I do not expect what I see when I arrive at the top stair. Chase, my husband, kissing another woman.
On instinct I yell, “Chase!” the words come out of my mouth like a banshee wail complete with the heartache it brings. He pulls back form the red-head who looks frighteningly like me. His head flips around behind him and then I’ve got his eyes. Sadness, fear, love hit me like a wall of fiery heat as our gazes lock.
“No!” He yells his face becoming hard. And that’s when I see a dark figure behind Ms. Redhead. One holding up a gun. Aiming at Chase’s back.
I scream, but it’s not enough. The man fires twice. Chase’s body jerks mid-air, his body flying up, back arching as a roar leaves his lips before he falls into a heap on the floor. Oh my God! My feet move and I run into the fray, not caring that someone has a gun.
It’s as if everything happens in slow motion, the red-headed woman rifles under her skirt, pulls out a gun and aims it across the way and fires. The shooter comes into the light of the moon, and I see Daniel, his blond hair now dark, his face covered in hair fires back two shots pinning the woman right in the chest. “No!” I scream useless as she falls to the floor like a domino.
I almost make it to Chase when Danny grasps me around the waist, my feet go flying into the air as I struggle to get to my man. “Leave him,” Daniel growls, his voice filled with hatred.
“Danny, I need to get him help,” I cry kicking, my eyes focused on the lifeless bodies in front of me.
“Where they’re going, they don’t need help,” his voice is a knife shredding my heart.
Danny moves us close enough to them that I can see Chase isn’t moving. His face is looking away from me. The redhead’s to so I can’t figure out who she is. But she had gun, so I’m guessing she’s an undercover cop. Daniel stops all movement when he gets me into a position where his grip is around my chest and the steely cold of his metal gun is pressing into my temple. He pushes me away from their bodies, right against the flat wall of the tower, next to a window. Out of nowhere, I see a single red dot glance off the wall next to my head. Danny sees it, too, and reacts lightning fast, swooping me into a more hidden location behind a pillar.
The wind is blowing viscously from the open spaces. He brings the gun up to my face and presses it under my chin. “Fucking snipers,” he looks around and makes sure, that from where we’re standing, he’s not vulnerable. One side of the tower faces the Bay, which means the snipers must be on the other side. This doesn’t seem to faze him at all because when I look into his eyes they are solid black, colder than I’ve ever seen before.
“Danny,” I whisper, trying to appeal to the side I spent months with. The side I was extremely fond of for almost a year.
“How dare you let him marry you? Fuck you. Stick his bastard child inside you!” He presses the muzzle of the gun deep into my chin. I whimper not knowing what to do or say that will help, and right now all I can think about is Chase lying unmoving, ten feet away and I can’t get to him.
“Daniel, I know you don’t want to kill these people. Please, call for help. I’ll go anywhere you want. Do whatever. Just don’t let them die.” The tears fall in a river down my cheeks.
He shakes his head. His light eyes are giant and black as night. “No fucking way. They can die right here, and you can watch. Maybe I’ll turn you around, get you on your knees and fuck you like the whore you are, the way you wanted me to fuck you when things went to shit. You know,” he grips me painfully by the hair pulling at the roots. I look everywhere, wondering wear Jack is, why he hasn’t intervened and then worrying that maybe Daniel already got the lock on Jack.
“You looking for the fucking bodyguard?”
My eyes fly to his once more. “Yeah, I knocked that fucker out nice and quiet as to not interrupt the festivities. He took a tumble down a flight of stairs. Now that I know all this was a setup, all the better. I’ll go back and shoot him in the face, and you and I will be off the grid. Of course, after I take you home so I can rid your body of the vile parasite.”
“Not my babies.” I hold a hand protectively over my stomach. My body goes frosty cold, and I pray. Pray to God to get me out of this, to save my children, to not take Chase away from this world.
“Babies? You mean there’s two of those fucking, disgusting things inside of you. Mother fucker!” He roars. He looks at my face, presses me harder into the wall and his eyes gaze down my body, his lips a fierce scowl. “You’re infested. And it’s my job to clean you up. Make you pure again. Put my baby in you.”
