I closed my eyes, squeezing them tightly shut at the intrusion. It hurt, and yet it didn’t. There was pressure, so much pressure, and stretching as well. But above all that was the fullness, a foreign sensation that slowly ebbed away, no longer a sense of being full but of being complete—being whole again.
The kisses resumed, long wet strokes of his tongue over mine, while he remained still inside me. Then he began to move and I gasped into his mouth, but he wouldn’t relent. He continued to kiss me, his kisses broken and messy as his hips picked up speed.
I tried to be quiet, to lie still and just let this happen, but my body began to respond of its own accord. A pressure built inside me; my skin and my mind, they felt ablaze with need, wanting and itching to react. I grabbed at him, my nails scoring his skin, and my legs locked around him, my hips lifting as I arched and ground myself against him. Releasing my jaw, he grabbed hold of my hair, fisting it, while his grip on my hip turned bruising.
It wasn’t how I’d imagined it would be, but then, nothing ever is. And this was so much more than I’d ever thought. Maybe because I’d gone so long without the touch of another person, maybe because . . . because . . .
I cried out, my mind blanking as each of his thrusts hit me deeper. Ripple after ripple of something hot and needy fluttered through me, growing and growing. I cried out again and again, my cries the soprano to the bass of his groans and grunts, feeling as if I was on the precipice of something truly magnificent, something without a name, something I couldn’t begin to describe or explain. I was chasing a rainbow with everything I had, needing to find the secrets at the end of it.
With one final thrust of his hips that made me yelp in both pleasure and pain, his body went still and rigid, a harsh breath rattling free past his lips. Releasing my hair, he rolled to his side. He wrapped an arm around my waist and brought me with him, nestling me in the crook of his arm.
Breathless, my heart racing, my body trembling, I buried my face against his neck.
“You ever run again,” he said, his deep voice cracking. “I’ll ki—”
My head jerked up and I pressed my mouth to his. I kissed him hard, not wanting to hear his anger or his violence. I didn’t want to see the monster this world had made him; I wanted the man beneath it all. The man who’d lifted me from the grass, bleeding and scared, and carried me to his home. The man who’d nursed me back to health, who’d put himself on the line for me—a stranger.
I kissed him slow and soft, urging his lips to move. When they did, when I felt him relax beside me, I kissed him harder and faster, telling him without words that I wasn’t going to run.
This was where I wanted to be. This was home now.
He was home.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Eagle
“I think I’m late,” Autumn called out, her voice carrying across the room.
Sheathing a blade at my hip, I turned around just in time to see her step out of the plastic bin we considered a bathtub. Naked, dripping wet, and shivering, she bent down and snatched up a T-shirt turned rag to wrap around herself.
She was late. It was midday and she should have been at the doctor’s office hours ago, but she’d fallen asleep after sex and instead of waking her, I’d just watched her. I’d been watching her ever since. Even now, I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she struggled, nearly tripping over her own two feet attempting to pull her clothing on over her damp body.
Her damn beautiful body. Her beautiful face. My eagle branded onto her skin.
“Shit,” I muttered, and turned away from her. Gripping the edge of a nearby table, I bowed my head. This was brand new territory for me. Never mind that everything I’d done since finding her had been out of character; the feelings I had now were even worse.
“Is it weird that I hate feeling clean?”
I glanced up.
Standing next to me, fully dressed with her wet hair plastered to the sides of her face, she wrinkled her nose. “It makes me feel . . . naked.”
Without warning, I snatched her. I just reached out and pulled her beneath me, forcing her to bend backward over the table. Trapping her there with my hips, I cupped her cheek and ran the pad of my thumb roughly over her bottom lip, pulling open her mouth. “I like you naked,” I muttered, and dipped my head.
Up until this morning, sex had been a weapon. Like everything else in my life for the past four years, it had been nothing more than a violent and necessary release or a tool, a means to achieve something else.
This wasn’t that. This was something else altogether. And if she ran again, if she tried to leave, I was going to—
I didn’t know what the fuck I would do, but whatever it was, it wouldn’t be good for anyone involved.
