“You tell him I was leaving the force?” he asked me.
I shook my head where it lay on Cress’s shoulder.
“Fuck yeah, ya did,” King whooped, clapping him on the shoulder again. “Wasn’t talkin’ ’bout the right or wrong side’a the law though. Was talkin’ ’bout bein’ on our side again, mine and H.R.’s. We missed ya there.”
God, but I loved my brother.
Danner’s face softened as he tipped his chin up at King. “Yeah, King, I missed you too.”
“Here to stay, I’m thinkin’,” King added with a cheeky wink.
“Here to stay,” Danner confirmed.
I pulled away from my girls and went to my man, slipping under his arm the way I’d seen Lou do with my dad so many times.
It warmed my recently thawed heart like firelight.
“Fuck, yeah!” Dad cried out from the mouth of another hallway, clad in blue scrubs that looked almost comical on his big, biker body. “We got two healthy kids and a healthy Lou. Walker and Angel Garro.”
Maja jumped on a chair, spun her fist in the air and started cheering.
We joined her so the entire maternity word rung with celebration.
“Zeus Garro,” a voice cut through the joyful clamor.
We looked to the two officers coming down the hall toward him.
Danner stepped forward, “Robson, Hatley, what’s going on?”
They hesitated, gazes swinging from Dad to Danner.
The shorter cop cleared his throat. “Good to see you, Danner, but this is official business.”
“The fuck?” King asked, already moving forward.
They made it to Dad before he did.
“Zeus Garro, you’re under arrest for the murder of Officer Gibson. You have the right to remain silent. An attorney will be provided to you by the province…”
The End (for now).
Continued in After the Fall (The Fallen Men #4) coming spring 2019.
One year later.
I woke up from sweet dreams, a smile on my face and my hand already reaching across the bed for Danner.
He wasn’t there.
That wasn’t unusual. Even though my man mostly kept his own hours working as a P.I., he was still an early riser and he often got his morning run out of the way so he could be home in time to shower with me before I headed into the hospital. So, I kept my eyes closed and let myself drift a little longer, feeling my body loose and slightly aching from the working over Danner gave me the night before. I could still feel the sting of the new paddle on my ass and the press of the nipple clamps like a phantom hold on my breasts. I loved it. The aches and marks he gave me made me feel loved and desired even when we were apart. After a year of solid bliss together, with time to explore, he’d only discovered more and more ways to unravel me like a spool of dropped thread.
I smiled into the pillow and shoved my hair out of my face even though I kept my eyes closed as I heard the tell-tale signs of the front door opening and closing, the alarm going off.
“Lion,” I called softly, sleepily as I felt his presence hit the room.
He padded over the wooden floors to my side and I could tell he crouched beside me in order to run his thumb over my parted lips before he pressed a kiss to them.
“Morning my Rose,” he murmured against me before moving back slightly.
I hummed in my throat and squished my face into the pillow. “Come back to bed and have a lazy Sunday morning being energetic with me.”
He answered me with a rough lick to my cheek that made me giggle at the same time as I frowned. “Ew, since when do we lick each other’s faces?”
Another lick, then another, from a tongue I realized was too abrasive, too small to be Danner’s.
The second before I opened my eyes there was a tiny animal whine and my heart seized as I realized what he’d done.
My lids snapped open to reveal a tiny German Shepherd puppy about an inch from my face, currently chewing on an errant piece of my hair.
“Holy fuck,” I breathed as tears instantly sprung to my eyes and I jolted into a seated position so I could cart the tiny bundle of black and gold fur into my lap up against my steepled legs. He was such a little thing, fuzzy with downy, baby hair and overlarge, upright but slightly lopsided ears topped with gold tufts. I lifted his squirming puppy body so I could look into his sweet, intelligent brown eyes and I felt my heart turn over in my chest as it added the weight of my new love to its collection.
I turned shining eyes to my man as I brought the puppy to my chest and cuddled him like a baby. “You bought me a puppy?”
“I bought you a puppy,” he agreed, still crouching by the bed, looking impossibly hot doing it in a tight white tee with his aviators tucked into the collar.
“I didn’t think I could handle one after.” I swallowed the lump of sorrow that rose in my throat. “After Hero.”
“I know, rebel,” he said softly, reaching out to trail a hand down the wriggling puppy and then down my leg to squeeze my foot. “That’s why I made the decision to get one for us when I knew it would be a good hurt instead of a bad one. We’re dog people, it would have been wrong not to get another one.”
“You’re right,” I said, reaching out to touch his harshly stubbled cheek.
He shrugged a shoulder. “Honestly, I’m surprised my smart girl isn’t used to that by now.”
I hit him in the shoulder, but couldn’t stop smiling as I looked back down at the beautiful creature in my lap.
“Hello handsome,” I cooed. “He’s a him, right?”
Danner chuckled, “Yeah.”
“Good, you know I love my men.”
“Yeah,” he said in a way that drew my gaze to his, the green of his eyes glowing with love so bright they shone neon. “I know my girl loves her men.”
“What should we name him?” I asked, rubbing my hands over his crazy soft ears.
“Why don’t you check the collar?” he suggested.
I lifted the dog close again, this time higher so I could look at the collar under his fur. Something shining caught my eyes and I frowned as I parted the black coat to investigate.
A small gold plate said “Saint,” the perfect name, but that wasn’t what made me gasp, fresh tears rolling out to join the dried ones on my cheeks.
It was the sight of a huge gold ring molded into a perfect rose that hung from the dog tag.
When I looked over at Danner again, he’d shifted onto one knee, his forearms in the bed so he could lean over and work at taking the ring off the collar. He called out to Alexa to play “Like Real People Do” by Hozier as he worked and then he said, “Love you, Harleigh Rose, love you in a way that I know I’ll never stop doin’ it, just like I haven’t stopped doin’ it in one way or another since I met you. Some men want women that are all sugar and sweetness, dependable and staid, but I’ve always preferred the kind of woman that’s roses and thorns, strength and sass, that’s so wild at heart I never know what I’m going to get. You make me feel alive, Harleigh Rose, filled with a love and purpose so strong it eclipses any other reason I may have to love living.”
“Yes,” I shouted through the ugly tears that had seized control of my body, curling the puppy in one arm so I could throw myself at my man with the other. “Yes, fucking yes, of course.”