22. Cara
Chapter twenty-two
Cara
A s the adrenaline of the fight fades, as the reality of our narrow escape starts to sink in, I find myself clinging to June like he's the only solid thing in a world turned to quicksand. My hands shake as I fist them in his shirt, my breath coming in shallow, hiccupping gasps.
"Shh, baby, I've got you," June murmurs, his arms tightening around me. "It's over. We're safe now."
But even as he says the words, I can feel the tension thrumming through him, the coiled readiness of a predator still poised to strike. His eyes never stop moving, scanning the room, the exits, the shadows that seem to press in from all sides.
The weight of what we've just been through, of how close we came to losing everything, crashes over me like a tidal wave. A sob hitches in my throat, torn from some deep, primal place that knows just how fragile this reprieve is.
"June," I manage, his name a broken plea. "Take me home. Please, I just... I need to be somewhere safe. Somewhere that's just us."
Something fierce and protective flashes in his eyes, a glimpse of the feral darkness he usually keeps so tightly leashed. "Okay," he says, pressing a kiss to my forehead. "Okay, baby. Let's get out of here."
He keeps me tucked close to his side as we navigate the chaos of the wedding turned crime scene. There are police everywhere, guests being interviewed, the strobing red and blue of sirens painting everything in a nightmarish light.
But June doesn't falter, his stride purposeful as he leads me through the throng. No one tries to stop us. One look at the steel in June's gaze, the blood on his knuckles, is enough to make them shrink back.
The cool night air hits my face as we finally break free of the crush, and I gulp it down greedily. It tastes of salt and sea and something wilder, a promise of freedom after the cloying confines of the church.
June bundles me into the car, his hands infinitely gentle even in his haste. The slam of the door is like a gunshot, making me flinch. He's beside me in an instant, the engine roaring to life under his touch.
We peel out of the lot, tires squealing, leaving the pandemonium behind. But even as the church recedes in the rearview mirror, I can't shake the feeling that we're being pursued. That Elaine's malevolence is a living, breathing thing, a miasma that will follow us no matter how far or fast we run.
June's hand finds mine, his fingers lacing through my own. "It's going to be alright," he says, but I can hear the strain beneath the reassurance. "I won't let anything happen to you, Cara. To either of you."
His other hand drops to my belly, to the small but insistent curve that shelters our child. Even now, even with the echo of violence still ringing in my ears, the touch undoes me.
Tears spill down my cheeks, hot and stinging as the wind from the open window whips through my hair. The sobs come harder now, shaking my shoulders, stealing my breath. It's too much, all of it. The love, the fear, the desperate relief and the gnawing dread. I'm a livewire of emotion, raw and exposed.
June pulls over to the side of the road, gravel spraying as we skid to a stop. He's out of the car and around to my side before I can blink, pulling me into his arms as I stumble from the passenger seat.
I bury my face in his chest, breathing in the scent of him. He smells of sweat and gunpowder and something metallic that might be blood. But beneath it all, there's the smell I've come to associate with home. With love and safety and utter belonging.
"I've got you," he murmurs into my hair, rocking me gently. "I've always got you, Cara."
We stay like that for a small eternity, clinging to each other on the side of a deserted coastal road. The sound of the waves crashing against the cliffs is a distant roar, a wild symphony that slowly, inexorably, begins to soothe my fractured nerves.
Eventually, my sobs taper off, easing to shuddering breaths and the occasional sniffle. June pulls back just enough to cup my face in his hands, his thumbs sweeping away the last of my tears.
"There's my girl," he says softly, the curve of his mouth tender and a little sad. "My brave, beautiful Cara."
I lean into his touch, pressing a kiss to his palm. "I don't feel very brave right now. I feel... I feel like I'm coming apart at the seams."
He rests his forehead against mine, his breath warm on my skin. "You're the bravest person I know. You've been through hell, and you're still standing. Still fighting. That's true strength, baby."
I take a shaky breath, trying to absorb his words. To believe them, even as a voice in my head whispers that I'm weak, that I'm a liability.
"What if she comes after us again?" I ask, my voice small and thin in the night air. "What if she tries to take the baby? June, I can't... I can't go through that again."
