“That’s what I want,” she says choppily, her nails buried in my shoulders, breaking the flesh, her hips working, writhing beneath mine. “That’s what I need.”
“That’s what you’re going to get,” I grit out, dipping my mouth to her neck and sucking the flesh just below her ear. “I’ve got a five-day load, baby. Open your pretty thighs and take it for me. Look me in the eyes when I bust and tell me you love your Daddy.”
She does even better.
She clamps her little muscles around my cock—squeezing—and gives me a bratty pout. “I love you, Daddy.”
And the seed is ripped straight out of my balls. I pound her roughly, eight, nine times, the sloppy, hot seed finally spurting free into her tightness. My eyes go blind and I drop my mouth into her neck, panting, groaning, my hips straining between her thighs, trying to get the full relief, purging the pressure that’s built for the last five days.
Grace. My Gracie. She’s an addiction. I know it in that moment, with my blood rushing wildly and everything inside of me expanding, exulting, feeling wracking me like never before. I know deep in my bones that we’re co-dependent junkies and there’s no being apart. Ever. There’s no life without this. Without her. Without us. And she feels the same. I can see it now with our love-stoned gazes boring into each other, tears coursing down her temples, that this is a lifelong obsession for us both and I’m not holding back. I’m going full throttle.
I let her know it with one final, hard thrust, my mouth stamping down over hers.
My tongue ravaging her mouth. Claiming her for good.
God help anyone who tries to separate me from my Grace again.
Twelve
Grace
When I wake up in the hospital room, North’s strong, reassuring arms wrapped around me from behind, I know exactly what needs to be done. Morning light is beginning to fill the space, sunshine turning his dark arm hair to gold, and that tiniest detail is enough to make my heart ripple and squeeze with love. Love so wild and boundless, it scares me a little. Not enough to be cautious, though. Oh no, I’m running toward him without hesitation.
North Whitlock is it for me. Forever.
Until now, until I experienced real, unconditional love, I didn’t realize how much it has been lacking in my life. I’ve grown up in a sterile, affectionless environment. Not only that, but I think maybe I’ve been abused without realizing it. Locked in my room, controlled, manipulated, criticized. Over the years, I became so conditioned to please my father that I never stopped to think what I wanted.
Oh, I had a dream of teaching, but it was never realistic.
It feels realistic now. Anything does.
With this man holding me, I feel like I could fly.
Holding someone down, locking them up, forcing them into subservience isn’t love. It’s bad parenting. It’s terror. And if I let it continue, it won’t stop for my whole life. I’ll just keep running on this hamster wheel trying to make Simmons happy—and he doesn’t even have the ability to feel an emotion like happiness. It will all be for nothing.
I’m not going to an Ivy League college. Especially for finance.
Not because it will take me away from North—although that is a huge consideration, being that I can’t breathe without him—but mainly because I don’t want to. I don’t want to take that prestigious education away from someone who truly dreams of it. What I want is a lot more simple, though. I want to teach children. I want a place to belong.
I’ve found it with North.
Now I have to keep it.
And there’s only one way I can see that happening without his life being jeopardized.
Anger and protectiveness crowd into my throat. I’ve never experienced either of these emotions so deeply, so profoundly. No one—no one—is going to lay a finger on this man sharing my hospital bed. How dare my father even suggest it? I think of the way North carried me into the emergency room last night, hoarsely calling for a doctor, his arms shaking around me, and I decide it’s my turn to save him. To make the hard decision to leave my life behind the only way possible and start over. Start fresh with the love of my life.
There is a lot of guilt associated with what I have to do. A daughter’s guilt. But knowing my father will never feel a hint of guilt over what he’s done to me—or what he wanted to do to North—makes me twice as determined to do the hard thing.
North’s lips press to the nape of my neck. “You’re all tensed up. What are you thinking about, beauty?” His hand travels through the valley of my hip and waist, sending a warm shiver down my spine. “Talk to me.”
I wet my lips and snuggle back, laying my head on his big shoulder. “Remember last night when I told you my father is working with a really dangerous man?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s Curtin Tennison,” I whisper, as if the man himself might be listening in the hallway.
North stiffens behind me, the temperature of his body dropping slightly. “Your father threatened to have Curtis Tennison bump me off if we continue to see each other?”
“That about sums it up.” I take a deep breath, pressure pushing down on my collarbone. “Does that…change things? Now that you know the threat is real?”
“Change things how?”
He seems genuinely perplexed. “With us. Being with me could get you killed—”
“Gracie. Jesus.” He lifts his head and looks down at me, brows drawn together, incredulous. “When are you going to understand that I’m in for life, baby? Let them kill me. It’s better than living five more minutes without you. Don’t ask me…please, don’t ask me again if I’m sure. I’m well past sure. I’m sure enough to go to the grave.”
I exhale unsteadily, making room for my fluttering heart to expand. “That’s not going to happen. I won’t let that happen.”
“We won’t.” His arms tighten around me. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking…we have to go to the police.” Saying the words out loud makes my heart pound loudly in my ears, the room spinning slightly around me. “Once I take this step, though, I can never go home.”
North makes a halting sound. “You’re really going to give it all up…for me?”
“I’m gaining so much more than I’m giving up. So much more. You.”
He holds me tighter. “Then your home is with me now, Gracie,” he whispers into my hair. “I’m going to win that fight on Friday, baby. I’m going to take care of you. Buy us a house where we can wake up together every morning. We’ll have a Christmas tree in the window in December. A wreath on the door. Our last name on the mailbox. I can paint the walls any color you want. And one day, we’ll make one of the rooms into a nursery.”
His manhood is growing thicker against my bottom and that languid, delirious, lovesick feeling wraps around me, my body moving unconsciously, teasing his erection to make it even stiffer, bigger. All this talk of having children, having our own house, is intoxicating. Like a lungful of oxygen after being submerged in a lake. I want it. I want what he’s offering me with every fiber of my being. Because my heart tells me it’s what I need. Tells me it’s right. That anything and everything is right with this man by my side.