Chapter 53
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Hugo
Rue’s laughing into my neck as I carry her from the garage and through the kitchen, intending to take her straight upstairs and into bed for the next couple of days, or possibly for the rest of our lives.
Instead, I get four steps into the living room and grind to a halt.
“Uh, hi, guys,” I say. “Did you… break in and decorate for Christmas?”
Rue twists in my arms, and I reluctantly lower her to the ground. The instant her feet hit the hardwood, Felicity, who’s been sitting cross-legged on my couch, bounces up to wrap her in a hug.
“I hated every bit of that,” she says, squeezing Rue so hard she knocks her own glasses askew. “The shouting parts were bad, but the silences…”
She swallows audibly, then holds Rue even tighter. It’s an instinct I understand.
“I wasn’t very fond of it either.” Rue squeezes her back. “No more murders for the rest of the year, I promise.”
Felicity hasn’t let her go yet. “I can do math. That’s not a good bargain.”
I’m considering pulling them both into an embrace when arms wrap around my midsection.
It’s Quinn.
Quinn is hugging me.
“I was worried, okay?” she says into my shirt.
“Ah…” I’ve known Quinn Brady since I was eighteen. In all that time, Quinn Brady has touched me on purpose maybe four times. Two of those times were handshakes, and one was when a wasp landed on my neck and she got to slap me.
For someone as rigid as Quinn, her arms are surprisingly soft, but I barely have time to register that before she releases me and finds the room staring at her in shock.
“What?” she says a touch defensively. “I’ve never listened to him do an intake before. I won’t be doing that again.”
She spins to face Rue next, stretching her arm over Felicity’s shoulder with her palm extended.
“Lipstick.”
Rue lifts her brows as she extracts herself from her sister’s hug, fishing the tube out of her pocket and handing it over. Quinn uncaps it, inverts it, examines the wheel, and deposits it somewhere in her voluminous skirt.
“I’m redesigning the seals,” she says on her way back to the armchair that used to live in Rue’s half of the duplex.
It’s the closest Quinn Brady has ever come to explaining herself over anything, and judging by the way she plants her heels on the ottoman next to Cosmo, the topic is now closed.
“The invoice for the comms equipment’s on your kitchen island,” Pell announces from his perch on a stool he dragged from my kitchen and positioned so he can keep an eye on as many exits and entrances as possible.
“You’re all heart,” Quinn mutters.
“On that subject,” Rue says, “when exactly did all of your hearts grow three sizes?”
She wanders over to the small artificial tree and flicks one of the ornaments.
I’ve never owned a single holiday decoration in my life, but last year, I watched her put that tree up the day after Thanksgiving and take it down the day after New Year’s.
She entertained no guests that whole time, but she faithfully turned the multicolor lights on when she got home and turned them off again when she went to bed.
This year, she didn’t bother with it, for obvious reasons.
“We had a lot of downtime while you two were getting into place, so I raided your boxes in the garage,” Felicity says. “Merry Christmas!”
I join Rue at the tree, marveling at the sight of it in my house, which was always emptier than hers, and for far longer. She cuddles into me, and it’s my heart that’s growing, opening up rooms I didn’t know existed until her.
“When…” I cough, clear my throat, try again. “When was it that I gave any of you a key to this side of the duplex?”
I’m met with three identical snorts of derision.
“That’s a weird way of saying, ‘Thank you.’” Quinn’s sarcasm wakes up Cosmo, who leaps to his feet in a jingling of tags and uses her legs as a bridge to cross from the ottoman to the chair.
Once he arrives, he wedges his stout little body into the gap between her hip and the rolled arm, then rests his chin on her thigh and rolls his eyes up to look at her.
“You’re quite the flirt,” she says as she pets him, and I catch the curl of a smile before she ruthlessly flattens her lips once more.
Across the room, Rue catches my gaze. I recognize the look on her face.
“We, ah, need to shower off a crime scene,” I tell the room. When none of them start to pack it up and leave, I shrug and toss Rue over my shoulder. “Fine, but you guys might want to turn on some music.”
“Adrenaline bang,” Pell says. “Nice.”
“None of us will be listening at the door, I swear!” Felicity calls after us as I take the stairs two at a time, Rue’s voice in my ear urging me to hurry.
The last thing I hear is Pell’s amused, “Jealous, Quinnie?” before I kick the bedroom door shut, walk straight into the bathroom, and deposit my woman on the ground.
“Strip,” she says.
“On it,” I reply, flipping on the shower with one hand and fisting the back of my shirt with the other to haul it over my head.