His jaw clenches, a muscle ticking with barely-restrained fury. "She won't. I won't give her the chance. Cara, I will burn the world down before I let her lay a finger on our family again."
There's something in his voice, in the absolute conviction of his words, that makes me believe him. That makes me believe in us, in our ability to weather any storm.
I nod, letting his strength flow into me, shoring up all my broken places. "Okay," I whisper. "Okay."
He kisses me then, soft and lingering, a promise sealed with breath and lips and the aching tenderness of a love that's been tested in the fires of hell and emerged tempered, unbreakable.
When we finally break apart, he tucks me back into the car with exquisite care, smoothing a hand over my hair before closing the door with a decisive click. As he slides back into the driver's seat, as the engine rumbles back to life, I feel something settle deep in my bones.
A certainty, a rightness, a soul-deep understanding that this is where I'm meant to be. By June's side, come hell or high water.
He glances over at me as we pull back onto the road, his profile limned in silver by the moonlight. "Let's go home."
Home.
The word wraps around my heart like a balm, soothing the raw, ragged edges of my fear. Because for the first time, I understand that home isn't a place. It's not four walls and a roof, not a picket fence and a perfectly manicured lawn.
It's him. It's us. It's the life we've fought for, bled for, the love we've nurtured in the darkest of soils until it bloomed fierce and radiant and true.
I reach over, twining my fingers with June's on the gearshift. And as the miles unspool before us, as the night rushes by in a blur of shadow and starlight, I hold tight to that truth.
To the bone-deep certainty of us, and the beautiful, imperfect, hard-won future that stretches out ahead, limitless and luminous with promise.
This is our story, June and I. Ours to write, ours to claim, ours to fight for with every beat of our wild, defiant hearts.
We stumble through the door of June's safe house, a tangle of desperate limbs and seeking mouths. The drive back was interminable, the air between us electric with need, with the aching desire to reaffirm life in the most primal way we know.
June kicks the door shut behind us, never breaking the seal of his lips on mine. His hands are everywhere, skimming over my curves, mapping the changes wrought by time and trauma and the tiny life growing beneath my heart.
"Need you," he pants against my mouth, the words ragged and raw. "Need to feel you, Cara. Need to know you're real."
I understand the desperation, the bone-deep craving for connection. After everything we've been through, every moment of separation and fear and shattering uncertainty, I need this too. Need him, in every way it's possible to need another person.
We leave a trail of clothing on the way to the bedroom, a breadcrumb path of denim and lace. June's hands shake as he undresses me, his eyes dark and reverent as each inch of skin is revealed.
He pauses when he reaches my belly, his palm coming to rest on the gentle swell. There's wonder in his gaze, mingled with disbelief and a fierce, protective love that steals my breath.
"You're so beautiful," he whispers, sinking to his knees before me. "So fucking perfect, Cara. I can't believe you're mine."
Tears prick my eyes, my heart swelling to bursting in my chest. "I've always been yours, June. From the first moment I saw you, I think. Every breath, every beat of my heart... it's all for you."
He presses a kiss to my belly, his lips lingering on the taut, sensitive skin. When he looks up at me, there's a fire in his eyes that sets my blood to molten.
"And every part of me is yours," he vows, his voice rough with emotion. "My body, my heart, my soul... it all belongs to you, Cara Mia. You're my whole world."
I thread my fingers through his hair, marveling at the silk of it, the way it curls around my digits like spilled ink. "Show me," I breathe, a plea and a prayer. "Make me feel it, June. I need to feel you."
He jumps to his feet, claiming my lips in a kiss that robs me of air and reason alike. This is no gentle exploration, but a claiming, a branding, a unleashing of the desperation we've held at bay for far too long.
We tumble onto the bed, a collision of limbs and sighs and racing pulses. June's hands skim over me like I'm something rare and precious, an alabaster idol to be worshipped with reverent touch.
"Look at you," he breathes, trailing fingers over the swell of my breasts, the taut drum of my belly. "Like a fucking goddess, Cara. So fertile, so lush. Say you're all mine."
The words light a fire in my veins, a primal hunger that demands satisfaction. I arch into his touch, my body a bowstring pulled taut. "Yours," I affirm, my voice a needy rasp. "Only ever yours, June."
