We get to a hotel and it’s fancier than any I’ve ever stayed at. The Four Seasons, with a doorman and a concierge but we don’t have any luggage for them to carry. I pulled on jeans and a sweater before getting in Walker’s plane, and my hair is in a messy braid. Walker doesn’t look much more put together in his blue jeans and red and white flannel. All-American but he is anything but. He is a killer, plain and simple. A killer who licked my body up and down, who teased my nipples into submission, my pussy too. A killer who held me in the crook of his arm as I cried for what I’d lost.
We get to the room, a suite really, and I stiffen, hating the excess and luxury. The satin sheets and dim lighting from an ostentatious chandelier; unable to understand how the Walker I know, the one with the rustic cabin is this man — a man who walked into a five-star hotel and paid with a black card like he owned the place.
“You hungry?” he asks.
I shake my head, lying. I’m starving. For a greasy cheeseburger and fries. A malted chocolate shake. Comfort food. Starving for so much more. The truth.
“I’m going to shower,” I say, biting my lip. Not wanting to stand here with him because all I can see is him with his gun raised and the vision of him shooting those two men. Then their blood splattered across the wood floor. He said it could be my home. I wanted it to be. Now I want to run and never look back.
More than that, I want to rewind time. To go back to the Walker and me of yesterday afternoon, making love in a motorboat in the middle of a glacial blue lake, bright sun, cloudless sky. Coming for him as he teased my clit. Coming for him as he filled me up with a cock that literally took my breath away. Big, solid, and meant just for me. Coming for him with eyes wide open, not wanting to miss a thing.
Now, I can’t stop crying. I leave the room, scared of the story his eyes might tell.
In the open shower, I turn the water on as hot as it will go. I let it wash over me, sinking to the floor, holding my knees and crying, shaking. Scared.
The sobs wrack my chest. Sobs for the loss of Jemma and for loss of the man I thought I knew. I thought Walker was different. I thought he was safe. My protector. But he is a killer. No better than the rest. And he is full of secrets.
The door opens, Walker comes in. I haven’t washed up with soap or shampoo and now I am too tired to try. He undresses, I look up, watching him as he silently undoes one button, then the next. His flannel shirt is tossed aside and my heart aches because if the day had gone differently, I would have snatched up that shirt and buried my face in it, breathing him in. Savoring the manly smell that made my belly flip-flop in a way that girls in junior high understand all too well. I still understand. Why did he have to go and lie about everything?
Naked, he steps into the shower. He doesn’t ask permission and I’m glad because I hate him, but I don’t want him to leave. I want him to tell me the truth. All of it. I want to understand because I have waited all my life for someone to choose me, and if Walker left me now, the moment I push him away —it might break me forever.
As he slides to sit on the tiled shower floor, water covering him, I know what I really want. Have been needing my whole life - to be chosen.
Maybe it doesn’t matter if he is broken and a liar. My mother was. My sister was. I would keep on choosing them if I could have.
It’s a bad habit, always giving people a second, a fifth, even a hundredth chance.
Part of me wants to give him all the chances in the world, if it means he is in the shower with me, holding and kissing me and saying he is sorry.
Maybe that makes me weak.
But maybe, just maybe, it makes me strong.
“I didn’t know how to tell you that Maker is my brother.”
The words send a chill over me, but also a release. At least now he isn’t trying to hide the truth.
He takes my hand, laces our fingers together. The water pours over us.
“My father died as I told you. And I could have had it all. I was the heir to the fucking throne.”
I blink, water running off the tip of my nose. He made a choice.
“I left it all. For Alaska. I came here and I found you. When you told me your story, Waverly, I fucking knew then I would never get what I truly want.”
“And what’s that?” I ask, my heart heaving, desperate to hear the words I crave.
“I want you. All of you. I want you to take all of me. I’m a killer. And I know that might change everything. But maybe it doesn’t have to.”
“You want me to forgive you for hiding this? Your brother left my sister for dead.”
He draws me to him, and the pull is a release. My shoulders shake.
“Maker has done worse than that, and the truth is, probably so have I. I killed Beam today and I’ve known that fucker for years. Decades.”
“Why did you do it then?”
“They would have killed you. Killed me. It wasn’t personal for them. It was business. And I couldn’t let you become a transaction.”
“So, then what do I become?”
Walker cups my cheek. I’m not the only one crying for what I did and didn’t do. The only one with a past that makes me weep.
“You become my wife, Waverly.”
21
Walker
I ask it because I mean it.
“Marry me, Waverly.”
“When did you decide you wanted that?” she asks, water crashing over us both. “When you thought this was already over?”
I look into her eyes. “I decided the moment I saw you at the bar. The very first moment I saw you. I knew I needed you to be mine.”
“And what about what I want?” Her words are shaky but beneath that is fear of losing what we have. She doesn’t doubt this. Doubt me. She knows.
“We both know what you want,” I tell her. “A cabin in the middle of nowhere, a life that can be ours. No more running. No more hiding. Out in the fucking open where there isn’t a soul to find us.”
“And that’s why we have to give the drugs to your brother? As a peace offering?”
I nod. “Marry me.”