That’s when the fire lights under my ass. He’s going to kidnap me, use me for his personal fuck toy, and kill my children. Not going to happen. I look at his face, grind my teeth down and snarl. “Over my dead body,” I pull back a knee and slam it as hard as I can into his dick.
He lets out a pained cry, crouches as I push him back and start to run. If I can get outside, I can get help. He catches me right before I reach the stairs, swings me around and punches me in the face so hard I see stars. Blood oozes out of my broken lip and he wraps a hand around my neck cutting off any air, and slamming me back against a pillar again.
Just as I’m about to black out, I hear the click of a safety being removed from a gun. “Back away from her.” Hearing Tommy’s voice has never been more welcome.
Danny loosens the hold he has around my neck allowing me to take in some blessed air. I suck in huge lungfuls before he locks the grip down again. I struggle and try to kick out missing my target uselessly.
“Let her fucking go, McBride,” Thomas screams.
“Okay, man, I will.” But before I can warn Thomas, Danny crouches low and issues a leg sweep knocking him off his feet. I slide down the wall to the ground. Thomas’s gun goes clattering, but his hands are fast and he pulls Danny down. They wrestle for Danny’s gun and a shot goes off.
Blood instantly starts to spread from a wound in Danny‘s body. Thomas stands up, turns around and is almost to me when I see his body fly forward. He slams into the wall where the large open window is. The force in which he was moving and how hard Danny pushes him has his body going over the window ledge and out into the night sky. While in mid-air Thomas turns his arm. I scream, and a shot rings out, but I don’t see it. All I can see is Thomas, his body floating in mid-air then barreling twenty-one stories to the ground. I scramble for the window and see his mangled body on the ground and then hear the gurgle. I spin around and crouch down protecting my stomach.
Danny is standing there swaying, a river of blood flowing down the front of his neck where the gunshot ripped open the tissue making his head hang at an odd angle. His eyes roll back into his head, and his entire body falls face first onto the concrete floor in front of me.
The world around me is black. All I can feel is everything within me shaking, my teeth chattering so hard I can hear the noise like a woodpecker pounding on a tree only the tree is my head. Then, a familiar warmth surrounds me. My body is being moved, adjusted, floating and then I feel love. Completely encompassed by a cocoon of light and love. Arms around me, large chest plastered against me until I’m in a seated position in someone’s arms.
Citrus and sandalwood fills my nostrils and I open my eyes. The blackness shrinks, the fuzzy edges sharpening until I see his face. The most beloved face I’ve ever known. The one I watched cry out in agony as two bullets pierced his back.
“I’m dreaming; you’re dead,” I let the words escape out my lips and into the wind.
My love shakes his head, holds my cheeks. “I’m here, baby.”
I shake my head, tears trailing down my cheeks, drying as they fall, sticking against my skin. “I watched you die.”
Chase leans back, rips open his shirt and puts my hand on the hard material. “Kevlar.”
“But, but, he shot you in the back, I saw you go down.” I hiccup and sob unbelievingly.
“Knocked me out. There’s pain, but not enough to keep me from you.”
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,�
�� I chant into his neck over and over. He holds me close, filling me with life once again.
That’s when things get crazy loud. Sirens blare, voices yell, the sound of feet hitting concrete at a run slamming into me. I hold Chase close and cower into him. If I’m in his arms, it will all go away.
“It’s over, baby. He’s dead.”
I nod against his neck but then remember why he’s dead. Thomas. “He pushed Tommy out the window.”
Chase’s entire body tenses and he holds me close. “Fuck.”
“He’s dead.”
“Baby…” He whispers into my hair. “H-he died a hero,” he offers in a raspy whisper, the emotion clogging his words.
Again, I breathe in his scent trying to let it bring me back to the here and now. Just knowing that someone else I love is about to be destroyed again…breaks me half. Danny took one more person with him on his way out.
“Yeah, but now I have to tell my best friend that the man she loves is dead,” my tears are coming so fast I don’t even have the time to wipe them away, instead they soak Chase’s shirt. He doesn’t care, just wraps me in his embrace and gives me everything he is, everything I need.
