Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
It wasn't enough.
Lion was still buried inside his girl, had just come harder than he ever had before in his life, and he wanted her again.
And again, and again, and again.
He could never get enough of his Katie-Bear.
“I can still feel you quivering around me, and I already want you again,” he murmured as he sucked on the pulse point on her neck, making her moan.
“You already made me come twice, no way I can come a third time this quickly,” she said, her voice taking on a sleepy note, and he hoped this was enough to wear her out so she’d get some rest.
There was no way every breath she took wasn't pure agony, and he absolutely should not have buried himself so deeply inside her that he no longer knew where he ended and she began. But he was selfish. He’d needed Kate, known she needed him, too, and he’d taken what he wanted.
“Be careful what you say, Katie-Bear, because that sounded like a challenge. One I don’t think you're up for me following through on.” She was still wearing her sweater, which was actually one of his, since they’d only been able to recover some of the clothing that had been on the plane, so he couldn’t see the bruises he knew had to be painting her chest. But he knew they were there, and he hated it.
She should have been safe with him. He should have done more to protect his girls.
Instead, they’d almost been killed when he was a mere couple of feet from them, and there had been nothing he could do to stop it from happening.
Keeping himself buried inside her, Lion balanced her weight with one hand, and with his other, grabbed the hem of her shirt and pulled it up and over her head, tossing it to the floor without a second glance.
As he’d expected, her entire chest was a mottled mix of blacks, blues, and purples.
She looked like an extra in a horror movie.
Feathering kisses against the dark stains, Lion fought down a violent, seething rage that demanded he destroy something. His girl had been hurt, and someone needed to pay for that.
“I'm okay, Leo. Alive,” Kate whispered, her hands framing his face, her fingertips stroking his temples before brushing around the lump on his forehead. “You're alive. Ariella is alive. We’re all alive.”
“But you're hurt,” he murmured.
“Yes, but so are you, so is everyone. I'm not dying today, none of us are. None of us is going to die before we’re old and we’ve lived full and happy lives.”
Damn, he wished he could believe that.
However, the truth was that no one could know that for sure. They thought they were ending things when they killed Dr. Gardner, but instead, there was a new threat, or at least a threat they hadn't previously known about, and now they were in more danger than ever.
“I love you,” he said, wanting to say it as many times as he could, trying to make up for all the years they’d missed because of his fears.
“I know. I love you too. I … love hearing you say it. For so long I've thought that you never loved me, that I imagined those ten months we spent together.”
“Never stopped loving you, Katie-Bear. Not for a single second. My entire team knew it. It’s why I wore this every second of every day.
” His fingers found the engagement ring hanging from its chain around his neck.
This was worth risking everything for, and he’d never once regretted his decision that day they’d escaped from their cage, killed everyone in the lab, to refuse to leave without it.
Back then, it had been the only piece of his girl he had left.
Now he had her there, in his arms, his length nestled inside her body.
“Didn't take it off. Couldn’t. Needed to feel a piece of you with me.”
Kate’s smile was soft as she touched a single fingertip to the ring she’d cried tears of joy over the night he’d proposed. “I guess neither of us could completely let go. You kept the ring, and I kept your T-shirt.”
“Nothing could ever make me let go of you.” Even with the rest of his team meeting women, falling in love, and making tentative plans for the future, Lion knew he would have been perfectly content to live out the rest of his life alone.
For him, it was his Katie-Bear or no one.
“We have another chance now, though,” Kate said, and when he looked deep in her eyes, and saw the hope flickering there, a deep sense of peace filled him.
“Guess I'm getting down on one knee again.”
“Leo, you can't. Not while you're still inside me.”
“I can and I will,” he rebuked, touching a kiss to the tip of her nose.
Shifting his hold on his girl, he maneuvered them both so he could get down on his knees in the small bathroom. Kate giggled, clutching at his shoulders for balance, as he managed to keep himself inside her while also getting on one knee.
Once he had his girl perched on his knee, he reached behind him, undid the chain, and slid the ring off. “I can get you a new one if this one holds too many bad memories,” he offered as he held it in the palm of his hand.
