30. Ranger
Chapter 30
Ranger
I ’ve replayed the night Wyatt died countless times. Not him, not the bullet that took his life—her. When she’d lowered the gun, and I took her to bed. The sounds she made, how she tasted, smelled, and felt beneath my hands. She was unbreakable, wild, un-fucking-tamable, and right now, she’s no different.
She kisses me, her tongue frantically circling mine, her legs tightening around my waist. Years of want, of resistance, crumble around us, and I sit her on the desk.
We’re surrounded by bodies, blood, and casings, and she pulls at my belt. Heat rushes to my cock, and it strains against my zipper, but I need more than just the physical. I cup her chin and lock eyes with her.
“How do you feel, Denver?”
“Powerful,” she whispers.
Feral heat ignites in the dark of her eyes, and I run my palms up her thighs. I grip her underwear, snapping it in one clean, quick motion, and open her legs. I sink to my knees, warm blood seeping into my suit.
“Ranger.” She gapes down at me. “You were shot. Shouldn’t we?—”
I grip her thighs and pull her to the edge of the desk. “No.” Her next words are swallowed by a moan as I run my tongue across her clit. She whispers my name, and it’s like prayers across my skin—all I’ve needed since the last time I had her. I suck on her gently, savoring her taste, her smell, the warmth of her against my tongue and lips.
“Ranger—” She cries out as I slip my tongue inside her, circling her entrance with slow, deliberate movements.
“You taste like fucking heaven,” I growl against her warmth. I tug her closer to me, and she rests her legs on my shoulders as I feast on her. Her fingers entwine in my hair, and she grinds against my mouth, her heels digging into my back as her moans get louder.
I close my mouth around her, my tongue flicking against her clit, circling, pushing her close to the edge. I sink two fingers inside her. She bucks her hips against the feeling, and she squeezes me, her pussy clenching as I move slowly in and out of her. I move faster. Faster. My tongue and fingers find a rhythm until she falls quiet, and when I look up, she’s watching me with hunger in her gaze. My cock is painfully hard, knowing that she’s admiring every moment. Her lips are parted as she watches every move I make, and when I curl my fingers, her eyes widen.
“Yes, just like that, oh fuck—” A desperate cry leaves her throat, and she comes. The waves squeeze my fingers, and I remove them, my tongue finding her entrance to feel every pulse of her orgasm, drinking down everything she gives me.
Her fingers relax in my hair, and I stand, licking my lips, savoring every taste.
“Denver,” I say quietly. She looks at me with half-lidded eyes, and I tug gently on the bottom of her t-shirt, a silent request for her to lift her arms. She does, and I pull off the item of clothing and toss it onto one of the bodies at our feet. Her cheek is warm as I press my palm to it. “You’re mine now. That means I’m going to fuck you, I’m going to come inside you, and you’ll do as I say. If I tell you to get on your knees, you do it. If I tell you to suck my cock, you’ll obey. Do you understand?” She nods quietly, her expression glazed with desire. “But that also means I’m yours.” I brush her hair back, and her cheeks flush. “You own me as much as I own you. In the bedroom, I have control, but you have the final say. Always. Do you understand?”
She nods. “Yes.”
I kiss her cheek. “You are my partner.” I kiss her chin. “You are safe with me.” I kiss her lips. “And now I’m going to fuck you.”
She wets her lips, casting a glance at the bodies. “Here?”
I grin. “Everywhere, my love. If that’s what you want.”
She looks wild, beyond herself. “It’s what I want.”
My lips brush hers once more. “That’s my good girl.”
I pull her off the desk and turn her, bending her over it and kicking her feet apart. She clings to the wood, and I remove my belt.
“No one else will ever make you feel like this, Denver,” I say, my voice low and dripping with want. “No one.”
It’s true. No one has ever made me feel like she does, and I know she feels the same. This isn’t love. It’s too raw to be love. It’s unbridled, dangerous passion, an unrelenting need to devour the other so you can be whole.
I free my cock, gliding the tip across her entrance, both of us slick with need. I inch forward, easing myself into her, and she gasps, her fingers clasping at the edge of the desk until her knuckles whiten.