Lifting her, I set her up on top of the table and, gripping her thighs, pulled her tightly against my hips. One hand holding the back of her head, I kissed her again, all tongue and no lips, mimicking what my body was growing hungry for.
I pressed against her, rubbing her through our clothing, feeling her pulse in her pussy beating against my dick. Feeling completely out of my goddamn mind, I fumbled with the hem of her shirt, breaking our kiss just long enough to rip it off over her head. Then I did the same with her pants, jerking her around as I yanked them down her legs.
“Wait,” she mumbled, and pushed against my chest.
Forgoing her mouth, I latched onto her neck. “No,” I growled, biting down as I struggled with the zipper on my jeans. Freeing myself, I pressed against her, pushing.
“No,” she said, half moaning. “Wait.”
Raising my head, I glared down at her. “What?”
“The door,” she whispered, breathing hard. “Someone’s knocking.”
I paused and finally heard it, a distinct tapping against the metal.
“Fuck off!” I shouted.
“It’s Alice!” was the muffled reply.
Autumn’s eyes widened. “I have to go,” she whispered, her cheeks reddening.
“Not a chance in hell.”
Moving from her thighs to her knees, I yanked hard, sending her sprawling flat on her back amid a pile of weapons. “Say yes,” I demanded as I loomed over her.
Her bottom lip disappeared beneath her teeth as she nodded. “Yes,” she whispered.
Looking down between us, I positioned myself and pushed, my gaze lifting and meeting hers as I slid inside.
Her breath left her in a pained rush of air, and her eyelids fluttered. She was wet, tight, and probably sore, but she felt fucking perfect.
Bracing myself, I took her hard, definitely harder than I should have. But there she was, lying naked on top of a filthy table, surrounded by rusty weapons, blades still covered in dried blood, and guns that needed to be cleaned and oiled. But her skin was pale and clean, a vivid contrast to what surrounded her. To the filth that surrounded everyone.
She was good, a tiny slice of goodness surrounded by filth, and I wanted to be a part of that.
No, fuck, I needed to be a part of that.
• • •
“I’m sorry,” Autumn muttered, her cheeks pink as she looked from Alice to me.
Leaning my shoulder against the door frame, I stared at Autumn, deciding I liked her blushing. It added nicely to the messy hair, wrinkled clothing, and well-fucked look she was wearing.
“No worries,” Alice said, smiling brightly. “I was just worried when you didn’t show up. Wouldn’t want you getting in trouble for oversleeping.” Her smile firmly in place, she cut her eyes toward me and shot me a hard look.
I knew what Alice was insinuating, that this was my fault. Everyone here had to do their part and if they got caught slacking, the consequences weren’t pretty. Autumn was already living off my name and reputation, as well as Jeffers’s good graces. No one else would have gotten away with the shit she had.
I grunted my acknowledgment in Alice’s direction and had just placed my hand on Autumn’s shoulder when my gaze snagged on something past Alice, far
off in the distance. Something pink.
Motherfucker.
“I’ll see you later,” I said, releasing Autumn and giving her a nudge forward.
With narrowed eyes, she glanced up at me. “E?”
I shook my head. “You go. I got shit to do at the garage.”
“Come,” Alice said, her ridiculously cheery smile back in place. She reached for Autumn, but Autumn flinched away.
Seeing that, knowing I was still the only one who could touch her, I nearly smiled. “Go,” I said, gesturing with my chin, wanting her as far away from the queen bitch as I could get her.
“Okay,” she said quietly, her expression crestfallen.
“Jesus,” I muttered, and then grabbed her arm.
Pulling her close, I bent my head and dragged my mouth across hers, eventually latching onto her bottom lip and slipping my tongue inside. Gripping my T-shirt with both hands, she forced me even closer and deepened our kiss. I’d only meant it to be a quick kiss, something to comfort her with, but too soon I found myself forgetting we had company.