He lowers his head to my breast, drawing the aching peak into the wet silk of his mouth. Pleasure rockets through me, electric and devastating. My hands find his shoulders, nails biting into corded muscle as he laves me with teeth and tongue.
Every pull of his lips is echoed by a throb deep in my core, a hot, heavy pulse of need. I'm slick and wanting, my body weeping for his possession. But he takes his time, lavishing attention on my breasts, my belly, the sensitive skin of my inner thighs.
"June, please," I pant, my hips lifting in search of friction, of fulfillment. "I need you inside me. Need to feel you filling me up."
He answers with a growl, primal and possessive. Then he's there, notched at my entrance, the thick head of his cock teasing my swollen flesh. Our eyes lock, a moment suspended in amber, brimming with love and longing and the heady thrill of reunion.
And then he's plunging forward, one smooth thrust seating him to the hilt in my welcoming body. We both cry out at the exquisite connection, the feeling of completion, of two lost souls crashing back together.
"Fuck, Cara," June grinds out, his face buried in the crook of my neck. "You're so tight. So perfect. Like a glove – made just for me."
I wrap my legs around his hips, drawing him deeper, that aching hollow place inside me finally filled to bursting. "I was," I gasp, tilting my pelvis to take him deeper still. "Made for you, June. Only ever for you."
He sets a pace that's just this side of brutal, each snap of his hips driving the air from my lungs. But it's perfect, it's everything, it's the rawest expression of the fever that rages between us, the need to crawl inside each other's skin and take up permanent residence.
June's lips chart a path of fire over my throat, my jaw, the shell of my ear. Broken praises spill from his lips, a litany of love and lust that makes my toes curl. "My perfect girl," he rasps, his voice like gravel over silk. "My ride or die. My fucking forever."
The words layer over the physical sensation, an erotic benediction that has me teetering on the knife's edge of ecstasy. He knows just how to touch me, how to angle his thrusts to hit that spot that makes stars explode behind my eyelids. He's playing my body like an instrument he's spent a lifetime mastering, wringing out pleasure that borders on pain in its intensity.
And all the while, he's whispering to me, telling me how good I feel, how much he's missed me, how he'll never let me go again. It's the words as much as the touch that push me higher, tighter, winding me up like a spring about to snap.
"Gonna fill you up," he promises darkly, one hand drifting down to where we're joined. "Gonna pump you so full of my cum, baby. Put another baby in this sweet belly."
It's too much, too good, the filthy words and the relentless pressure of his fingers on my clit combining to shatter me into a million glittering pieces. I come with a hoarse cry, my body clenching down on him like a vise.
June follows me over the edge, my name a broken prayer on his lips as he spills himself inside me. I can feel the hot pulses of his release, painting my inner walls, branding me from the inside out.
For a long moment, we just cling to each other, panting harshly in the aftermath. June's weight is a comforting anchor, his skin slick with sweat where it presses against mine. I feel drunk on him, on us, on the overwhelming relief of being together again.
Slowly, reluctantly, he rolls off of me, gathering me into the cradle of his arms. I tuck my head under his chin, listening to the gradually slowing thunder of his heart. His hand traces idle patterns on my back, each brush of skin on skin a silent affirmation.
"I love you," he says into the quiet, the words rough and soft at the same time. "I love you so fucking much, Cara."
I tilt my head up, brushing my lips over the stubbled line of his jaw. "I love you too, June. More than anything. More than I ever thought possible."
He pulls me tighter against him, as if he could merge us into a single being through sheer force of will. "We're going to make it, baby," he says, conviction ringing in every word. "You, me, our little sprout... we're going to have the life we always dreamed of."
I hum in agreement, letting my eyes drift shut as he paints a picture of our future with his words. Lazy mornings in bed, little feet pattering down hallways. Art on the fridge and laughter echoing off the walls. Love, so much love, warming every corner of the home we'll build together.
It feels so close, so real, that I can almost reach out and touch it. A beautiful tapestry woven from all the threads of our hopes and dreams and hard-fought happiness.
But even in the soft cocoon of June's embrace, even in the hazy afterglow of our lovemaking, I can't quite shake the chill of foreboding that whispers at the edges of my consciousness.