I watch, inch by inch, as she accepts my thickness. I groan, my head dropping back as I ease myself deeper. “You always take me so well.”
Denver trembles, clawing at the desk to keep herself steady. I sink further into her, the wonderful, encapsulating feeling of her tightness overwhelming me.
“Ranger—”
My breathing is unsteady as I lean forward and kiss her shoulder. “Yes, my love?”
I worry I’m hurting her. Demanding too much after a terrifying evening. Expecting too much when so much has happened.
“Fuck me,” she whispers. “Give me everything.”
That’s my fucking girl.
I don’t start slow. I’m not gentle. I power into her, and the desk shakes.
“I’m so proud of you. You’re so powerful. So fucking beautiful,” I whisper, slamming into her. I press my palm into her back, crushing her breasts into the wood of the desk.
“I need to see you.” She gasps the words, and I pull out and lift her, turning her to face me. I sit her back on the desk, and she pants, her cheeks flush as she gazes down at my cock, shining with both of our arousals. I sink into her again.
She frantically unbuttons my shirt, pushing it over my shoulder, revealing the wound. She gazes at it, her cheeks flush, and leans forward, running her tongue across the heated pain.
“Fuck.” My voice feels like it comes from beneath us, a rumble of thunder through the ground.
Her tongue is coated in my blood and she drinks it down, sucking on the agony and making it sweet.
But even the sheer ecstasy of this moment is nothing compared to when I kiss her.
It’s like the freshest air, the first breath after being submerged in the coldest water. I breathe her in, my hands possessive as they drag her closer, my mouth dominating hers. She grips my open shirt, kissing me back with equal passion.
The kiss is danger and desire, the final round of Russian Roulette, the spin of the cylinder both a fear and a delight, where surviving isn’t what matters—it’s the thrill of the game.
I break the kiss. “Tell me that you’re mine.”
“I’m yours.”
“Will you always be mine?”
“Yes,” she whimpers. “This is all I’ve ever wanted.”
I groan. “Say it again.”
“This is all—” She cries out, fingernails pressing into my shoulders. “This is all I’ve ever wanted. You’re all I’ve ever wanted.”
My hands move to her hips, and I grip them, holding her in place to fuck her faster. A pot on the desk tips over, scattering pens across the surface and onto the dead men below. I kiss down her neck, biting, sucking, marking her, all the while never stopping my quick, precise thrusts.
This needs to last forever. This feeling is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.
“My good girl,” I say. “I can feel you quivering around my cock.”
“Ranger—” She gasps, she tightens. The pleasure rises, peaks, and climbs, and my mind empties as she comes again, my orgasm following behind. Her head drops back as she cries out, and I whisper frantic words of possession in her ear: mine, you’re mine, always mine.
I rest my forehead on her shoulder, my body tingling, the desperate need to have her finally sated, if only for a little while.
And I can do without the dead men staring at me.
Wrapping my arms around her, I say, “Hold onto me.” She does, and I lift her. Still buried deep inside her, I step over the dead and walk up the stairs. Denver nuzzles into my neck, her arms tight around me, her legs around my waist as I head for my room.
I only place her on her feet once we’re in the bathroom and the shower water is running. After removing the rest of my clothes, I pull her gently under the warm water, and she wraps her arms around my waist.
“Tell me what you’re feeling.”
She takes a deep breath. “Content.”
“Good.”
She lifts her ear from my chest. “Ranger, your shoulder?—”
Small rivets of red mix with the water running down my body. I examine the wound—I’ve had far worse. “It’s a scratch.”
Her eyes widen. “You were shot.”
“Barely,” I say. “Are you okay? Do you feel shaky? Sick?”
She shakes her head. “I feel okay. I’m… I’m sorry I froze. I just couldn’t?—”
“You did what you had to do until I could take over.” I kiss her softly. “That’s enough for now. Turn around.”
She bites her lip and turns so I can clean her. She closes her eyes as I massage shampoo into her hair.
“You do this every fucking day?” I grumble, and she grins.
“Pretty much,” she says. “Now you know why I take so long to get ready.”
“And here I thought you did it to piss me off.”
Denver laughs, and I rinse the shampoo out of her seemingly never-ending locks of hair. “Well, that’s fun to do, too,” she says. “Conditioner now.”