I pulled back, ignoring the bright-eyed happy expression Alice was giving us both, and pushed Autumn forward. “Later.”
Reluctantly she turned away. She shot me several looks over her shoulder, at first ignoring Alice’s upbeat urging, then finally started off through the field.
Autumn might have the body of a woman, and at times the goddamn attitude of one, but in a lot of ways, emotional mostly, she was still kind of a kid. All those years alone without social interaction had kept her in a sort of emotional stasis since society had crumbled. I should have felt bad about being the man who’d just taken away that last bit of her old-world innocence, but fuck if I did.
From inside the doorway I watched Autumn for a while, feeling tight and anxious at the sight of her walking off without me. Not that it mattered, because her biggest threat was here. When I could no longer see her, I patted the weapon at my hip and kicked the door wide open. It slammed into the front of the building and bounced back, and I shoved it again before I stormed out into the grass.
Liv stood a ways off in the midst of the high grass, and as I grew closer I saw that she wasn’t alone. With her legs spread apart and her arms extended in front of her, she held a gun in her grip. A gun aimed at me.
“What’s your game today?” I shouted, breaking into a jog. “You know you won’t pull that fucking trigger!”
Her answer was to laugh, maniacal high-pitched laughter that rang out in the field all around us. Cringing, I picked up speed. I hated that sound, hated it more than the groans and growls of the rotters, and more than my dead wife’s voice in my head.
As I neared her I slowed my pace, stopping only when the barrel of her gun hit my chest. “Do it,” I growled. “I fucking dare you.”
She smiled up at me, her eyes gleaming. Jesus, she was crazy, so goddamn crazy. And I was twice as bad for falling into bed with her. As far as regrets went, that mistake was high up on my long list.
“You think I won’t?” She giggled and pressed the barrel hard against my chest.
I bared my teeth at her. “You do and he’ll kill you.”
Liv shrugged, looking smug. “I’ll tell him you came at me, that you attacked me.” She ran the tip of her tongue over her teeth, and her smile grew. “I’ll tell him you raped me.”
“And I’ll tell him your pussy is wider than a sink hole in Texas,” I shot back. “Isn’t my fault I slipped and fell in.”
Her nostrils flared as her smile faltered. “You don’t want her,” she snarled. “That little girl doesn’t have a clue what you need.”
“And you do?” I laughed in her face. “Is this what I think it is? Are you fucking jealous? ’Cause damn, woman, if you’re jealous, then you’re the little girl, not her.”
Liv sucked in a sharp breath and a tremor rippled through her arms, shaking the gun. “Fuck you,” she spat out. “Fuck you!”
Keeping one hand on her gun, she dropped the other, latching onto the front of my jeans and cupping me. She stared up at me with her eyes shining with hate as she roughly groped and squeezed. “This is you,” she said. “This is me. We’re the fucking same.”
There was a twinge, an instinctive response, a sick and depraved familiarity that had my body responding to her. This, her, the whores in Purgatory, the self-loathing, the violence—all of it was who I was, and what I did.
But I hadn’t always been that man. I just needed to keep reminding myself of that.
“You have a man,” I said, and in a maneuver too quick for her to thwart, I grabbed her wrist and bent it backward. She yelped and stumbled, and the gun fell from her grip. Snatching up her other wrist, I took a step forward and forced her backward.
“You have a man,” I repeated. “A good man. You need to go back to your man.”
“We can take this place!” she cried. “Me and you!”
Still forcing her backward, I shoved her hard, using my grip on her wrists to keep her standing when she would have fallen over. “You can keep this shithole.”
“Eagle!” she gasped. “The gate! Stop!”
Lifting my brow, I grinned down at her. We were closing in on the gate, close enough now to hear the crackle of electricity coursing through the metal.
“You’re going to stay the fuck away from me,” I told her. “You’re going to stay away from Autumn too. Do you hear me?”
Looking back and forth between me and the gate looming behind her, her eyes wild with fear and anger, Liv pressed her lips together and nodded. I bent my head, bringing our faces together.
