived. Sheriff Taylor showed up shortly after, followed by Agent Bradley and Avery’s twin, Bree.
“I’ll have a deputy guarding him at the hospital twenty-four-seven until he comes to,” the sheriff promised as the paramedics loaded the man into the ambulance. He had a deputy follow the ambulance and one stay with the crashed vehicle to wait for the tow truck to take it to the county impound lot.
Grant and Avery filled the others in on what they’d been doing earlier, having struck out on finding the location where the killer had held the victims before killing them.
“We might get answers when he wakes up,” the sheriff said.
“We spent a few hours at the library going through microfiche copies of old newspapers dating back to the nineteen twenties,” Melissa said.
“My eyes are crossed from staring at the screen for so long,” Bree pinched the bridge of her nose. “We found only a couple of arrest reports of individuals accused of bootlegging and wrote down the names.”
“If this hitman is the killer, we’ll still need to locate the place he held his victims,” Avery said.
“We can cross-reference what you found with what we came across,” Melissa said.
Grant glanced at Avery in the light from the various vehicles. The dark circles beneath her eyes reminded him she was only days from having been in a coma. “It’s getting late,” he said. “We can go over the data in the morning.”
“Not tonight?” Avery’s brow dipped low.
“I’m tired and a little beat up from the wild ride in the ditch. I could use some rest before we go looking for his lair.” He met and held her gaze. If he had to, he’d play the coma card in front of the others.
Eventually, Avery nodded and rubbed her hand across her chest. “I am a little sore from the seatbelt.”
“Can you make it back to town in your car?” Bree asked.
Grant nodded. “It made it out of the ditch fine, no damage to tires or the engine.” His lips twisted as he slid an arm around Avery. “The body of the rental...? Well, that’s another story. I probably won’t get the deposit back.”
Avery leaned into Grant. “That’s what insurance is for.”
“Go,” Melissa said. “Get some rest. We’re right behind you.”
Grant helped Avery into the rental car and drove back to town at a sedate pace, well past the exhilaration of chasing down a hitman. All he wanted to do was take Avery back to their room, climb into bed with her and hold her through the night.
When they reached the hotel, he half-expected Avery would stop at the desk and ask for another room, now that the killer was in custody.
She didn’t stop, but proceeded straight for the elevator. They rode up to their floor without saying a word. He ran the key card over the reader and went in first. Although they were pretty sure they had the right guy, there might be more out there.
After he cleared the room, he waved her in. “You can have the shower first.”
She stood for a long moment in the middle of the room, unmoving.
Grant went to her and pulled her into his arms. “Are you all right?”
She wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned her forehead against his chest. “I will be.”
“Are you sure? Running off the road bounced us around a lot. I’m sure it didn’t help after recently coming out of a concussion and coma.”
“Shhh,” she said. “Just hold me.”
He clamped his mouth shut and did what he’d wanted to all along. He held her. A minute went by, and another.
Avery’s hands moved from around his waist and slid up between them.
He leaned back, ready to give her space, if that was what she wanted.
Her fingers slid higher until they encircled the back of his neck and tugged his head downward.
God, this was exactly what he’d dreamed of for so long. Her in his arms, the promise of more to come. Part of him held back, not wanting to assume anything.
She lifted her face, rose on her toes and brushed her lips across his, then dropped back down. “I shouldn’t have done that. It’s not fair after...everything I’ve done to you.”
“Did you want to kiss me?” he asked, his voice hoarse with the emotion squeezing tightly in his throat.
“More than I want to breathe,” she whispered.
The dam he’d built around his heart burst. He swept her up into his arms and kissed her, gently at first. When her arms wrapped around his neck, urging him closer, he deepened the kiss. Two years of longing flowed through him.
He cradled the back of her head in his hands, afraid to let go. Afraid he was dreaming, and even more afraid he would wake up in his room back in Montana. Alone. Thousands of miles away from the only woman he’d ever given a damn about.
