He threw back the bourbon in his glass and set it down. “No. We’re not.” He looked at her. “I want to talk.”
She scoffed. “Do you now? After three years you want to talk.”
“Will you listen?”
Good question. Did she want to listen to what Thyssen had to say? There was nothing more she wanted than to see Thyssen suffer, so she kept telling herself. To see him feel the same hurt and frustration, bewilderment and pain she had endured at not being able to talk or have your questions answered. She underwent three years of not being able to talk, of not being able to ask or get any kind of explanation from him. No apology. No remorse. No attempt to come back home. She never got anything from Thyssen Skalas, until now, when he seemed to be here only for shelter against some killer. And now he wanted to talk? And she was supposed to just let him?
She stared at him hard for a long moment before she nodded. “Fine. Talk.” She crossed her arms. “I can’t guarantee I’ll listen though.”
***
Thyssen drew in a breath and started talking about some of the hardest and lowest points in his life over the past three years. It wasn’t a pretty conversation and he hated every minute. The entire time, Charlotte’s face remained impassive as he spoke, and that was worse than if she’d looked at him with hate, anger or pity. At least then he’d be able to gauge her feelings, but without any reaction he didn’t know what the hell she thought about his telling her he’d gone on a sex rampage when away from her, then a killing spree in the field that ended in burn out and depressed, and that he’d left SEALs because of it all. She just looked at him, unmoved, not saying a word.
He fucking hated it.
At one point she uncrossed her arms and came forward to pull out the chair he had offered. She sat down but still didn’t say anything. She didn’t change expression or even her breathing. She did pour and drink a hefty glass of bourbon though, but other than that she just sat quietly as words fell out of his mouth, terrible words like downward spiral, out of control, potential court martial, loss of faith, and forced military counselling.
He’d been such a mess, and he’d started on the road to ruin before he questioned Ian’s paternity, and only got a hell of a lot worse after that.
“Coming home had not been an option,” he explained. “Not until now. I would only have just dragged you and Ian down to where I was.”
She finished the bourbon in her glass. “This,” she looked around, “Isn’t much better.”
He looked at his empty glass. “I know. And I’m sorry for that. I never intended to bring this shit back with me. I was going to get all square, make some money, and then come back. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”
Finally, she looked at him. “I don’t know what to say.” She blinked those deep gray eyes. “I have to think about it all.”
He nodded. Fair enough. At least she didn’t just tell him to leave again.
“It’s going to take some time,” she said. She stood up.
“I don’t care how long it takes. I just want to know that you might give us a chance after. Just one chance to make it right.”
“I—” she opened her mouth then closed it. “I need to think.” She turned to leave the stateroom.
“No—” he stood up quickly. “l’ll go. I don’t want you out on deck.” He went to the door and climbed the steps, breathing past the tight wedge of emotion locked in his throat.
He hoped he hadn’t told her too much. Or maybe not enough? He had told her everything, though. He picked up his field glasses and searched every inch of the inlet shoreline. What was she thinking about him and his shredded integrity? Had he completely lost her trust and respect? Would she give him the chance to earn it back?
He scanned the shoreline again. Nothing. Good.
The Stop would never find this place, at least not immediately, and if he did he’d be in for a hell of a deadly shock. Thyssen lifted the storage hatch at the boat’s portside to review his weapons hold.
He’d been adding to it throughout his years in the military. Every time he used a new weapon or learned about a new rifle, he gained himself personal access to it, snuck up here and put it in his hold. He wanted the means to keep Charlotte and Ian safe, that’s why he did it. That’s how he justified it. In the same way he justified coming back to keep eyes on Charlotte and Ian over the years, to watch them secretly and make sure they were okay. It was how he knew the answers to her questions. He knew one day he’d work up the courage to go back to them for real; he just never knew how or when.
He picked up his M4 and checked the cartridge before he sat down on the deck with his field glasses, and quietly took watch until night fell all around him.
*****
Thyssen went down the stairs and pushed open the stateroom door. Hours had passed, and it was completely dark outside in the early morning quiet. There was no sign of The Stop, which didn’t mean he wasn’t out there. He was coming and Thyssen was ready for him.
Faint moonlight glowed through the porthole and across the bed, illuminating Charlotte’s still body. She was sitting up but asleep, her knees drawn beneath her bathrobe where she leaned against the porthole wall. She must have been looking outside before she fell asleep.
He used his toes to kick off his shoes before he went to her. He put his knee on the mattress before leaning down to take her into his arms and lay her down in the bed. He couldn’t stay with her in here, far too tempting and dangerous. He would get her comfortable then head back upstairs. He didn’t need much sleep anymore. The SEALs bred sleep out their soldiers during Hell Week.
“Thy . . .” she murmured in his arms.
“Right here, baby.” He leaned down and kissed near her ear. “Go back to sleep.”
“I’m too afraid.”
“Don’t be. I’m right here.” He unfolded her so she was lying down. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She shivered and turned on her side.
“Ian’s safe,” he rubbed her arm. “My dad checked in. I have an arsenal up top, a back-up stash in here and I will put a bullet in anyone who even tries to get near you again.”