“Say it!” I shouted, and her eyes squeezed shut. “I want to hear you say it!”
Her eyelids flew open and her gaze latched onto mine. “I’ll stay away from you!” she screamed.
I yanked her up against me. “What else?”
Staring up at me, her features twisted with hate, she opened her mouth and let out a bloodcurdling scream. Momentarily closing my eyes, I inhaled slowly. And when I opened my eyes, I released her. She started to shrink away, but I was quicker. After sending the back of my hand across the side of her face, I latched onto her throat as her head whipped to the side and before she could fall.
“Say it,” I growled. “Or I will snap your neck right the fuck now and deal with the consequences.”
She clutched my biceps, her pointed fingernails digging into my skin. Her anger didn’t surprise me. Liv was one of those people you knew didn’t just come screaming into the world, she came into it swinging. I didn’t know what kind of life she had before everything went to shit, but I knew it wasn’t a pretty one.
“You’re going to regret this,” she cried out. “I’m going to make you regret it!”
My jaw locked, the urge to strangle her stronger than the urge to breathe, I shook my head slowly. “I’ve never not regretted it. Every damn time I touched you, I regretted it. I was just too fucked in the head to care.”
“And now you’re not?” She scoffed. “You get a taste of a little girl, and what? You’re a changed man?”
I released her with a shove, watching with satisfaction as she landed hard on her side. Shoving her hair out of her eyes, she stared up at me, her gaze gleaming with pure fury.
“No, Liv.” I laughed harshly. “I just found a better place to stick my dick.”
It was a lie, and it wasn’t. But Liv didn’t need to know jack shit. She’d only use it to destroy what was left of me. And for the first time in a hell of a long time, I didn’t feel like destroying myself.
Storming past her, I headed for home to finish locking up. After that, I was going straight to the doctor’s office. I wasn’t letting Autumn out of my sight; at least, not until I figured out what the fuck to do about Liv.
That bitch wasn’t going to let this stand, me rejecting her. I knew she wouldn’t let go, because I wouldn’t have. What I’d done to Wildcat was proof enough of that.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Autumn
I could feel Alice’s eyes on me, watching as I stirred another batch of herbs into a pot of boiling water. When I glanced up at her, I found her smiling yet again. She’d been grinning at me all afternoon, at everyone who’d come through the door, and her constant happy demeanor had rubbed off on me. Giving my head a small shake, I grinned back at her, feeling . . . happy? God, could that be what this feeling was? I hadn’t felt like this in years. My last memory of this strange emotion was faint, a mere shadow now.
Even with my body a little sore and bruised, my heart felt light, and my head was much clearer than it had been in so very long. Every time I moved and the apex of my thighs would rub together, a shiver worked its way down my spine. It was a constant reminder of Eagle’s hands on my body, of him inside me, filling me completely. My biceps were tender where he’d held me—bruised me even—and although he’d tried in his own way to be gentle, he was still too rough. But that was who he was.
Biting down on my bottom lip, I looked away from Alice and closed my eyes as thoughts of this morning assaulted me. Eagle’s fingers digging into my skin, his hips pounding between my thighs, his bruising kisses that left me weak and filled with need.
Yes, he’d been rough and demanding, but I wouldn’t have changed a thing. Not one damn thing. We’d fit together so perfectly and, if anything, my body was rejoicing from his assault.
“There it is again.” Alice’s voice cut through my memories, sending them scattering off into the ether. Glancing up, I found her smiling again, and I flushed hotly.
“I know that expression,” she continued, waggling her brow. “Very well.”
I nearly giggled, but stopped short with a shake of my head. Needing a distraction, I moved away from the boiling herbs, grabbed hold of a pestle and mortar, and set to work on a batch of dried flowers. Soon enough my body temperature returned to normal as I watched the flower heads crumble and flake. It was a violent and destructive act, crushing the perfectly shaped petals and grinding them into dust. And yet, the violence of their destruction gave way to what really mattered and created something even better, something more important than beauty.
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