“Lucas, if this is truly the world you’ve put yourself in—if you really lived this growing up—you have been so incredibly lucky. You’ve been shot and you’ve been stabbed numerous times, that luck will eventually run out . . . especially if you think you’re untouchable.”
“Untouchable? I’m good at what I do. I’ve had to be. But, untouchable? Hardly. There have been times I was sure it was my last day. My last hour.” His humor faded, and his warm eyes pierced mine. “But I would never let someone take me from you. Not while you’re mine.”
I trailed the tips of my fingers down his cheek and across his full lips. My voice wavered when I asked, “Promise?”
He kissed my wrist then whispered, “Swear to you.” His head dipped, leaving a trail of feather-soft kisses to the sensitive spot behind my ear while chills skated along my skin. “Forever, Blackbird.”
My heart soared as those two words echoed in my mind over and over again. Yes, I wanted forever with this man. I wanted an eternity with his beautiful, clashing heart. I wanted the darkness and light that fought within him. I wanted it all.
“Get us through these two months,” I whispered breathlessly as he nipped at that spot on my neck. “Let me help you destroy this world, and then let me have that forever with whoever you are.”
His hands went to my thighs and lifted me into his arms as he walked us back into my room. His lips brushed my ear when he said, “Our forever started that first night you decided to stay.”
The heat that filled his eyes sent a warm shiver down my spine when he set me on the center of the bed. The possessive way he held me and the predatory smirk that covered his face already had my ragged breaths deepening and a warmth pooling low in my stomach and spreading through my veins.
“Need to feel you. Need to convince myself you’re here the same way you need to.” He tipped my head back and kissed me softly, teasingly. Then his voice dropped, the tone so carnal I nearly came undone right then. “Show me, Briar.”
Lucas’s fingers tightened around my chin as his mouth devoured mine. Taking and taking in his way that always felt like too much, yet not nearly enough. Swallowing each whimper and moan and leaving me with the word “more” on the tip of my tongue when he bit down on my lip, only to back away so he could slip my shirt off my body.
Eyes dark with need and lust met mine before taking in my body again as he laid me back on the bed—the look in them making me feel beautiful and powerful and sensual all at once.
His large hands drifted down my body to grip at my shorts, a moan sounded in the back of my throat when his mouth pressed low on my hips. And in one slow, torturous movement, he pulled my shorts and underwear over my hips and down my legs—his mouth following the material with hot kisses and teasing bites. Each kiss had my thighs clenching, my hands gripping at the comforter, my back arching, and my body aching . . .
“You’re so beautiful,” he said quietly as he leaned forward to press one last kiss to my stomach.
I watched in fascination as he stood and began undressing himself—as if it was the first time he was baring himself to me. Because I had never seen this man before. His scars and tattoos were stark against his tan skin, and now that I knew more about the man behind them, they fit him. The muscles that tensed and rippled with every movement now screamed dangerous and protector—exactly like the contradiction that Lucas was. The good that fought with the bad within him now meant more than ever. Anyone less would have abandoned the good inside themselves long ago if they’d lived his life, but Lucas only gripped tighter to it. Fought for it.
He knelt on the bed and settled between my knees—a wicked, knowing grin tugging at the corner of his mouth when I tried to get closer to the tip of his length, barely brushing against where I ached for him.
I reached for him, needing to feel his body on mine, his mouth taking from mine in a synchronized dance only we knew, but I paused and shuddered when he fisted himself.
With his free hand, he intertwined the fingers of both of my hands and softly passed his lips across each of my wrists as he slowly pumped up and down his long length—his heated stare on mine the entire time.
My eyes fluttered shut as each stroke from him brushed against my sensitive skin, and my voice came out as nothing more than a breath when I begged, “Please.”
Instead of the immediate, hard response I’d come to expect from him, he took his time leaning his body over mine—my hands still in his—and pressed our joined hands on the bed above my head. “Please what?”
I tried to lift my hips, but he only released himself long enough to push my hips back down onto the bed before resuming what he’d been doing. I forced my eyes open, frustration and need leaking through my next “Please.”
His answering smile was pure sin, and I wanted to scream at the torture he was putting me through.
He bent his head to tease me with a barely there kiss, and when I tilted my head higher, he backed away. His eyes grew darker and darker with every soft whimper that sounded in my throat from each faint brush from him, and then the brushes were gone altogether, and he was leaning back to place kisses down my chest.
When he spoke, his voice sent warm shivers down my spine.
“I like the way you crave that bite of pain to bring you higher and higher and beg for more,” he said as he bit the underside of my breast.
When I gasped, he growled in appreciation, and the hand that had been the cause of my previous torture began teasing where I was aching.
“I like the way you shatter beneath me.” He slid a finger deep inside me and placed a kiss on my stomach as he removed it, then pressed two in.
“Oh God,” I breathed, writhing against the bed.