She found his hand and threaded her fingers through his. “This guy is a professional. Dangerous.”
“So am I.” He kissed the skin behind her ear again then started to lift off the bed.
“Stay,” she said. She squeezed his fingers before drawing his hand to her comfort spot, the hollow of her throat. He knew the place well. Had memorized it and felt it in his dreams so many times over the past three years.
He felt an erection swelling pleasurably. “That’s . . . not a good idea.”
She rolled over and looked at him through the darkness. “I want you to stay.” She opened the robe to lay her naked body out before him.
Fuck. He was a goner, even before she reached for him.
“Make me forget like you used to. Make me forget everything but us.” She pulled his head to hers and pressed her mouth to his, kissing him, sliding her tongue into his mouth as she rolled over him and straddled his legs.
He became instantly hard, his body ready for anything she’d give him.
She moved above him, rolling her hips and igniting his dick beneath her naked pussy. She shrugged out of her housecoat and he tugged her hips forward, bringing her bare sex to his mouth. He knew what she wanted and exactly how she liked it, and he would give it to her all night long if she let him.
He slid his tongue inside of her and she arched backward with a long moan. Fuck he missed hearing that, hearing her moan for him in pleasure. She reached behind herself and slid her hand into his pants, then made short work of unzipping him, and pushing down his jeans far enough to set his dick free.
“Ah baby—” he groaned as she wrapped her hand around him. Three fucking years he’d waited for this, looked for this with other women he bedded but never found it. He was so fucking hers. Hers. Dribbles of moisture were already sliding out and down his stiff length.
&
nbsp; He gripped her hips between his hands before running them up her stomach, palming her perfectly round tits. He loved those tits. He would reclaim those tits. He used one of his thumbs to play with her clit, smiling as she moaned his name again. Encouraged he thumbed her again and again, needing to hear his name on her lips some more.
“Oh God, Thyyyssen.”
He pulled her even closer, then ran his tongue between her naked folds before pressing into her hard nub and making circles. She rolled her hips into his face in rolling waves, and each time she did he slid his tongue toward her entrance and licked at her intimate skin like a cat dying for sweet cream.
She moved her hand up and down his shaft, pumping his hard length until moisture beaded and overflowed from the tip. She was going to make him come and he didn’t want to so soon. He wanted this to go on all night.
“Baby—” he moaned into her pussy.
Her breath caught and she rode his face faster.
“That’s it baby,” he said against her skin. “Ride my tongue. Fuck my face. I fucking love it.”
He smiled when she bucked. Once, twice . . . then screamed his name as silken cream flowed over his tongue and her clit throbbed and pumped against his lips.
This is what he wanted. Everything he fucking needed. Right here. Right now. In this bed with her.
“Lucky,” he rolled her over and got into the dominant position. “My fucking Lucky. There is nothing I want more than to be inside of you, pound down into you, and unleash myself inside, but—” he put his forehead on hers. “I don’t have any condoms.” And he never fucked without them . . . except with her. But he needed her permission before he did anything.
“Condoms?” she breathed, and blinked up at him. She didn’t understand. And why would she? When they were together he always pulled out except for that one time. They never used condoms.
She continued to stare at him until realization finally set in. “Oh.” She stiffened.
“Baby,” said, kissing her neck. “I’m clean. The only woman I’ve ever fucked bare is you.” He rolled her over so that he was spooning her. It was a position she tended to have more control with because he couldn’t just easily slide into her waiting pussy. He held her naked body tight to his, her bottom fitting perfectly into his hips. One of his hands was splayed across her stomach, its fingers dipped into her naked pussy, while the other hand cupped her soft breast. She arched back and rubbed against him, like a hot bitch in heat. His bitch in heat . . . all for him.
He responded to her the only way he knew how, and slid his dick inside of her pussy. “I don’t care if I put another baby inside of you. I want that.” He grabbed her to him, put his face in her neck, and bucked inside of her until she moaned and squealed. “Tell me I can.” He slid in and out of her in a slower pace, letting her come down slightly, but not too far.
“Thyssen—” she ground her bottom into him. “I was so close again.”
“I know,” he said in her ear. “I was too.” He moved inside of her then slid back out before burying himself balls deep again. Fuck it felt so good being naked inside of her; bare skin on skin made him ache to spray his seed deep within her.
She leaned back to him and his put his mouth on hers again, his tongue tangled with hers as he pistoned into her in a new growing pace. Her moans and cries of his name turned him on to an uncontrollable level, her pleas a siren to his primitive core. “Will you let me come inside of you, Lucky?”
“Yes,” she moaned long and hard.
He rolled her over, completely beneath him and drove his length into her again. He would not think about why she was on the pill. He would not think about her with another man. Jealous possession spread from his gut up through his body anyway, and he drove himself inside of her again and again, his thumbs on her clit, massaging her to new heights until she satisfied his proprietary claim by screaming his name in climax again. She gripped his upper arms and shook beneath him, her intimate squeezes on his dick sending him over the edge.
“Lucky!” He shouted her name as his balls reared up and he fired his hot, potent seed inside of her in long, gushing jets.