The nightmare is over but not without heavy losses.
The men and women who died at the gym. Charity, the young twenty-year-old yogi look-a-like to Bree, Phillip with his hospitalization, coma and months of physical therapy. Dana being used like a pawn to the point where it’s doubtful that she’ll ever trust a man again. Austin, my southern bodyguard, who’s still suffering the effects of being poisoned by Etorphine. Colleen, Chase’s mother, who was a mean bitch, but she loved her son and wanted nothing but to protect him, was brutally murdered on our wedding day. Kat, who’s being treated in a special burn unit, will never sew again, and the beautiful light in her eyes is currently gone. Jack, who’s in the hospital being treated for shattered hips, a broken clavicle and a severe head injury. And last, our hero Thomas Redding, the young. hot shot detective who had a woman who loved him and a whole life to live, gone, after falling twenty-one stories to his death while protecting me. Now my soul sister Maria is left to pick up the pieces of her life after losing the one man she gave her heart to.
No, I’d say the nightmare is not over, but we’re strong. Together we’ll find a way to deal with the past, the present, and the future.
EPILOGUE
Three years later…
Chase
“Take it, Baby. You take my cock.” I slam into her over and over. “Fuck yeah.” Gripping her hips tight she mewls and presses back into me.
“Chase,” the sound comes out soft, sweet, and the way I like it. Her head falls down in front of her as I power into her juicy cunt. The fiery curls of her hair skim the white sheets every time I thrust. Leaning forward, over her back, I roll her hair around my wrist, grip the roots and lift her up and on my cock, her knees planted to the mattress.
“Gillian, baby, you like it when I fuck you hard?” I ask her, then pull my cock out and slam home. She cries out.
“Oh, God, I’m gonna come again,” she pants into our large room.
“Yes, you are. Over and over. Didn’t I promise you that?” Stirring my hips I can feel the moment when her pussy locks down on my cock. It takes all my effort not to come into her sweet cleft. She’s so wet, her skin flushed from two orgasms. Once her body is a boneless heap I pull her off my cock, turn her around and take her mouth pushing her down flat on her back. She opens her legs willingly allowing me to fit in-between. She thinks I’m going to enter her again and I will, after I’ve had a taste.
I slip my hands down and cup her sex. She’s so wet I growl into her mouth. “You’re dripping down your thighs baby,” I say as I spin two fingers around her sensitive clit.
“I can’t,” slips out her lips, but I know better. My wife can come over and over. I’ve clocked her at six times in an evening.
Kissing her long, full and deep, I keep playing with the hard little button until she squirms beneath me. There it is. My woman is back in the game, ready to go for a third orgasm. It takes strength, but I pull away from her succulent mouth and kiss my way down her body making sure to stop at her fucking perfect tits. I suck, bite, and nibble on the plump tissue until her hips are fucking air. Oh yeah, my wife is ready.
I lick my way around her bare, flat, stomach. Caressing the area with just my fingertips, I can imagine this area stretched wide with my children. She was a fucking goddess big and pregnant. Nibbling around her belly button, I span the area with my hands and move my face to between her thighs. Her scent alone could make me shoot my load. Inhaling deep, I get comfortable and suck at her flesh. The second I touch down she rocks up, reaching for more. “Greedy,” I growl into her pussy licking my way all over her drenched sex. Her taste cannot be compared to anything. She’s sweet, yet salty, rich, musky all at the same time. Basically, the most decadent of desserts, one only I get to enjoy, and Christ do I enjoy her. I eat her like a man who hasn’t had a solid steak in a decade. I gorge on her until she gives me what I want, and that’s her screaming out in release. I slurp and drink from her until every drop is gone. Until I’m filled with her everywhere, her taste, her touch, her arousal, her body open to me. She gives it all, and I take it as often as I can.
Soon she calms and I crawl up her body, sink my dick as far into her as I can go. She groans and juts her head back offering me her neck. That’s when I take it slow. She’s already had three orgasms, her cunt is raw, but I like fucking her into submission. It’s the only time I can get my fiery red-head to do what I want.
