Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
“You should have stayed at the hospital.” Stone growled as he lowered Mae into the bath. She’d fought against every single concerned point he’d brought up, but she wanted to make the trip back to Silver Springs to sleep in their bed. And he couldn’t deny her that.
Christopher had been a chatty fuck, and Max had been more than happy to relay the vindictive motivation behind everything.
The prick hadn’t just been doing drugs during his time in the SEALs.
He was siphoning information about missions, teams compositions, equipment locations, the list went on and on…
and selling it to the highest bidder. Chris faked his own death in order to be able to get an in with the cartel, and he’d been running trafficked women and drugs ever since.
But once he got wind of the guys being in Texas, he just couldn’t let things go.
Christopher blamed Stone for getting him kicked out.
For ruining the good thing he had going. And he thought he’d get the last laugh.
He could laugh every day for the rest of his life for all Stone cared, because it was going to be spent in the deepest, darkest, loneliest corner of some shitty maximum security prison, where he would rot away until he died… for a second, and actually permanent time.
Mae slept for most of the drive back. Thankfully, Sebastian had arranged for a small fleet of SUVs to drive them all back together. Laurel agreed to stay in Oklahoma City to help the FBI with their investigation, but that still left the entire team to get home, plus Mae and Jessie.
Hawk had been with her the entire time, and they took a whole car for themselves on the way back. Stone and Mae had done the same, and she laid on his lap, dosing on and off until they arrived back in Texas.
“Is the water okay?” he asked, brushing her hair back over her shoulder as she sank into the tub.
“It’s not hot enough.”
“Mae, it’s already fogged up the mirror. I don’t want it to burn you. Your body is still recovering from the cold.”
“It won’t. I need to get clean. Where’s the soap? Can you grab your body wash from the shower? I don’t… I don’t want to smell like me right now.”
Stone stood up, walking to the shower. He grabbed his body wash and the weird poof sponge thing she used in the shower.
“Here you go.”
She didn’t reach for it. “Could you?”
He stood staring at her while she took the soap out of his hands.
“You want me to wash you?”
“Yes, but not with that.” She scrunched up her nose at the sponge. “With your hands.”
“It won’t bother you to have me touch you?”
“I need you, Stone. Please. Touch me again. I don’t want… I don’t want his touch on me any more. I can’t… This bath… I’m still dirty. I still feel so cold. And so dirty. Like I won’t be able to feel warm or clean unless you help me take away their touch.”
“Mae. You are so brave.”
“I’m not. I just didn’t want to be under them. I didn’t want them to touch me. You were the last person to touch me, and if I was going to die, I didn’t want it to be with their marks all over me.”
“You’re not going to die. Their touch is long gone,” he whispered.
“It doesn’t feel like it is to me. I can still feel his breath on my neck. He didn’t… I mean, he didn’t get a chance to do what he planned, but I can still feel his nails digging into my hips…”
Stone didn’t stop to think. He just rolled up his sleeves, bent over the bathtub and scooped up some water before bringing it to her shoulder and letting it run over her skin in tiny rivulets that he hoped could wash away her pain.
The water was so hot the skin on his hands burned, but Stone didn’t care.
If that was what she needed, he wouldn’t complain.
“Maybe you don’t want to touch me. After everything we’ve been through. What I was responsible for us losing. Who I am now.”
“Michaela.”
“Is it all too much to come back from?” Her eyes lowered to the water. “Maybe I shouldn’t want to come back from it. Maybe we can’t come back from it.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t give up on us. It’s always been you, Mae. In my stubbornness, in my messy way of trying to protect you, I pushed you away. You didn’t deserve that. Not one second of that. I see it so clearly now.”
Mae laughed, but the eerie way it was void of all emotion made Stone’s stomach churn. “It hasn’t always been me. I haven’t always been your first choice. Things were so good. So fucking good and then you shut me out. I’m scared, Sully.”
“It has always been you. Even when I had to push you away. Even when I had to push you away to keep you safe from me. It has been, and it always will be you. There is no one else in the world I want.”
His hand dipped back into the water, but this time he placed his cupped hand just below her collarbone.