“No!” Katie shouted. “I want this one. You risked your life for it, and somehow that seems to override any bad memories that might have existed.”
Picking up her hand, Lion brought it to his lips, pressed a kiss to it, then held out the ring.
“My beautiful, strong, smart Katie-Bear. I messed up. I gave up the best thing to ever happen to me, and I've regretted it ever since, even though I knew I did what I had to do to make sure you were safe. I can't go back, or take back the things I said, but I can promise you I will never hurt you again. I will always be there for you. I don’t repeat my mistakes. I love you, Kate, with everything I have. It’s not what you deserve but—”
“I get to say what I deserve,” Kate said, cutting him off. “And I think I couldn’t do any better than you. Neither could our daughter.”
“Love you so much, Katie-Bear. Will you do me the honor of agreeing to be my wife?”
“Yes. A million times yes.” Tears shimmered in her eyes, but she was smiling at him, that warm, soft smile that he loved.
Feeling his eyes getting a little misty, Lion slipped the ring onto her finger, and it felt like his fractured soul snapped back into place.
His girl was his again, and while the things he’d said to her would always be between them, they weren't too big an obstacle for them to navigate their way over.
“Make love to me again, Leo.”
Brushing his lips across the bruises on her chest that he swore were darker now than they’d been just minutes ago when he stripped off her sweater, he shook his head. “Don’t want to hurt you.”
“I don’t care, Leo. Not going to lie and say it doesn’t hurt, it does.
I think it might even be worse than giving birth, because at least there were some breaks between contractions, this hurts every time I breathe.
But I want to feel you come inside me again, I want to make up for lost time, I want … you.”
Powerless to deny his girl anything, Lion palmed her backside to steady her, then pushed to his feet. Her tight, wet heat cocooning his length had him already growing hard again, and when she squeezed her internal muscles around him, he groaned.
“You feel so good, babe.”
“So do you,” Kate whispered, rolling her hips.
“Still think you can't come a third time?” he asked as he took her bud between his fingers, finding it slick and swollen.
“Pretty sure there isn’t anything I can't do when it comes to you.”
Chuckling, he set his girl on the counter and began thrusting into her as he played with her bundle of nerves. It didn't take long for him to feel pleasure flicker alight inside him, and from the way his girl’s internal muscles fluttered around him again, he knew he wasn't the only one.
“Harder, Leo. Faster. Want more. Need more,” Kate said, her voice breathy, her words ending on a moan.
“Hold onto me, babe,” he ordered. Just because Kate was prepared to take the pain for the pleasure, it didn't mean he wasn't going to try to minimize it as best as he could.
With her holding onto his shoulders, Lion allowed himself to let go, to let all his emotions come flooding out, emotions he’d been repressing for a decade, believing that he’d already lost everything he ever wanted. But now he had it back, and he wouldn't let anyone take it from him again.
“Time to fall apart for me, Katie-Bear,” he whispered as he dipped his head to take one of her breasts into his mouth and sucked hard on her nipple, scraping his teeth against the pebbled nub.
Like the perfect girl that she was, Kate combusted for him, and as she clamped around him, Lion let his release flood through him, biting lightly on her breast to contain the scream that wanted to break free since he knew Kate was embarrassed about being overheard.
As his girl sank down against him, sleepy and sated, content and happy, Leo dared River Gardner to come at him and his team and see where that got her.
The woman was insane if she thought she could go up against his team and win.
They were a formidable opponent even before Rose, then Cassandra, then Whitney, then Indigo, then Maya, and now Kate and Ariella had come into their lives. But now?
Now they were fighting not just for themselves, but for the other halves of their hearts, for the women they loved, for their futures.
Nothing and no one was going to beat them.
March 18th
3:06 A.M.
“Wake up, Kate.”
The urgent voice, accompanied by a sharp shake, jolted her from a deep sleep. The hand that had been resting on her hip when she and Leo climbed into bed last night, with their daughter snuggled between them, was gone.
“You with me, Katie-Bear?” Leo asked, and a hand smoothed down her hair.
Turning her head, she saw that the reason there was no longer a hand resting on her hip was because the owner of the hand was now standing beside the bed, looking down at her with worried eyes.