She moans and sucks in a breath as I take her particularly deep, pressing high and hard into that spot within her that makes her gush. Her green eyes go wide and panicked. This is it, the moment I wait for. That moment where she looks lost and found at the same time. She’s just come, she’s so sated that I could ask her what her name is and she wouldn’t be able to tell me. Then in a moment of surprise I can see the second she realizes her pleasure was a lead up to the big finale.
When I press my cock deep and lock down. Her pussy spasms around me squeezing my dick so tight I could lose my mind. It’s like the sweetest tightest glove. Almost like when I’m fucking her ass only when I fuck her hard like this, I can see her face and that’s what I need. What I’m hungry for. I’ve had her ass, her tits, her pussy, her cum on my tongue all over me and around me but nothing beats this. That split second of panic where her pleasure and the tiniest bit of pain coalesce and break her defenses down, leaving me with the barest version of her. She breaks down, and I put her back together, with my eyes, my words, my love. Fucking beautiful.
We come together, her entire body clenching around mine, her mouth open in a silent scream that rocks her to the core. Eventually, she either passes out or blacks out. It’s not the first time, and I silently promise it won’t be the last. While she’s out I get up, hit the bathroom, bring back a warm washcloth and clean between her legs. The combined fluid had already started leaking out of her. Seeing me coming out of her gives me the biggest sense of pride. I know it’s fucked up and twisted, but I love seeing a piece of me spilling out of her. Knowing I was there, that a portion of me will be in her for days and keeping with that, I make sure to keep her full of me. I never felt this way with another woman but my wife brings out the animal side in me. Especially after what she’s survived. We’ve survived.
Pulling back the comforter, I tuck her back into bed. It’s still early, but I’m sure Colin and Rebecca are entertaining the kids.
I toss a pair of pajama bottoms on and a t-shirt and make my way across the house. I look out the windows lining the hall and see the rolling landscapes of our home in Bantry, Ireland. The ocean has a fine mist blocking a perfect view, but it will burn away when the sun is high.
As I approach the kitchen I can hear giggling and banging noises. When I enter the kitchen my children are playing on the floor with plastic bowls, wooden spoons, and cups.
Claire’s fiery red hai
r is a wild mess of curls. Her ocean blue eyes sparkling in delight as she sees me. She lifts her chubby two-and-a-half-year-old hand up and waves the spoon in greeting. “Daddy!” she says clear as day. Claire has always been social, started talking very early, and never stops. I walk over and scoop up my girl into my arms, throwing her in the air, then nuzzling her sweet, baby neck giving her a set of raspberries. She howls with glee, and I set her back down to play with her utensils.
My son, Carter, is more pensive, thoughtful, exactly like me. He assesses every situation, considers his course of action and then reacts. He never does anything on a whim, and I get that. The only thing I ever did on a whim was approach a red-head I didn’t have the time for, on a day I wasn’t prepared to meet the woman of my dreams. I lift up my boy and his dark hair is rich, the color of a roasted, coffee bean, but his eyes, they are like looking directly into my wife’s emerald gaze. He’s going to be a handsome young man.
“How’s my boy today?”
Carter purses his little pink lips together, tilts his head, and thinks about it. “Good,” his response is matter of fact before he adds, “better if we eat pancakes.”
I laugh and snuggle into him. He’s not the type to howl with glee like his free-spirited, whimsical sister. No, he just accepts the attention quietly and with a smile.
Setting him back down, I note that there’s a steaming cup of coffee on the counter sitting next to two large, chocolate chip, homemade cookies. “Thanks, Rebecca,” I tell the house help while munching on my first bite of chewy goodness. Colin and Rebecca have turned more into family than just the help. Rebecca feeds us and helps with the children and does the housework. Colin keeps the grounds and makes sure everything is in order. They’ve been fantastic, and the children adore them.
“Becca, pancakes?” Carter requests with a smirk.
Oh, I know that smirk. It’s the same smirk I use on his mother. Works every, fucking, time. And of course, Rebecca melts and gets out the mix.
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