Her hands came down between them again as her fingers twisted in his shirt and dragged it from the waistband of his jeans. One by one, she worked the buttons until all were loose, and she shoved the shirt over his shoulders.
As it fell to the floor, he tugged her shirt over her head and tossed it aside, cupping her lace-covered breasts in his palms.
Avery reached behind her, unhooked her bra and let the straps slide down her arms.
As Grant let go of her breasts, the bra slid free, exposing the bruising the seatbelt had caused.
“Oh, baby,” he said. “You’re bruised.”
“It doesn’t hurt.”
He bent to press his lips lightly against the discolored skin. Then he raised his head and stared down into her eyes. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’ll hurt me more if you don’t make love to me,” she said. “Please.” She unbuttoned her jeans, kicked off her shoes and shimmied out of the rest of her clothes.
Grant made quick work of his, then swept her up in his arms and strode into the bathroom.
He set her on her feet and reached into the shower to turn on the water.
While he waited for the water to warm, he kissed her again, his hands skimming over the silky skin of her shoulders and down her back to cup the rounded swell of her ass.
When he lifted her, she wrapped her legs around his waist.
Grant kissed her again and stepped beneath the warm spray.
Water washed over them.
He lowered her feet to the floor, squirted body wash into his hands and rubbed her hands with his, forming a bubbly lather.
They explored each other’s bodies as if for the first time and yet as if remembering the wonder of their touch.
Grant turned her around to rinse the suds from her back while he bent to take one wet nipple between his lips.
Her back arched, pressing her breast deeper into his mouth. Water ran over her shoulders and down her chest.
She cupped the back of his head, holding him there as he teased the tip of her nipple into a tight bead and then moved to claim the other.
Avery moaned, her leg circling around his, her sex riding his thigh.
By the time the water cooled, Grant’s cock was hard, thick and so ready. Still, he held back, wanting to show her how much he cared for her pleasure before his.
He turned off the water and grabbed a towel, patting every inch of her body dry and wrapping her hair in the towel.
She, in turn, returned the favor, pausing to flick one of his small brown nipples with her tongue.
Dry enough, Grant swung her up into his arms and carried her into the bedroom. He lay her on the bed and eased down beside her, trailing a finger from her cheek, down the long, slender line of her neck to the swell of her breast.
She turned to face him, fingers resting lightly against his chest. “I missed you,” she whispered. “I missed touching you. Knowing you were in the bed beside me.” Her hand moved lower, splaying across his torso, inching ever closer to his cock.
He let her talk, his breath hitching as she wrapped her fingers around his shaft and slid down his length.
Her fingers tightened their hold, tugging him gently toward her. “I missed having you inside me. Filling the empty space. Completing me.”
Grant captured her cheek in his hand and kissed her softly.
“You filled my dreams. Every night and my thoughts during the day.” He kissed her again, sliding along the seam of her lips until she opened to him and met him in a tangling of tongues.
A sensuous, warm, wet caress that brought them closer until their bodies melted together.
His hardness pressed against the softness of her belly, shooting heat through his blood, igniting a flame that had never burned completely out.
She was real. Not a dream.
After she’d left, he’d spent months going through every alternate scenario he could imagine that would have kept her by his side, and coming to one conclusion. He couldn’t hold her back. She had to do what she had to do. Driven by her loss, he'd had to let her go.
Now that she was there, in his arms, he wasn’t sure he had the strength to let her go again.
One thing was certain. He’d show her how much he cherished her. How much he wanted to make her happy. If she left him tomorrow, he’d find a way to pick up the pieces of his heart and move on.
His lips left hers and moved lower. He’d leave her with a lasting memory. A tribute to how perfectly they fit together.
Grant trailed kisses across Avery’s skin, blazing a path down her neck to where her pulse hammered at the base, pumping molten liquid through her veins, warming every part of her body.
Her core ached with her need for him. It had never been just an emotional connection with Grant.