“I want to say yes. I do,” she says. “But…”
“But?”
I pull her to me, and I close my eyes and my cock is hard as rock, but my heart is falling. Because I have hurt Waverly. Broken her trust and I don’t know how to fix it.
I know she wants to marry me. I know she does, but she doesn’t answer. She is broken and as messy as I am and that’s why we fit. Why we are a perfect fucking match.
She doesn’t say no.
“I’ll tell you after.”
“After what?”
“After we give your brother the duffel bag. After I see with my own eyes that this is over, this family business.”
“It was over a year ago.”
“Yet those men came to your door.”
“They were looking for you.”
“So, it’s my fault?”
“God, no. It’s life.”
“Do you really love me?” she asks.
“That hurts. That you have to ask.”
“So, did hearing that man say your name.”
“Fair enough.”
“I love you too, Walker.”
“Enough to marry me?”
She licks her lips. As if trying to figure out how this story is going to go and debating how much she wants to get hurt. She’s been hurt so many times before.
She exhales. “Enough to fuck you.”
I smile, this girl who was so sexually repressed the night we met, who uses words to shock me now, and God, do they ever. The word fuck on her lips gets me hard.
She already knows this.
I bend her over, onto her hands and knees and I run my fingers over her slit. “You want me to fuck you, sweet girl?”
“Over and over again.” Her words are breathless, and I will give her what she wants.
I adjust the showerhead and then guide my cock into her slick cunt, the water spraying the opposite direc
tion. God, I love being inside her. Love the way she gasps as I fill her up. She was made for me. Her big round tits sway as I pound her gently. I take hold of her tits, pinching her pink nipples as I tell her I love her. I love her. Over and over again, and I know it doesn’t erase the dead men in my cabin and the truth I hid, but it doesn’t mean this isn’t real.
“Oh, Walker,” she moans as she begins to come. Hard. I drag her up, back against the tiles, I kiss her. Harder.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” I tell her, her fingers in my hair. My eyes on her eyes, Heart to heart. I love her and I can’t lose her. Not now, not ever. I love her.
“Don’t talk,” she says as I lift her ass, as she sinks down on my still hard cock. My forehead presses against hers and she has no idea how fucking beautiful she is. I want her in my arms forever.
I want to ask her to marry me again and again. I want to say that was the last of my fuckups. I want to say I am changed man, but right now, actions speak louder than words. She climaxes, her fingers run through my wet cropped hair and she clings to me the way I cling to her. I won’t let go.
Afterward, she drops to her knees. I tense, shake my head. “You don’t have to.”
Her blue eyes flash green, angry. “I want to.”
She strokes me with her hand, my balls hot and tight and she drops them in her mouth, sucking them like they are her sole focus. We don’t speak. She takes me and takes me, and I wonder how the fuck I got so damn lucky? To have her here with me. Still.
We were made for one another, that’s why. She takes me deeper, my dick in her mouth. She looks up at me, looking like the angel she is. But she isn’t innocent. She isn’t a fragile dove. No. She is a woman who knows what she wants. What she needs.
And the most humbling thing I’ve ever come to terms with is this: Waverly wants me. Truly. Entirely. She wants me to want her, choose her. And somehow, some-damn-how, this broken man finally got a break.
Waverly’s lips wrap so tightly against my shaft, I groan, my hands in her hair, my cock solid steel as she swirls her tongue on my come soaked tip. I’m close. So, fucking close and she knows it.
She sucks me harder, and I growl. She pulls me out of her pink mouth, and I can’t stop the eruption. She doesn’t want me to. She lets the come drip against her tits, her chin, her mouth. I’m coming all over her and she loves it, She had her fingers pressing against her pussy, circling her clit as my come runs down her tits. My cock is rigid at the sight of my girl all grown up, knowing what her body craves and taking it. Taking it all. All of me.
“I need to fuck you again, Waverly, now.”
I pull her to stand and drag her to the hotel bed. I spread those knees of hers and lick the cunt she just touched. Her pussy is so hot and tender, being fucked back to back, but she needs more. Needs to do more than come. She needs to squirt her cream all over the sheets, to get off, let go and surrender.
“I’m gonna fuck you hard,” I tell her. “Do you understand?”
She nods, licking her lips. Eager.
“You are such a pretty little angel, but you like it rough, don’t you?” I ask her while I’m massaging her tits. God, they are so big and round. And I press two fingers into her slit, letting her get comfortable on the big bed, her head on the pillows.
I begin to finger her the way I know her body needs, slowly at first, then harder, adding a third finger and that’s when I know she is nice and ready for a good pounding. Rough and hard and forever.
Her body responds the way I knew it would. She needs this just as badly as I thought. I begin to fuck her cunt nice and hard, one finger on her clit, teasing her until she’s whimpering, moaning. Then I move my fingers inside her faster and faster until she is dripping. I drop my mouth to her, lapping up all her sweet cream. My cock is rigid as I savor her slit and even though I want to grind my dick inside her pinkness, I wait. First, I need to make sure she is undone.