“I like bringing you to the height of another orgasm even when you think you can’t give me another.” He left a trail of warm, teasing kisses up my body until his face hovered above mine, and the hand holding mine to the bed tightened. “I like the way you fight me,” he said in a dark, seductive tone, and dropped his head to give me another barely there kiss—to bring us back to where we’d begun—and his eyes locked with mine. “And I love the way you look at me like it will never be enough.”
“Luc—oh!” I gasped when he suddenly pinched my clit then slid his fingers back inside me, driving them in harder and harder as he kept his thumb pressed against that sensitive knot.
I ignited, immediately responding to his touch and craving more—just as he’d said. I gripped the hand holding mine down as my stomach warmed and twisted, and my body begged for the release that was so close.
As the tremors began, Lucas backed off. His movements slowed, the pressure lessened, and that wicked smirk grew more and more profound until I was ready to beg him for the bliss he kept just out of my reach.
Just before I could cry out in frustration when he backed off again, he said, “Tell me what you want.”
“Mor—” The word died in my throat, got lost in the nothingness when he pinched down on me again, and I was immediately wrapped up in warmth and darkness as wave after wave of pleasure rocked through my body.
His fingers rode me through my orgasm, tormenting and pleasuring until I no longer felt like I was floating but was trembling as he pushed me toward another.
And it was too much . . .
And everything felt too sensitive . . .
And my body reflexively shied away from his touch while I thrashed against his strong hold. But for the first time, I was also begging him not to stop.
“There you are,” he rumbled, and his mouth fell onto mine.
His tongue moved against mine slowly but surely. The pacing and the sweetness of the kiss was so opposite from what his hands were doing to me, but so perfectly him—so perfectly us.
Light and dark.
I came with a silent moan and cried out against the kiss when he suddenly grabbed my hip and forced his thick length inside me.
His hand tightened against mine as he drove into me, the muscles in his arms strain
ing, his hips rolling with each fluid, forceful movement. He released me suddenly and sat back on his knees, gripping my hips as he moved deeper and deeper, each stroke slower, but no less powerful, than the previous—and my heart clenched watching the man above me.
So beautiful and destructive and dark . . . the look in his eyes so raw I wanted to cry.
Every scar and every haunting memory that made my devil was on full display, every dark part of him so beautiful it hurt. And he was looking at me as if he’d found the only person who could make it all go away . . .
Tears burned my eyes, and he bent toward me at the same time I reached for him, needing to feel all of him. Because this was it—that moment I had craved all those months ago but hadn’t been able to comprehend before now.
This was the wake of our war.
And I did—I wanted to stay in the moment forever.
“I love you. I love you,” I whispered over and over again when he found his release inside me.
“Forever, Blackbird,” he vowed against my lips. “Forever.”
Chapter 41
Day 125 with Briar
Lucas
Briar looked around the workout room that weekend, her expression confused when she realized no one else was joining us. “Is the driver picking someone up?” she asked as she continued to look at the large, open space in the middle of the room I’d created for today.
“No, but he’ll be here eventually with lunch and to see how it’s going.”
She rubbed at her sore wrist from the other training we’d been doing the last two nights as she finally looked up at me. “I thought you said someone was training me how to defend myself.”
I glanced down at myself, letting my gaze flick back up to her. “I’m training you.”
She immediately stopped rubbing her wrist, her eyebrows shooting up as she realized the depth of what I was saying. “Are you afraid the other men would find out if you hired someone?”
“No.”
With William probably hiding out in his home now, plotting out his next attack, I wasn’t worried about anyone bothering to pay attention to our home life.
“Then why?” she asked, drawing out the last word.
The corner of my mouth tipped up in amusement. “Why not me?”
Every night that week, Briar and I had been training in other ways. We’d sat on the floor talking about anything to keep her mind off what I was trying to do—get her comfortable with guns. As we talked, I made her load an empty magazine into a handgun I’d given her, only to drop it, over and over again until she was no longer holding the gun between two fingers or cringing whenever I placed it in front of her.
The night I’d handed her the gun with a loaded magazine, the cringing had returned, and it had been even worse when I’d made her rack the slide to chamber a round. But I’d just kept talking to her about mundane things, every now and then prodding her to continue until she was doing it without thinking.
Load. Rack. Drop. Rack. Load. Rack. Drop. Rack.
Finger always off the trigger. Barrel always aimed away from both her and me.
Along with working to get her comfortable holding and loading a gun, the past two nights we’d spent hours at a range, teaching her how to shoot. She wasn’t the best, but I hadn’t expected her to be, and I didn’t need her to be. I just needed her to be able to defend herself if it came down to it, and now she could. I needed her not to be afraid to hold and use the weapon that might save her life, and now she wasn’t. After less than a week, I couldn’t ask for more.
When the adrenaline had faded from the first night at the range, she’d broken down in the back of the car. Tears had streamed down her face, her body shaking so badly I’d had to hold her tight against me to calm her.
Once she’d finally been able to speak, she’d started rambling about the smell and the sound, and seeing people bleeding out in alleys and on sidewalks and in bedrooms. But the next night, she’d been ready to go again and had done better than the night before. On the way home, I’d massaged her aching wrist from the recoil of the handgun and had frozen when she’d mumbled, “I don’t think I could shoot someone. I wouldn’t know how to live with myself after.”