Rue stops fighting with her bra to watch, her pretty mouth falling open on a whimper.
Then she redoubles her efforts, her arms getting briefly tangled in the straps as her breasts bounce free.
This, in turn, causes me to almost crack my head open on the stone tiles when I’m staring so hard that my boots get caught on my jeans and I have to hop around until I’m free.
When we’re both finally naked, I back her under the hot spray, not stopping until she hits the wall and her nipples go tight from the cold surface at her back and my hard cock at her front.
“I just want to remind you,” she says, arching so those little peaks brush my chest, “that I’m not injured in any way tonight.”
“More grateful for that than I can say.” I bend my knees and thrust upward, coasting my dick over her labia and teasing her clit with the head of my dick.
Yes, I’m grateful that she’s safe and whole and in my arms. I’ll never stop being grateful for that, not for one second of the rest of my life.
But tonight’s also our first post-kill fuck without a body cooling next to us or bruises blooming on her throat. “I need you so fucking much.”
My fingers replace my cock, and she widens her legs, letting me stroke into her. I drop my head against her neck with a groan when I find her already slippery.
“Yes.” Her nails dig into my shoulders, the pressure tightening when I lift her so she can wrap her legs around my waist. “Yes, Hugo.”
I push her higher up the tiles, the scalding water pounding against my back and the steam curling around us both as I hold her there, suspended above me, trapped by my hands at her hips and the wall at her back.
“Please.” She whines and tilts her hips forward. “Please fill me up. Pl—”
Without warning, I yank her down on my dick, spearing into her with one rough motion that tears a cry from her throat and a ragged groan from mine.
It’s almost otherworldly, plunging into her cunt, feeling her stretching around me, and I stay exactly like that, buried inside her, adjusting to her body, letting her body adjust to me, until I notice she’s not moving.
“Fuck,” I say once I can manage words, searching her beautiful face for signs of pain. “Was that too fast? Are you oka—”
She fists her hand into my hair and growls, “Again.”
My cock pulses at the ferocity in her eyes.
“You need me, love?” I ask, lifting her up so my cock drags out of her with deliberate slowness, savoring every inch of her hot pussy as I leave it. “You need it hard and rough from me?”
“I do,” she whimpers, her nails biting into my shoulders. “Hugo, I do.”
“My murder wife.” I slam her back down onto me, and her eyes flutter shut. “I do, too.”
“Yes. Again.”
“Gladly.” I lift her up and jerk her back onto me again. “Gratefully.” And again. “Forever, Rue. I want this forever.”
“Forever,” she gasps back, dropping a hand to her clit, circling it, arrowing her fingers around my cock as I hold her in place and work my hips to thrust into her over and over until I feel her start to tighten.
“Not yet.” I pull back to tease her entrance with the tip of my cock. “Don’t come yet.”
“I… I can’t…” Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes fever-bright.
“You can.” I push into her slowly. “Don’t come until I tell you.”
I pinch her nipple to add to the demands on her body, torturing her with sensation until she’s a panting mess, rocking against me when I’m buried to the hilt yet again.
“Not fucking yet,” I say, loving her fight to hold off her orgasm while my own pleasure races down my spine.
Between one heartbeat and the next, her hazy eyes sharpen with a look that tightens my balls and sends my pulse galloping.
“Baby,” I gasp out. “What are yo—”
She flashes me a wicked smile as she wraps her arms around my neck and tightens those strong fucking legs around my waist, pulling me so tightly against her that we’re thrusting and grinding and moving as one while she tells me with her body and eventually her words that she wants me to stay, that she wants forever, that she’ll never let me go.
“Come,” I bite out when it’s all too much, the pleasure and the love. “Now, Rue.”
She lets go with a soft cry, her cunt clenching my dick, forcing me to follow her over the edge and into shimmery bliss.
I slowly flicker back to reality and find us wrapped around each other on the tile floor, water flowing over our relaxed, sated bodies. When I finally summon the strength, I lift my head to grin at her.
“Rue Bellamy, will you do me the honor of killing bad guys with me for the rest of our lives?”
“Absolutely yes.” She grins back, then drops her forehead to my chest with a groan. “But let’s not do it on hard mode next time.”
“Deal.” I reluctantly roll to my feet and reach down to help her up.
“Here’s hoping they took your advice about the music,” she says once we’re cleaning up for real this time. I shout a laugh, kiss the fuck out of her, then quickly massage shampoo through her hair before anybody downstairs sends out a search party.