***
Charlotte lay spent, draped and tucked into Thyssen’s warm body, one of his big hands on her hip, the other stroking her hair. “We never did get your pants off,” she mused and ran her hand across his lower stomach and still semi-aroused cock. The man was still an ever-ready animal and far from done with her yet. He always had been insatiable, wanting to make love two and three times a night.
His pants remained forgotten at his knees after she’d opened the zipper and he’d roughly shoved them down to take her. His shirt was still on while she lay stripped naked of her housecoat, which lay somewhere twisted on the bed, battered beneath their flurried coupling.
“I don’t want details, Lucky. Just tell me how many others there’ve been since me.” Thyssen’s voice came rough through the darkness.
She closed her eyes. “Why would you want to know that?”
“How many?”
“Can I ask you the same?
“I’ve already told you.”
And he had, last night. He’d told her everything, and answered every question she had without her having to ask. She knew exactly what happened to him from before he’d questioned Ian’s paternity to the moment he opened his eyes in the shed. Now it was all up to her as to what she did with the information. Forgive him. Punish him. Make him leave. She sighed. “Two.”
His fingers tightened on her hip. “I want them dead.”
She lifted her head and looked at him.
“Both of them. Dead.”
“Thyssen—”
“Who were they?”
“I’m not telling you. They didn’t mean that much—just two men keeping me a woman instead of just Ian’s mother, but they shouldn’t be punished for it.”
Thyssen lifted her up his body, and threaded one hand through her hair, the other gentle on the side of her face. “Yes they should. They should be made to pay. I will be the only man to keep you a woman from now on. Ian’s mother, my Lucky, or just plain Charlotte. No one else but me.” He held her eyes in the darkness.
“Okay, but what about—”
He answered her question before she had to ask.
“There’s no one else but you for me,” he said.
***
Charlotte felt a scurry of movement beside her, then the definite click of a gun. “Thyssen?” She rolled over then sat up. She blinked through the dim light at Thyssen’s shadow standing over another man on his knees. “Oh my God, Thyssen!” she screamed.
“Close your eyes, Lucky.”
He didn’t look at her. Suddenly, there was a loud bang. She didn’t hear herself scream this time. Her heart exploded into her throat and her entire head rang with a high pitched white noise. The kneeling man slumped. Thyssen’s hand was on her upper arm dragging her to stand, her feet scrambling over the floor.
She thought she heard him say, “Keep them closed.” But his voice came in waves, mixed with the ringing, as though he was yelling at her from down inside white noise wind tunnel.
She kept her eyes closed and just did what he said, everything in front of her black, expect the vision of Thyssen standing over that man’s knelt body. He jerked her to an abrupt stop.
“Go up,” he said. She heard the stateroom door slam open.
They were at the stairs. “Wh—what—” she stuttered. Her housecoat fell onto her shoulders, making her realize she was still naked from making love, seconds before the door behind her slammed closed. She opened her eyes and turned.
“Don’t look back,” said Thyssen, jerking her back around.
She tried to focus on the stairs, but it was too dark and her eyes struggled to see clearly from being squeezed closed so tightly.
He put a hand on her lower back. “Up, Lucky.”
She pulled her robe around her, sucking in the material’s familiar comfort as she climbed the stairs, her legs comple
te rubber, Thyssen’s guiding hand her only.
She squinted and held onto her ears when she came up into the early morning dawn.
“Fucker.” Thyssen kicked the stair hatch closed and locked it. He guided her to the padded bench at the boat’s stern. “Sit.”
She sank down onto the cushions as he went down on his haunches before her, his big hands on her knees. She looked at the stair’s closed and locked hatch.
“Is he—dead?”
“Yes.” His eyes stayed on her. “And he’s not going anywhere.” He put his palms on either side of her face. “Don’t look back.”
A hard breath shuddered from deep inside her body. “I won’t.” Her teeth started to chatter. “He could have killed our son.”
“Yes.” Thyssen’s fingers stroked her face. “Our son. And you. For that he will burn.”
*****
“Mommy!” Thyssen turned as Ian half-ran, half-toddled down the dock to where he helped Charlotte down off his boat. It had taken half the day to clean up, wrap up and bury The Stop’s dead body deep. He wasn’t going to be found, not in one piece anyway.
“Oh thank, God, Ian!” Charlotte picked up the excited little boy and squeezed him to her, overjoyed to see him safe.
Thyssen wasn’t sure how to interact with that kind of scene yet, but planned to learn how. Instead, he turned to his father who ambled up the dock, customary fishing hat on his head and cigarette hanging out of mouth. Some things just never changed. Yorgos, Stavros and Tomas brought up the rear, chattering between them like magpies.
Thyssen put his hand out to his father who shook it before pulling him in for a strong hug. “Thank you. I owe you.”
“Fuck off with that.” Iannis grunted and flicked ashes into the water. “Everyone’s alive.”
Yorgos came up behind Iannis. “And we spoke to Pavlos.”
“You spoke to that cocksucker,” Stavros broke in. “We—” he pointed between himself and Tomas. “Spoke to the Bitch and she will deal with that piece of shit. It’s all over. You can keep your hands and family clean.”
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