Chapter 19
nineteen
That evening, he waits as I get ready for the first Christmas party Ashenheart Defense Agency has ever hosted. He doesn’t disturb me until I’m zipped and lipsticked and arguing with my hair in the mirror. He doesn’t knock. There’s only the click of our door and the weight of him filling the room.
“There’s something I want to give you before the chaos,” he says.
He hates suits, but tonight he wears one for me.
Black on black on black, and there’s no way a sexier man exists.
His collar is open, exposing his throat.
His tie hangs loose. My black dress is a perfect match for him, my red heels the only pop of color between us.
I let myself look, really look. The cut of his jacket over his shoulders. The open V at his throat. The hint of ink peeking when the fabric shifts. He watches me watch him, mouth tilting like he knows I’m undressing him in my head.
“If I take this suit off,” he says, voice low and rough, “I’m not putting it back on.”
“It doesn’t have to come all the way off,” I murmur, stepping into his space. I catch his loosened tie and use it to draw him down so my lips can ghost his throat. “Say yes.”
His eyes go darker. “For you, the answer is always yes.”
I turn him until his back meets the edge of the dresser, slide my palms under his lapels, open him up without removing a thing. He smells like cedar and rain. I kiss down the exposed line of his throat, the hard notch of his sternum, the thin black silk of his shirt warming under my mouth.
“Melinda,” he warns, already breathing heavier. I sink between his shoes, the hem of my dress whispering against my knees. His hand finds my hair, his grip tightening slowly. His knuckles brush my cheekbone, plastic, not skin. His hand is wrapped.
I still. “What happened?”
He exhales a laugh that’s almost a groan. “Part of your Christmas present.” With his free hand, he peels back the tape and plastic enough to show me. Fresh black ink banded across bone:
L I N D Y /// G I R L
Nine letters, split across his fingers. And on his left thumb, three fine slashes—///.
My breath catches. He turns his hand so I can examine the design. “Three slashes?”
“For the way you count,” he says. “For the way I cut.”
“You—” I reach for him on instinct, tracing the fresh ink with the pads of my fingers. Heat lives there. “You did this for me?”
“For me too,” he corrects.
“Why?”
“So when I break things, the last thing they see is your name on my hands. So everyone knows there’s only one person I’ll ever show mercy to.
So I wear you, even when I can’t touch you.
” He drags those knuckles up my wrist, along the inside of my forearm, a slow brand.
“And so you never doubt that I belong only to you.”
He slips a velvet box from his pocket. “I have a second thing.” There’s a wicked ring inside, knife-edge band, five claw prongs shouldering a shield-cut diamond; a black stone tucked beneath the setting.
“I should’ve given you this at our wedding,” he says.
“But I wanted it made for you. It’s five point nine-seven carats.
” His mouth quirks. “Odds calm you. May I?”
“Please.”
Before he slides it on, he passes it to me. On the inside of the band are two words in perfect cursive script: Say Yes
It settles against my wedding band like it was always meant to live there.
“Every time you look at it, remember that you chose me. You said yes,” he says, kissing my finger. “And, since I promised to be honest, there’s a GPS tracker inside it.”
“I figured.” I laugh, realizing it’s the truth.
It doesn’t surprise me that even with all the cameras in Las Vegas at his disposal and full remote access to my phone that this man put a tracker in my ring.
“Now, back to part of what I got you.” He swallows when I drag my nails along his belt.
I undo it and his button, slide the zipper down.
When I pull out his cock, I bite my lip so hard I taste blood.
I lick it away and put my mouth on him. The sound he makes is savage and beautifully helpless.
“Fuck,” he breathes, head tipping back. “My wife.”
He gathers my hair, winding it in his fingers like a ribbon. I set the pace I want, slow at first, then deeper, taking every praise he gives. He’s all coiled restraint and then he’s not, hips stuttering, my name falling from his lips again and again.
When I rise, I smooth my dress and swipe my thumb across his lower lip. He looks wrecked and lethal and entirely mine.
He reaches for me, meaning to haul me back down, I laugh, breathless. “There isn’t time for you to ruin my hair. We’re late.”
His mouth curves. “Then you’d better hold still.”
He turns me so the backs of my thighs kiss the dresser, palms sliding up my calves, shoving my hem high.
L I N D Y /// G I R L brackets the inside of my knees.
He drops to his knees in a perfect, predatory fold, tie still loose, suit still on, and lifts one of my legs over his shoulder.