Once we’re both clean, I wrap a towel around her. Her cheeks are pink, eyes alight, freckles peppering her nose. She’s so fucking beautiful it makes me ache. I’ve never once looked at her and felt anything other than totally overwhelmed—whether it’s love, anger, frustration, or adoration.
I’ve loved her for so long that I’ve forgotten how to live in this world without her. She is my everything.
My beginning, my middle, my end.
“Marry me, Denver.”
She stares up at me. “What?”
“I love you. And I know you love me,” I say, rubbing the towel across her shoulders. “I’ve loved you since you walked through those doors. I’ve seen every part of you, the best and the worst, and I don’t just love you for it. I love you more. There is nothing that could make me turn from you, Denver. Nothing. I want you forever.”
I thought the words might be hard to say. To admit to vulnerability, to offer my heart to someone who could tear it apart for her own amusement. I dislike knowing she could destroy me, but I can only trust that she won’t.
“Yes, I’ll marry you.”
I smile. “You didn’t really have a choice.”
She tuts. “Prick.” I turn her and walk her into the bedroom. “I’m going to get something to sleep in.”
She throws me a grin before striding out of the room, and I sit on the bed.
Forever sounds good now. Forever with her. Forever hers. Forever mine.
How it was always meant to be.
My phone rings on the nightstand, and I answer it. “What?”
“Ranger Luxe?” The smooth, deep voice is unfamiliar.
I glance at the screen at the unknown number. “Who is this?”
“Colt Harland.”
My gaze flicks to the door. “If you’re calling to beg for your brother’s life, you’re wasting your time.”
“My brother is safe,” Colt says simply. “Your guys aren’t as fast as they should be.” I make a mental note to beat the crap out of JJ. “I’m calling to make a deal, Ranger.”
I chuckle. “Is that so? And what could you possibly offer?”
“You know my influence here.”
“I also know you have a weak link,” I point out. Colt may be strong, but he almost lost everything because of a man he’ll never kill. “And you know as well as I do that as long as Wilder is alive, your house of cards can easily fall.”
Colt pauses. “I guess we both love people who could destroy us.” I say nothing. “The police have someone who can ruin you, Ranger. Someone who knows a hell of a lot. I’ll give you their name if you leave my brother alone. I’ll call him off, he won’t bother you again, he won’t even step foot in your state. But I need your word you’ll let what happened tonight go.”
“Not a chance,” I say. “You think someone can break into my fucking house, threaten my wife, shoot me, and walk away without a scratch?”
Colt exhales. “I have no issues punishing Wilder and letting everyone know just how much he regrets crossing you.”
I pause, staring out the bedroom door and down the hall. Denver appears from her room, her hair brushed and a fresh t-shirt on. She grins as she approaches.
“I don’t need you to tell me which of my men is fucking me over,” I say.
“It isn’t one of your men,” he says, and I hate that my interest is piqued. “They were offered a deal, Ranger. They took it in exchange for you. Believe me. You want this name.”
Denver stops at the doorway and glances at the phone. She raises her brow in question, and I shake my head, signaling the call means nothing. She wiggles over to me and straddles my hips.
“Okay,” I say.
Colt gives me the name. I hide my surprise from Denver, lacing my arm around her hips as she watches me.
“Consider the matter closed,” I say to Colt.
“I appreciate it.” He hangs up.
Denver settles on my lap. “Who was that?”
“No one.” I toss the phone aside, pulling her lips to mine.
She rests her arms on my shoulders, grinning against my mouth. “What do you say to me opening a coffee shop?”
I smile. “People don’t buy drugs in coffee shops.”
“I mean to sell actual coffee.” She rolls her eyes. “I can make my foam things all day. I bet I could bake, too.”
A normal life. A normal job.
“Is that what you want?” I ask.
She shrugs, running the tip of her finger across my chest. “It could be fun. And then maybe, one day, we could just have that. We don’t need all this, do we?”
“Your wardrobe says otherwise.”
She flicks my chest. “I think that could be nice. Just something normal.”
Something normal.
I think I might have wanted that once, too.
But there’s only so long you can fight the current until you drown in it.