The water dripped down over her breast and the smallest gasp escaped from between her lips.
Stone searched her eyes, afraid he’d overstepped, but all that was there looking at him was fiery desire.
“Mae.”
Her knees fell open as she kept her eyes trained on him. Mae laid her head on the back edge of the tub, her hand sliding down her body and between her legs. Jesus Christ.
“Help me. Take away what they did to me. My touch doesn’t matter. It has to be you.”
He nodded, reaching over her to grab the body wash.
The cold gel sat heavy in his palm, until he warmed it between his hands.
No way would his girl ever feel cold or alone, or would she have to face the world without him again.
There was so much sadness, so much hurt, in her eyes. He wanted to take it all away.
“Sit up, beautiful.” Her bottom lip popped out in a pout. “Just for a minute while I get some soap on you.”
She nodded, moving slowly as she rearranged how she was situated in the tub.
When Mae seemed satisfied with how she was sitting, Stone reached out, covering her shoulders with suds. He worked the lather down her arms, and over her hands. Her body relaxed as the minutes passed, a gently hum of approval vibrating through her chest as he spread the suds there, too.
He moved in gentle, slow, deliberate strokes, making sure to spread the soap all over her exposed skin.
Over her neck, down her back, across her chest, under her breasts.
His thumb swiped over her taut nipples, and the gentle hum coming from Mae intensified.
Her back arched softly off of the tub and she pressed her breast into the palm of his hand.
“You’re so beautiful, Michaela. I know you don’t think you are right now. But God as my witness, you are.”
And then his hand moved lower. Across her belly, down to her hip. Between her legs. His fingers spread her apart, and he brought his thumb to rest on her clit. Stone started rolling circles over the small bud, his eyes raking over her perfect body. But when she went still under his touch, he froze.
“What’s wrong?”
“I need…” She paused and his heart beat painfully in his chest as he waited for her to continue.
“What? Tell me.”
“I need you to keep looking in my eyes. I can’t… I closed…” Her eyes filled with tears, and Stone found himself biting down on the inside of his lip to stop his own tears from falling. “I closed my eyes when he was touching me. I need to know it’s you. I need to see your eyes.”
He nodded, not sure that he could speak beyond the emotions trapped in his throat. Mae reached up out of the water, brushing her warm fingertip across his cheek. Shit. He hadn’t stopped the tears after all.
“I’m so sorry,” his voice broke.
“Just look me in the eyes, Sully. Touch me. Show me I’m safe again with you.”
He nodded, desperately wanting to kiss her, but knowing she needed his eyes to not move more than anything. And he could do that for her.
They stayed connected like that as her breathing became shallow. Until her lips parted, her eyelids fluttered and her body shook under the weight of her release.
In bed, they laid together, Stone’s body wrapped around Mae’s back like a protective shield. He let his hand rest on her belly, between her hip bones and her belly button. “I would have loved our baby. I do love them. I wish they were still here, growing big and strong under my hand.”
“I do too,” Mae whispered, turning so her body was facing him.
“If we ever have the honor of experiencing that together again, I want you to know I’ll be there for you from the very first minute you know.”
“Stone– ”
“I remembered.”
Her head lifted off his chest, and she gently moved away. “What do you mean?”
“I remembered everything, Mae. It was like lightning entered my body and everything from the morning I was shot just slammed into me.”
“Everything?” Her voice shook and the first tear fell from her eye.
“Yes. I’ve been trying… I don’t know how to say it. To tell you how sorry I am. I shouldn’t have hid things from you. But I did. I hid everything from the most important people in my life.” His throat pulled painfully at the admission.
“Tell me now,” she whispered.
“Someone was sending me messages. Threatening me. The team. Telling me justice was coming for me. And they threatened you. The only thing I could think to do to keep you safe was to distance myself. I was wrong. So wrong. And everything that has happened is all my fault. I should have leaned on the team. I shouldn’t have let the messages mess with my mind and bring up all the guilt I’d been holding on to.
Christopher was only able to hurt us, to hurt you, because I let him through in my weakness. ”
Mae nodded, the gesture landing against Stone like a punch to the gut.