He’s wearing his ring, likely irritating the R underneath it.
It flashes as he hooks the edge of my panties aside.
“Give me odds, Lindy girl,” he says against my skin. “I’ll show you every way I mean this ink.”
I grip the dresser edge and try not to breathe too hard.
“Three,” I manage when his tongue finds me.
Slow, deliberate, devastating. His hands lock me open, thumbs pressing marks into my hips.
A wicked drag over my clit that makes my vision grain.
“Five,” I choke, head tipped back. He’s careful not to touch my hair.
He hums his approval, mouth sealing, tongue relentless. “Seven,” I gasp. “Nine—Cassius—”
“Good girl,” he says into me, and then I’m gone. Odd numbers dissolving into a sound I don’t recognize as mine. He doesn’t stop until I shake; he doesn’t rise until I tug at his hair, breathless and wrecked.
He stands, straightens my hem with those branded hands, kisses the corner of my mouth. “Hair’s perfect. You’re perfect,” he says. “Now we’re late.”
“Wait.” I clear my throat, and go to dig in the closet for the wrapped boxes. “My turn is less dramatic.”
The smallest thing first. I open a flat box and hold up sleek black deerskin gloves. The leather is butter-soft, hand-stitched.
He swallows, then drags me in by the waist. “I’ll wear them every time I leave you.”
“Good,” I breathe, and set another box on the dresser. “For the suits you hate.”
He lifts the lid. A pair of cufflinks shaped like tiny dice in murdered-out black, each face only 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11. The corner of his mouth kicks up. “Loaded odds.”
Next, I give him the book. His favorite book that I bought what feels like a lifetime ago. It’s swollen with tabs and my handwriting spills down margins and around certain lines, small maps of my thoughts. On the title page: Merry First Christmas. Yes, Always, Lindy
He doesn’t say anything for a long beat as he thumbs the corners. When he looks up, the lethal goes soft. “You wrote me into your head.”
“Into the parts I don’t show anyone.”
I’ve saved the riskiest one for last. A matte, low-gloss black field watch. It has a clean dial, no shine, no brand shouting. It looks like him.
“And because I said I wanted honesty,” I say, “it has a GPS chip. Adrian helped me.”
For a second he just stares, then he laughs, low and wrecked, completely shocking the hell out of me because I’ve never heard his full laugh before now. “My wife put a leash on me.”
I shrug. “Knowing you’re safe makes me feel better.”
“I’ll never hide from you, Lindy girl.” The way he says it turns my knees to water.
He sets the boxes aside and offers his knuckles—L I N D Y /// G I R L—and I lace my fingers through one side.
We step out into the hall, the house already bright with Christmas.
I feel the diamond’s weight and the weight of everything else.
Odd numbers and inevitability. I am seen. Chosen. And, God help me, his.
Twinkling lights coat every inch of the lobby at Ashenheart Defense Agency, wrapped around exposed beams and trailing across the rafters.
Three trees: one traditional, one covered in deep crimson and gold, and another shamelessly decked out in horror-movie ornaments.
A fire crackles, casting golden light across the hardwood, and garlands drip from the walls like ivy.
“You okay?” he asks.
I nod. “Yeah. Just taking it all in.”
He leans in like he’s going to kiss me, but doesn’t.
He brushes my hair behind my ear instead and says, “Twice more?” Before he tucks the hair on the other side and then re-tucks the first one.
I’m not used to being wanted like this. A man who can break me so easily in a thousand different ways, and chooses not to.
“Mrs. Ashenheart,” he says to his uncle, Leven, first. Leven’s grip is iron wrapped in velvet. “Welcome to the family, niece.”
Cassius and Leven share the same stillness, the weight that makes a room hold its breath.
The air picks up a faint scent of juniper and dust that doesn’t belong to this decade.
Gideon watches our exchange. I watch the angle of Leven’s jaw.
It's almost the same as Gideon’s when his whisper threads through the chatter. Tell Leven to keep looking for London.
We’ve never talked about his parents. Or why it’s always his Uncle and brothers and cousins here, never mother, never father. I’m dying to know who put the first blade in Cassius’s hand. Is Leven who decided he needed to know how to slice up a man?
I catalog questions the way I count, odd and endless, tucking them behind my smile for later. Leven releases my hand and Cassius’ palm returns to my back, warm and possessive, and the questions go into their box. For now.