It doesn’t take long. My angel is a horny little thing, whose body was made to be fisted. I add a fourth finger and her moaning turns to screams of delight as I open her up so entirely. There is nothing left but her guttural gasps as she begins to gush like the good little angel she is.
“Oh, Walker, oh God, yes, don’t stop, please don’t—” Her words are lost as her legs give out, her cunt is spread nice and wide and as I move my fingers, she starts squirting the way I knew she could. I laugh, loving the way she is so utterly vulnerable. Under my hand and asking for more.
I will give her what she needs. I will give her everything.
22
Waverly
He asked me to marry him and I know what I want, but I’m so damn scared. And I need the worst to be over before I start this next chapter. The chapter with him. The beginning of our forever.
My body is so utterly open and his, it’s hard to breathe. He has his hand in my pussy and I am coming harder than I thought possible. I fall back on the pillows, panting. His beard tickles me in the most delicious way as the orgasm works its way up my body, starting in my toes, curling them.
“Come here,” I tell him. “Come here, Walker.”
I need him close. Closer than ever before. I want to wrap my arms around him and hold him tightly and breath him in. Melt into him. Become as one.
He draws up to me. “I will never hurt you again.”
I close my eyes, squeeze them tight. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“I can keep this one, Waverly. There are no more secrets. Nothing to hide. You know my worst. My everything.”
I open my eyes, deciding then and there to believe him. To forgive him. To stay.
It’s what I want.
To be his, forever. And he is choosing me. Chose me.
It’s all I’ve ever wanted and here he is, giving me my dream come true.
The gift is almost too beautiful to accept.
More than ever imagined and yet, here it is, mine.
“You hardly know me enough to marry me,” I say, still fighting it. My heart’s desire.
“I know enough.” He tucks my wet hair behind my ear. We need to shower again. My thighs are slick with my release. I need to be filled with him again before I can move from this bed, though.
“I talk through movies,” I tell him. “I always make coffee too strong. I never make the bed.”
He kisses my nose, my cheeks. His thick cock on my belly. I want it inside me.
“I don’t like movies,” he says. “And I’ve had your bad coffee. It’s not that bad. And why would we make the bed when we’re just gonna mess it up again?”
I smile despite the day we’ve had, I smile. And that feels like a miracle in and of itself.
“Do you like the Whiskey Mountains?”
I nod, running my hand over his cock, unable to get enough of him. When I touch him, I feel safe. It’s as simple as that. His cock grounds me, reminds me that this is real. He is real. Our love is real.
“I love the mountains.” I close my eyes, picturing the overwhelming green of the pine trees and the glacial mountains looming overhead. Paradise. “When I am in your cabin, I feel safe. Even when those men came today, I knew I would be okay. Because you were there.”
“That’s why I need to end this with my brother, once and for all. I never should have left as I did. To run without an explanation. I need Maker to know we are through. And then, I will know that I can give you what you need.”
“I don’t want something to happen to you,” I tell him. “It’s not a good place, Walker… something bad could…”
“It will be okay. I swear. Those men, Tiny and Beam, would never have killed me. Maker would have slit their throats if they had. Even if we are on opposite sides of the field now, we are still brothers. They were there to take you. Take you and do who knows what. Maker doesn’t realize that you are mine now.”
My chest tightens. Those words a comfort as much as they scare me. I am his.
“You don’t like it when I lay claim to you?” he asks.
I shake my head. Renewed in my passion for him. “No,” I say tightly. “I love it. It’s all I want. But to be loved so much, it’s scary. Because when I love, it never ends well.”
Walker pulls me to him, tightly against his chest, his beating heart. I wrap my legs around him and ease him inside of me. “I can’t lose you,” I whisper. “I just got you.”
“You won’t, Wavy. I’m not going anywhere.”
He fills me up and my body lets go, utterly and completely, and I am his.
This time it isn’t rough, hard, or fast. It is slow. Effortless. And time spreads out for us. I see it all. The wedding vows and the hand-hewn baby cradles. The family dinners and the toddlers growing into adults. I see my hair growing gray, his beard turning white. I see his hand on mine, his promises kept. I see it all. Christmas mornings and fireworks at the Fourth of July and I see a life with him in a cabin in the Whiskey Mountains. A life I never had the space to imagine before. Because you can’t dream when you are busy surviving, but that isn’t my story anymore. This story, the one I see with Walker, is the one I have been waiting for my entire life without ever once knowing.
So, we make love again in the Seattle hotel room, his cock buried deep inside me and my body on fire for him and him alone. The day turns into night and I can’t sleep; for the first time in my life, I feel utterly and completely alive.
As he takes my breath away, I give him the rest of me, the spaces in my heart that I’d held back. Every inch, every shred, it’s his.
We order greasy cheeseburger and shakes. He hates ketchup. He dips his French fries in mayonnaise and he laughs when I tell him that that’s disgusting. We are naked and learning and there is so much we still don’t know.
But I don’t need to know everything.
I know enough.
Walker loves me and I love him too.
And this next part, the part where we leave the shelter of this five-star hotel with the sleek shower and the room service, to head south is filled with unknowns.
We don’t know what will happen when we come face-to-face with Maker.
WALKER: The men of Whiskey Mountain Page 10