Chapter 70
GEMMA
Laying in bed, I face the window and wait for sunrise. Riggs is behind me, his face buried in the back of my neck. Thick, heavy arm wrapped around me like he’s afraid I’m going to run away.
I should get up. Get something baked for breakfast. Stock my cabinet and pray for a miracle.
I tell myself it’s going to work. That I’m going to save my home, but even if I don’t, I’m going to be okay.
Wherever I land, my quiet life alone is enough.
I can survive when Riggs leaves. I’m older and stronger.
I’ve weathered storms and suffered more than the loss of him since he left me behind.
I’ll be fine.
I won’t fall apart.
I’ll survive.
As long as Riggs doesn’t make me anymore promises.
I know exactly who you are, Gemma Rae Pierce. I’ve always known… it’s probably why I’ve wasted so much time running from you.
He wasn’t blaming me.
Riggs was confessing his sins.
And now I’m the one who’s running.
I feel him stir behind me. His arm tighten.
His mouth brush against my nape. Even though I know he’s awake, I don’t say anything.
I just watch the gray light of dawn seep slowly into yellow.
Yellow bleed into peach and throw pink across the sky.
Laying here, I feel the easy quiet between us and it breaks my heart, almost as much as it heals me because it’s something I never thought I’d get to feel again.
“You were with me,” Riggs says quietly. Another confession I’m sure he never meant to give me. “After it happened. When I was trapped down there… you were with me, Gem. You did for me what I couldn’t do for you. You stayed with me. You never left me.”
Heart aching because his confession feels like another promise, I turn my head to look at him which is a mistake because promise is all I see. Dropping my gaze, I start to move away from him. “Riggs?—”
The arm around my waist loosens and he lifts his hand to wrap it around my jaw, his fingers tightening to pull my eyes back to his.
“I was sure I was going to die. I was sure they were going to be too late. That when they finally found me, I was going to be gone but I didn’t care.
I wanted to die because you were with me and I knew that was the only way I’d ever be able to let myself have you and I was right.
When I woke up in the hospital, you were gone. ”
I think about the night I went to visit him before his surgery. The things he said. It’s starting to make sense.
“You said that when you thought of me, you hoped I was miserable,” I whisper, fighting the urge to look away.
When I say it, Riggs’s dark gaze flickers at the memory.
“Because I thought if maybe you were as miserable as I was, there’d still be a chance for me.
” He swallows hard, brow furrowed by the truth.
“I wanted it. Even if it was a chance I was never brave enough to take.” The corner of his mouth lifts in a sad, crooked smile.
“I’m a pretty shitty person, remember?” Before I can answer him, his mouth falls flat.
“But the only thing I’ve ever regretted in my life is walking away from you. ”
“No promises, Riggs,” I remind him, my fractured heart pounding so hard it hurts. “You promised?—”
Sadness flickers in his dark eyes as he lowers his mouth to mine. “Stay with me, Gem,” he whispers before he presses his lips softly against mine. “Stay with me… for just a while longer…” He kisses me again, the press of his mouth desperate. “I have no right to ask. I know that, but?—”
His pleas are cut short, fingers tightening around my jaw, when I open my mouth under his and sweep my tongue past the loose seam of his lips to lick and tangle it against his.
Groaning deep in his chest, Riggs pushes the arm he has tucked under our pillow lower to wrap it around my chest while the other falls away from my face.
Yanking the covers back, his fingers find the waistband of my sleep shorts, jerking them down with an impatient growl full of need and frustration.
Mouths still fused, tongue swirling and sweeping against mine, he grips my inner thigh, lifting and pulling until my leg is bent and hooked over his.
Exposed, I feel cool morning air against the juncture of my thighs, for just a moment, before Riggs palms my pussy.
Grinding the heel of his hand against my slick, swollen clit, his long, thick fingers notch themselves at my entrance.
Barely giving me time to lift my arm and wrap it around the back of his neck for purchase, he strokes them inside me, hard and deep enough to break me.
Back bowed by the force of it, I cry out, the sound lost in his mouth. Riggs fucks me with his fingers, every thrust of them inside me matched with the whip and lick of his tongue against mine until I’m teetering on the brink, my entire body electrified and humming with the promise of release.
But it’s not enough.
Dropping my arm from around his neck, I streak it down the length of his torso, moaning with relief when I find the waistband of his sleep pants.
Pulling and tugging at them frantically, I feel another groan rumbling in his chest before he tears his mouth away from mine on a harsh breath.
The hand between my thighs going still, Riggs stares down at me. “Gem?—”
“Please…” Staring up at him, heart pounding in my chest, I cover the hand he has buried between my thighs, pushing his long, blunt-tipped fingers even deeper inside me while I rock my hips against the heel of his hand. “Please, Riggs…”
He knows what I’m asking for.
I’m asking for a promise.
One I don’t expect him to keep.
Pulling his hand from under mine, Riggs finds the waistband of his pants and starts to pull, lifting and maneuvering until he has them jerked down around his hips and the head of his thick, heavy cock is pressed against me from behind.
Arm hooked under my leg, opening me wide enough to take him, Riggs rocks his hips against mine, the sudden breech catching my breath before forcing it out on a thin, needy mewl.
“Breathe for me, Gem…” His dark, hooded gaze drops to my mouth.
He does it again, rocking his hips against mine, working his thick, swollen cock into my slick, quivering pussy, inch by inch until I’m moaning and panting, my hips rocking in time with his, until he’s buried inside me, filling me completely.
“Your pussy was made to take me…” Lifting my leg even higher he pulls out, almost completely before he fucks himself back in, so hard and deep and I cry out, the sound of it dropping his dark, hooded gaze to my mouth. “Too much?”
“No…” Forcing the word out on a shallow breath, I work my hips against his. “More… please…”
“Touch yourself for me,” he leans down to groan it against my mouth, his memory the same as mine.
“Yes…” Whimpering against his lips, I push my hand between my thighs.
Swirling my fingers over my clit, it begins to throb when their tips brush against the base of his shaft buried inside me, filling and stretching me with every roll of his hips against mine until I feel the heat of an orgasm start to tingle and twist against my straining core. “Riggs…”
“Fuck.” Tightening the arm he has wound across my chest, Riggs drops my leg and grips my throat, turning my face toward his to hold my mouth steady while he licks his way past my lips on a feral growl, both of us coming undone just as the sun breaks over the river.