It had been a deep longing. An ache that could never be satisfied with a day, a week or a year in his arms. The two years apart had been a physical pain—a heavy weight on her chest, threatening to crush her.
The successful end of the operation should have left her drained and numb.
The unrelenting drive to save innocents from the kind of fate her mother had suffered had been absorbed in the numbness.
She’d gone on to her new assignment far from Florida.
Far from the life she’d shared with Grant in Virginia, with the idea of starting over.
Too often, she’d thought of calling Grant and telling him she’d made a mistake and would give anything for him to forgive her and take her back. Every time she’d lifted the phone, she hadn’t been able to make the call. She’d burned that bridge, choosing her career over him.
Waking from the coma, before she’d remembered what she’d done, her first thought had been of him.
Now that she was in his arms, she realized how hard it would be to let him walk away when this case was over. If the hitman was truly the killer, the case would close. Grant would go home to Montana. Avery would return to San Antonio and move on to her next assignment with the bureau.
She reached for his shoulders as he moved lower, her fingers digging in, desperate to keep him close.
His mouth found her breast and sucked it in, setting off a burst of sensations, like electrical impulses pulsing through her body.
When he took the other breast in his mouth, her back arched off the bed, urging him to take more. Take all of her. Because she was his and always would be.
Grant moved lower, flicking his tongue across her ribs, nipping her skin and edging relentlessly closer to the juncture of her thighs.
He settled between her legs, parted her folds and touched his tongue to her clit.
Avery arched off the mattress, her breath catching and holding in her throat.
He touched her there again, flicking ever so lightly, but effectively, sending her nerves into an ever-increasing cacophony of sensations.
The more he flicked and teased, the closer she moved to the edge until, like a box of fireworks going off at once, fire, light and color exploded in every direction, rocking her to the core.
Her hips rocked, pulsing her release as she rode wave after wave of her orgasm to the very end, collapsing against the mattress, spent yet wanting more.
Her hands tangled in his hair, tugging gently.
Grant responded, climbing up her body, dropping kisses along the way until his lips connected with hers.
He kissed her long and hard, tasting of her. Of what he’d done to make her lose herself.
She moved her hands over his shoulders and down his back to cup his ass, pressing him closer until his cock nudged against her sex. “I want you, Grant. Now. Inside me.”
With his lips pressed against her neck, he chuckled, his chest vibrating against her breasts. “That wasn’t enough?”
“So good,” she breathed, her voice ragged. “Not nearly enough. Please,” she begged.
“I can never get enough of you,” he said and slid into her channel, slick with her juices.
He was so thick and hard, filling her, stretching her, making them one.
For a long moment, he remained fully seated inside her, letting her body adjust to him.
When she could stand it no more, she gripped his ass and moved him out and dragged him back in. “Faster,” she said against his cheek.
He pulled out and drove back in. Then he came up on his hands, leaned over her and dove even deeper, setting a steady rhythm, picking up speed until he pounded in and out, making the bed shake with every pass.
Tension built inside Avery, bringing her back to the edge.
Her hands on his buttocks could feel his body tightening, and it gave her a surge of power knowing she was bringing him along with her. That power sent her hurtling over the edge.
At the same time, Grant thrust hard and deep, sheathed to the hilt and held fast, his body jerking with his release, his breathing ragged like a marathon runner at the finish line.
As his cock pulsed inside her, Avery rocked her hips, milking her orgasm to the very last moment.
When Grant dropped down onto her, she didn’t care that she couldn’t breathe. If she died in that moment, she’d go with a smile on her face in the arms of the man she loved.
After a minute, Grant rolled to the side, taking her with him.
She rested her cheek against his chest, listening to the thundering beat of his heart as it eventually slowed.
She lay for a moment in a blissful state of exhaustion, memorizing every detail, every sensation in case she woke up in the morning and he was gone.
As she drifted into a peaceful sleep, she whispered against his skin, “I love you. I always have.”
Even if it was only in her dream, he whispered back, “I love you, too.”