Chapter 23
Jillian
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The toaster popped, but nobody was there to catch the bread. It slid across the counter and hit the floor with a dull thud.
Moe pressed her against the hallway wall.
Her fingers dug into the fabric of his shirt.
He was breathing hard, a low sound that vibrated in his chest and echoed against her collarbone.
Ever since the shadow visited and Finn explained what was going on, there was a frantic energy between her and Moe.
A sense of borrowed time that made every touch feel like a desperate reclamation.
The mood was heavy with the knowledge that even the house wasn't safe anymore.
Moe grunted, a short, rough sound, and wrapped his arms around her waist to lift her off her feet. He was older now, with lines around his eyes that deepened when he concentrated.
His presence in her life, though it came unconventionally, was now the only thing Jillian trusted in the world.
The beginning of their life together had been violent and terrifying, but the terror had shifted into something else over the months.
The Stockholm effect was a cliché, but the way she felt when he looked at her now was a reality she couldn't ignore.
He had taken her by force, but he had kept her by becoming the only person who truly knew her.
He carried her back into the kitchen, his boots thudding heavily on the linoleum.
He didn't bother setting her down gently.
Instead, he hoisted her up onto the tiled countertop, shoving aside a stack of mail and a bowl of fruit to make room.
Jillian wrapped her legs around his hips, pulling him flush against her.
She could still smell the cold outside air, clinging to him from his morning ride.
"We really don't have time for this," she whispered, though his hands were already sliding under her shirt, gripping the skin of her lower back.
She needed to go to work in a couple of hours. It was the first time they'd be apart after Finn's warning to stay together.
"Then stop talking," said Moe.
Jillian breathed, her voice a jagged edge. She arched her back, pressing herself into him, the friction of their clothes an unnecessary barrier. The urgency wasn't just desire. They both knew their world had been breached, that danger surrounded them.
Every second she spent in this kitchen was a gamble, but the thought of leaving this house without feeling him inside her felt like another kind of death.
Moe groaned, a sound of surrender, and dropped to his knees.
The shift was sudden, his heavy frame crowding between her legs.
He didn't hesitate, his rough hands sliding up to grip her jeans, pulling her to the edge of the tile as he removed her pants and panties.
When his mouth found her, the world narrowed to heat and wetness, the contrast of his coarse stubble against the sensitive skin of her inner thigh.
She gripped the edge of the counter, her knuckles white, her head falling back as she let out a sharp, uncontrolled gasp.
He was thorough, his tongue tracing her with slow, deliberate precision, as if memorizing her, as if this might be the last time he ever tasted her.
"You're shaking," he murmured against her skin, his voice vibrating through her entire body.
He rose to his full height and looked at her, his eyes dark and focused, the expression of a man who had spent a lifetime taking what he wanted but had finally found something he was afraid to lose.
Jillian reached across, her fingers fumbling with the button on his jeans, her movements hurried and impetuous. She pushed the denim down, freeing him with frantic energy, and for a moment she just looked at him.
She slid off the counter, dropping to the floor to return the favor, her mouth closing around him with a hunger that mirrored his own. She wanted to swallow the fear, to replace the memory of the shadow, to reclaim every single second of the trauma and turn it into something that belonged to her.
Moe's hand found the back of her head, his fingers tangling in her hair as he let out a low, guttural sound.
She sucked harder. He gripped her waist and hoisted her back onto the counter in one fluid motion, his strength effortless and overwhelming.
He stepped into her, his body slotting against hers with a heavy, visceral thud.
As he pushed inside her, the breath left her lungs in a sharp hiss, a mixture of relief and intensity that blurred her vision.
He began to move, hard and fast, the rhythm driven by the ticking clock of their survival, each thrust a desperate attempt to bridge the gap between them before the world tore them apart again.
Jillian locked her ankles around his lower back, pulling him so deeply that his size collided with her core.
He wasn't gentle, and she didn't want him to be.
She needed the weight of him, the friction, the raw power of a man who knew exactly how to keep them together.
Each thrust was a rhythmic collision, the sound of their bodies meeting echoing in the quiet kitchen like a heartbeat.
"Tell me." He groaned, his voice a gravelly rasp near her ear. He shifted his grip, his large hands sliding from her waist to cup her breasts, his thumbs brushing over her nipples through the thin fabric of her shirt. "Tell me you're mine."