The knowledge that Elaine is still out there somewhere, biding her time, plotting her revenge. That the danger is far from over, no matter how much we might wish otherwise.
I burrow closer to June, breathing in the scent of him, letting it ground me in the here and now. He's warm and solid and real, the beat of his heart a metronome by which I set my own.
We're together. We're alive. And for this moment, suspended in the soft hush of the early morning hours, that's enough.
It has to be.
Because the alternative - the thought of losing him again, of our child growing up without their father - is too terrible to contemplate.
So, I let everything else falls away - the fear, the pain, the uncertainty of what tomorrow might bring; because in this moment, this slice of eternity carved out amid the wreckage, there is only us.
Only June, my heart, my haven, moving inside me like he was made for me. Only my body, singing its surrender, welcoming him home again and again.
"I can't believe I almost lost this," he says softly, wonder and disbelief warring in his voice. "Lost you both."
Tears prick my eyes, my throat tightening. "But you didn't," I remind him, covering his hand with my own. "We're here. We're safe. Thanks to you."
He shakes his head, his smile a bit rueful. "Thanks to us. You're the one who stayed strong, Cara. You're the one who never gave up. Even when I... when I wasn't myself."
I hear the hitch in his voice, see the flicker of pain in his eyes. My heart clenches, aching for all he's endured. All he's still enduring. "I don't deserve you," he says roughly. "I don't deserve this second chance."
"Yes, you do," I counter fiercely. "You deserve happiness, June. You deserve peace. And I'm going to spend the rest of my life making sure you have it."
A slow, wondering smile spreads across his face, chasing away the shadows. "Yeah? You got big plans for us, then?"
"The biggest," I affirm, my own smile stretching wide. "I'm talking white picket fence, two-point-five kids, the whole nine yards."
He laughs, a rusty, disused sound that warms me from the inside out. "Two-point-five, huh? Guess we better get started on that half-kid."
I swat at him playfully, reveling in the easy banter, the lightness between us. It's a glimpse of our future, of the joy and laughter and love we've fought so hard for.
"I want it all with you, June," I tell him, my voice softening with sincerity. "The crazy carpool mornings and the science fair projects and the family vacations. I want to argue over whose turn it is to do dishes and fall asleep on the couch watching bad reality TV."
"Barefoot and pregnant, huh?" he teases, but there's a glimmer of longing in his eyes. "You trying to make an honest man out of me, Cara Briers?"
"In every sense of the word," I affirm, pressing a kiss to his jaw. "I want forever with you, June Deveaux. The good, the bad, and everything in between."
He captures my mouth in a searing kiss, one that leaves me breathless and aching. "Forever," he echoes as he pulls back, a vow and a covenant. "I like the sound of that."
We talk long into the night, spinning dreams and plans and promises. June's eyes light up as he speaks of raising our child in the Caribbean, of mornings spent surfing and nights spent making love under the stars.
He talks of building a life centered around art and passion, of supporting my animation work and sharing the beauty I create with the world. He dreams aloud of filling our home with laughter and love, of having a whole basketball team's worth of little ones underfoot.
"Looks like we'll have to practice a lot," he says with an exaggerated leer, waggling his eyebrows. "You know, to get the technique down."
I giggle, swatting at his wandering hands. "Oh, is that what we're calling it now? Practice?"
He nods, all faux-solemnity even as his eyes dance with mischief. "Absolutely. In fact, I think we should start practicing again. Right now."
He rolls me beneath him, his body already stirring with renewed desire. I welcome the weight of him, the delicious ache of his possession.
And as he begins to move within me, as pleasure burns through my veins like the sweetest fire, I let myself believe.
In him. In us. In the beautiful, messy, imperfect life we're going to build together.
It won't be easy. The demons June battles, the trauma he's endured... those don't disappear overnight. There will be setbacks and dark days, moments when the darkness seems to eclipse the light.
But we'll weather those storms. We'll hold each other through the nightmares and wipe away each other's tears. We'll celebrate every victory, no matter how small, and find joy in the quiet moments in between.
Because in the end, that's what love is. Not grand gestures or fairytale endings, but the choice we make, every day, to fight for each other. To believe in each other. To never, ever give up on the dream of forever.