The force of my cheek to the glass doesn’t hurt. The area of my gunshot wound doesn’t hurt. My wrist doesn’t hurt. My empty womb no longer hurts. My heart doesn’t hurt. My scarred arm that always burns is scorching for another reason, along with every other molecule of me, as I accept James’s punishing taking. I peel my eyes open and stare across the room to the tableful of weapons. And I smile. Because not one of them is as deadly as the man currently fucking me like an animal.
His passion-fueled yell of release is muffled, the feel of his cum filling me blistering hot. I exhale and hold my breath, ready to grab my orgasm and let it ruin me, but before I get the opportunity, he’s pulled out, dropped to his knees, and pushed his face between my legs. “Shit.” I gulp, the sensation of his mouth encasing me making my knees rickety. I fight with the bonds, my heartbeat frantic, my breasts slipping across the glass. It hits me like a wrecking ball, pleasure ripping through me unforgivingly, making me collapse against the glass. “More,” I murmur, dizzy with the feel of his frenzied tongue lapping me greedily. It’s too much, my nerves shot and sensitive. “James,” I murmur, my voice broken. “James, stop.”
But he goes on, hungry and deranged.
“James!” I yell, wriggling, fighting the leather securing me. “Kellen, stop!”
But he doesn’t.
And I realize.
“Enigma!” I yell, and he immediately frees me of his torture, taking my hips and catching me when I fold to the floor. We’re both breathless, both of our bodies rolling uncontrollably, and I ache. But my mind? That’s clean. It’s a temporary fix, we both know that, but it’s a fix for now.
Enigma.
A reminder that he is still, in fact, the man I met.
“I love you,” James whispers hoarsely, releasing me of the bonds and shifting to get his back against the glass. And then there’s this new side to him. The soft side. He pulls me onto his lap. “With everything I have, Beau, I fucking love you.” He forces my face to his, and I crumble on the inside at the sight of his anguish. “Broken, fixed, happy, sad, I love you. If you do anything, just remember that.”
I nod as best I can in his hold, running my palm over his slick chest, my gaze following it, unable to sustain his eyes while they’re so despairing. “I need to be stronger for you. Like Rose is.”
“She’s had far longer to heal, Beau.”
“I know that. But I feel like I’ve put her back a few years.” I look up at him. “She’s still strong.”
He smiles, as if I’m missing something, and it makes me wonder if he knows things I don’t. Does Danny talk to him about things like that? Am I just seeing an exterior to the warrior queen? “My dad called me again.” I rest the side of my head on his pec and let him hold me. “He’s offered me an apartment in the new block he’s building.”
“That was good of him.” The hostility in James is rife. “He doesn’t even know who I am and he’s trying everything he can to get you away from me. Imagine if he finds out I kill for a living.”
I smile at his misplaced joke, nudging him with my shoulder. “If I’m going to be forced to endure my father, you have to endure him with me.” I feel James’s body harden beneath me, and I pull out to gage his expression. It’s somewhere between smiling and grimacing. I purse my lips over my smile. “What happened between you two when I was in hospital?”
“You know what happened. Your ex threw around some careless statements, and now your father thinks I’m physical with you in ways that don’t involve bonds and my cock.”
I chuckle. That’s misplaced too. I saw James’s reaction to those careless statements. It wasn’t anything to laugh about. “Not when I broke my arm. I meant when I was unconscious.” When I was shot. When I lost our baby.
“Nothing happened.” He looks away, and it makes me doubt him. “He showed up, we were civil, and he left.”
I didn’t see James when I was out cold, but I can’t imagine he was civil to anyone. “I need you to humor him.”
“I will.” He kisses my forehead chastely. “When I can channel my energy into just that, I absolutely will.” Putting his hand on my thigh, he rubs it, as if to reassure me that he’s speaking nothing but the truth. I can’t protest. To say James has a lot on his mind right now would be the biggest understatement in the history of understatements. “Until then, you should start building your bridges with him. Me showing up at your first dinner date will go down about as well as a cup of sick.”
I burst out laughing, and every muscle I possess pulls as a result. I just catch his satisfied smile before my body goes limp and I fall against his chest. “He offered, actually. He wanted to visit us.”
He stiffens.
“Don’t worry, I put him off.”
He relaxes.
Then James lets me be for a while, settled, sated, and getting a handle on the aftermath of my laughs as he strokes the inside of my thigh.
“Beau,” he says after a time, his hand pulling away and turning over in front of me, revealing his palm.
His palm covered in blood.
“Baby, you’re bleeding.” He goes to move, and I make myself a dead weight, taking his hand and steadying his shakes.
“My period,” I say quietly. “It’s my period.” I blink my foggy vision clear and snuggle deeper into his chest, feeling his arms envelop me tightly, his mouth resting on top of my head.
It’s my first since I lost our baby.
And another reminder that I’m empty.
9
DANNY
* * *
I stand on the deserted shore, my feet inches away from the rolling water, taking in the cove. I’ve been back in Miami for over two weeks, and I’m still breathing. I’m also still married, another achievement, considering how things are progressing, which is basically slow. I assured Rose this would be dealt with quickly and we’d be out of here before she knew it. But really, I accepted the moment I agreed to return to Miami that there would be no going back, not unless we kill every enemy. Yet with each man killed, another is born. I’ve almost accepted that.
That’s why I’m here at Byron’s Reach, covering all my bases, watching our plans move into territory I didn’t anticipate when I first met James. Plus, there’s been no word from The Bear. No moves made on his part. I can only surmise he’s letting the dust settle after removing The Enigma. Or, at least, thinking he’s removed The Enigma. I thought I’d diced with death in my time. James is putting my attempts to dodge the Grim Reaper to shame.
Across the water in the distance where Winstable Boatyard once stood is a construction site, cranes and scaffolding dominating the space where I once operated from. I see Pops there. I see him wandering the derelict land that once stood empty. And I see the extravagant cabin he built when I was fifteen. The jet skis. The good times.
The guns.
I haven’t yet told my wife about our imminent purchase of this land. Or about our plans to take back Miami. I’m more wary of Rose, her reaction and subsequent retaliation, than I am of a mass murderer on the hunt for me.