Epilogue #2
His hands were fever-hot, thick with scar tissue, molding to the curve of my hips with an unyielding, possessive authority that made the breath catch hard behind my teeth.
"Chase," I whispered, my vocal cords thick with a sudden, overwhelming rush of heat.
"Nola," he rasped, his voice a low, ruined rumble that vibrated straight through my ribs into my spine.
He leaned down, burying his face in the crook of my neck, his rough stubble grazing the sensitive skin beneath my ear. He drew in a long, shuddering breath, pulling the scent of my skin—vanilla lotion, clean mountain air, and sweet exhaustion—deep into his lungs.
"You have any idea what it did to me?" he whispered against my throat, his lips pressing a slow, scalding kiss to the pulse point jumping in my neck. "Seeing you standing over that glass tonight? Holding our girl in my sweater?"
My fingers rose, burying into the thick, damp hair at the back of his neck, arching my throat to give him more of my skin. "You scored for us, Guzman."
"I skate for you," he growled softly, his hands sliding down to the curve of my backside, lifting me effortlessly off the floorboards. "I breathe for you. Every shift. Every second."
He carried me two steps, laying my back gently across the dark linen sheets.
I didn't let him retreat. My legs parted on instinct, wrapping around his heavy hips, pulling his massive, muscular frame down between my thighs.
He settled over me, taking his weight on his forearms on either side of my head, letting his bare chest press flush against the soft swell of mine.
The friction was an inferno.
Every scar on his ribs, every contour of his chest, pressed into my skin like an ancient brand. His hands found mine on the mattress, his thick fingers lacing through my knuckles, pressing our joined hands into the pillows beside our heads.
He held my gaze through the firelight, his dark pupils eating the gray of his eyes.
"Look at me, Nola," he commanded softly, his hips pressing forward with slow, devastating torque, claiming my warmth with unhurried, agonizing patience.
My breath shattered into a ragged, breathless whimper, my heels digging into the mattress as he moved within me, deep and steady, setting a rhythm forged in iron and sealed in devotion.
"Good girl," he rasped, his voice dropping into a dirty, hypnotic cadence that dismantled the last surviving thought in my skull. "Look at what you gave me. My wife. My home. You're my whole world, sweetheart. All mine."
"All yours, Chase," I cried softly, my fingers tightening in his grip until our wedding bands pressed hard against each other, our knuckles locked together as the heat built into an unbearable, blinding crest.
He moved with worshipful, relentless authority, his mouth crushing mine, swallowing my broken cries as the release detonated through my hips in long, trembling waves.
He followed me instantly, his forehead slamming into the pillow beside my ear, his body locking into rigid, shuddering muscle as a low, feral roar ripped from his chest, pouring his entire soul into the center of our bed.
* * *
The fire in the hearth had burned down to glowing red coals, throwing a faint, warm haze across the heavy down comforter.
The room was silent, save for the soft sigh of the alpine wind against the balcony glass and the synchronized, deep rise and fall of our chests.
I lay with my head resting over the scarred muscle of his seventh rib, my ear pressed directly against the slow, massive hammer of his heart. My left hand rested open on his sternum, our wedding rings touching in the dim glow.
Chase’s heavy right arm was locked securely around my waist, his splayed hand resting flat across the softness of my stomach, anchoring me to his side as if the world were trying to tear us apart.
His chin rested on the crown of my head, his fingers stroking my hip in slow, unbroken circles.
"You remember the hallway in Kehoe?" I whispered into the quiet room, smiling faintly against his skin. "When you kicked my sensor into the baseboard and told me to watch where I was walking?"
A low, rumbling chuckle vibrated through his chest beneath my cheek.
Chase shifted his weight slightly, tightening his arm around my waist, pulling me half an inch closer until there wasn't a single seam of space left between our bodies.
He pressed a slow, firm, lingering kiss to my forehead, his breath hot and steady against my hairline.
"I was a dead man the second you dropped that crate, Nola," he rasped into the dark, his voice thick with an absolute, eternal devotion that reached straight to the bottom of my soul.
He looked toward the open French doors, where the high mountain peaks stood silent and proud beneath a billion brilliant stars.
"I spent my whole life looking for a fight," he whispered, his hand sliding up to tangle in my hair, holding my head against his heart.
"And you gave me a reason to put down my gloves.
From that frozen basement in Minnesota to this bed tonight...
you're my only victory, sweetheart. You're my only home. "
I closed my eyes, letting the heavy, unbreakable strike of his heart lull me toward sleep, wrapped in the warmth of the fortress we had built from the ashes.
Indestructible.
Unshakeable.
Ours, forever.