I hadn’t responded . . . partly because she’d seemed to be talking to herself, but mostly because the answer was that every day was a struggle, and she didn’t need to be reminded of that.
But now Briar stared at me with a mixture of confusion and surprise, like she didn’t understand how I didn’t already know the answer to my own question. “B-because,” she finally said, stumbling over the word, “how am I supposed to learn anything? I won’t be able to concentrate with you, and I won’t feel comfortable hitting you—don’t you have any padding?” she asked suddenly and looked around the room again.
“An attacker won’t have padding, Briar. Besides, I’m not worried about you hitting me.” I took a few steps toward her, closing the distance between us so I could grab her hand and start massaging the wrist she’d forgotten about. “If you want me to hire someone, I will. He’ll teach you techniques that would make a drunk man who doesn’t understand the word ‘No,’ stop and think twice about coming after you. But if someone really wanted you, they wouldn’t care what techniques you know. And they won’t coddle you and release you when you land the correct hit.”
I hadn’t asked before because I knew I wouldn’t have been able to handle the images it would give me—of someone trying to take this girl from me—but I needed to know.
“What did you do when William’s man tried to take you?”
She flinched, and her eyes slipped closed like she was trying to block out the memory, but after a few seconds, she started talking in a numb voice. “I bit the hand that was over my mouth. I slammed my head back into his face.”
My hands paused on her wrist, and my chest filled with shock and pride.
“When he didn’t let me go, I turned in his arms and started clawing at him. I kicked him . . .” She trailed off then and shrugged.
“You’re incredible,” I whispered in awe.
“Did I do it right?”
I fought back my smile and continued to massage her wrist. “You are incredible, and you fought harder than I expected you to.” The excitement in her eyes started fading, so I hurried to add, “Briar, you fought for your life, there’s never a wrong way in fighting. I’m proud of you. But tell me what the man did when you did those things.”
She only thought for a second before answering: “He tightened his arms around me. I got away once, but he grabbed my hair and pulled me back.”
Rage flooded me instantly, and something like a growl sounded low in my chest—but the man was already dead, so I couldn’t do anything about it now.
I swallowed thickly, pushing back that anger and need to hurt a man for hurting her, and nodded. “What you did when you fought is a lot of what an instructor would teach you. He would add in a couple stomach jabs and foot stomps, but the result would be the same—if the attacker really wanted you, he would tighten his hold instead of releasing you.”
“Then what’s the point of training?” she asked softly, her shoulders lifting in the barest of shrugs.
I dipped my head so my face was directly in front of hers and held her eyes. “Because I know exactly how someone would attack you, Blackbird. I’ve been that man.”
Her face paled and a shuddering breath fell from her lips. “Right,” she said, sounding breathless. “Right.”
“I know exactly how someone would fight, and I know exactly how the attacker would respond.” I forced back the memories that threatened to resurface. “And I know how to get away.”
Briar was silent for so long that I started to ask if she was okay before she suddenly asked, “You mean her, don’t you? The other girl you loved?” There wasn’t a hint of jealousy in her voice now, just numb curiosity.
I stilled then nodded slowly.
“Tell me how she fought.”
“Why, Briar?” I as
ked warily, worried that knowing would only scare her.
“I need to know.” Her head was shaking, almost absentmindedly. “I need to know how she fought.”
I swallowed past the tightness in my throat as those memories pushed through and swallowed again. “She kicked,” I began, releasing Briar’s wrist to fold my arms over my chest. “I was dragging her out of a closet, and she was clawing at the carpet, trying to stay in there. She just kept kicking, even when I forced her onto her back so we could knock her out. I dropped onto her to make her stop, and then one of my brothers brought a rag covered in chloroform. When she woke up, she fought harder. She punched and kicked and bit, so I sat down and held her in my arms. With each hit and bite, my hold tightened until she wore herself out.”
Nearly a minute passed in silence. Unease slowly crawled through me as the girl in front of me continued to watch me thoughtfully, before she whispered, “My first day here with you . . . it was like your first day with her.”
I hesitated for only a second before reaching out to cup her cheek in my hand. “In the beginning, I hated myself. I hated that I couldn’t continue carrying out my role with you. I hated that the time with you felt too much like my time with her—that it had all felt the same. I tried telling myself over and over it wasn’t, until I finally accepted it was. Then I fell in love with you and realized only the situation was similar—not you. And then you decided to stay . . .”
The corners of her mouth curled in a soft smile, and she turned her head to kiss my palm. When she looked at me, that smile had transformed into a smirk. “I’m glad she hit you.”
A surprised laugh burst from my chest.
“You deserved it.”
My amusement immediately drained from me, and my hand fell away from her. “For all I’ve done, I’ve deserved a lot more than that.” I took a calming breath and said, “But like I said, she fought, and my hold tightened. You fought, his hold tightened. I need to make sure that never happens again.”