"I'm yours," she gasped, her voice breaking. "God, Moe, I'm yours." She arched her spine, her fingers digging into the muscles of his shoulders, pulling him closer as if she could merge their skin. "Don't stop. Don't you dare stop."
The urgency of their situation turned the sex into something feral.
Moe's breathing became a series of jagged heaves, his pace increasing until the counter groaned under the pressure.
He muttered promises against her neck, dark, possessive words about how he'd kill anyone who tried to take her away from him.
The dirty talk wasn't a performance. He confessed to his obsession with her the moment he committed the crime of kidnapping her.
Pressure built, tension tightened in her lower belly, threatening to snap her in two. She gazed at Moe. His jaw tightened, and his eyes fluttered shut. His raw pleasure mirrored her own. She shifted her hips, meeting him with desperate hunger, chasing the peak just out of reach.
Moe's hands slid from her breasts to her hips, his grip tightening until his knuckles turned white, anchoring her to the tile beneath her as he drove into her at a punishing pace.
He claimed her with a violent affirmation of existence in the face of the void waiting outside the front door.
A tide of sensation drowned out her worries.
She threw her head back, her hair splaying across the cold counter, and let out a loud, unrestrained moan that echoed off the kitchen walls.
"Right there," she choked out, her voice a ragged whisper. "Don't move, don't change a thing, just—yes, oh God, yes."
His pace turned frantic, his breath coming in short, sharp bursts against her collarbone.
He shifted his angle, digging deeper, hitting a spot that sent a jolt of electricity shooting up her spine.
Jillian's vision sparked, the room blurring into a smudge of grey and white as the tension in her core finally snapped.
The climax hit her like a physical blow, a series of rhythmic contractions that clamped around him, pulling him deeper still.
She gripped his shoulders, her nails biting into his skin, her entire body shuddering under the force of a release that felt less like pleasure and more like a survival instinct.
Moe let out a low, guttural roar, his body stiffening as he followed her over the edge.
He buried his face in the crook of her neck, his weight pressing her flat against the counter, his breath hot and erratic.
For several seconds, the only sound in the room was the heavy, synchronized thudding of two hearts fighting to slow down.
He stayed inside her, refusing to pull away, as if the physical connection was the only thing keeping the walls of the house from collapsing around them.
As the haze of the orgasm lifted, the reality of their situation rushed back in.
The silence of the house felt predatory now, the air thick with the lingering scent of their exertion.
Moe pulled back slowly, his eyes scanning the kitchen window, the hardness returning to his gaze.
The tenderness was still there with the soft, lingering touch of his thumb against her cheek, but the lover had shifted back into the protector.
He slid out of her with a wet, heavy sound, the sudden absence of his heat leaving Jillian feeling exposed and shivering.
Moe didn't linger in the afterglow. The second he was free, he stepped back, his boots thunking against the linoleum, and pulled up his jeans.
He zipped them with a sharp, metallic snap that sounded like a gunshot in the quiet room.
The transition was jarring. She'd gone from raw, skin-to-skin intimacy of the last ten minutes to the cold reality of a man preparing for a fight.
Jillian sat on the counter for a moment, her legs dangling, watching him. Her chest rose and fell, her skin flushed and dampened by sweat, but her mind was already racing. His gaze flickered toward the hallway.
"You and me, sweetheart," he said, his voice returning to that gravelly, commanding tone that had once terrified her but now shielded her.
He reached up and gripped her waist, lifting her off the counter and setting her on her feet.
As she landed, the slickness of their union slid down her thighs.
He didn't look away from the door, but he reached out and squeezed the back of her neck, a brief connection.
"Go clean up. I'll take you to work." He pulled her close and kissed her tenderly. "Everything is going to be okay."
"How do you know?" she asked, her voice still slightly raspy. She pulled her shirt back down, the fabric clinging to her damp skin.
"Because I'll be outside the nursing home the whole time," Moe replied. He stepped toward her, closing the distance once again to press a quick kiss to her lips.
Jillian took his hand, her fingers curling around his with a grip that refused to let go.
As she stepped away from the counter, her eyes caught the fallen piece of toast on the linoleum.
It was strange how a few minutes of desperate, skin-on-skin sex could make the shadows feel farther away.
The rush of the sex hadn't erased the danger.
It had only sharpened it, turning the fear into a high-voltage current that hummed in her veins.