by Aidy Award
Gray picked me up and carried me to the couch and sat. He covered my face in kisses, stroking every bit of my skin he could get to. I needed to touch him too, to inhale him, to know that he wasn’t a ghost.
The sound of the doorbell broke our reunion bubble. It was okay. We’d been expecting her.
We’d left Serena to take care of the business of Foster’s remains. It was her mess. She needed to clean it up.
“Angel, I’d like you to officially meet Serena.”
“Serena.” The line from the poems drifted back from the blackest parts of my memory.
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Serenity.
“Serena. Serenity. You were Foster’s Serenity.”
Serena’s eyes went wide and then she sunk into the chair across from us and sighed. The suited and staunch composed woman who’d come into my club, who’d brought me Gray turned into a sad, lonely girl right before my eyes.
“Yes. I am. I’m also the reason you had to think Gray was dead.”
No manches.
My fists balled up and every muscle in my body tensed. This chick was going down. Now.
Gray stroked a hand through my hair. “Calm down, my love. Listen to what she has to say.”
This better be good. It had better be god damned amazing.
Serena rubbed two fingers over her forehead, the way one does when they’ve had the same headache for a long time. When she began to speak, her voice was quiet.
“I was there that day. The day of the explosion. I’d been tracking Foster. Watching him get more and more volatile. It broke what little bit of my heart I have left to see him devolve that way.” She sank into the chair, and farther away from me.
“You knew he was psycho.” I wanted to hurt Serena like she’d hurt me. For a fraction of a second, I understood what Foster had done.
“I didn’t know he would go this far. I’m sorry, Angelina. It’s my fault. All of it.” Her voice sounded hollow.
“She saved me.” Gray announced it like she was a fucking hero. Like my world hadn’t gone up in the flames of that explosion.
A terrible anger bubbled up from the darkest part of my heart that never thought it would see the light ever again.
I turned to Gray and unleashed my fury. “You were alive, and you let me think you were dead. You were alive all this time, while I slowly died a thousand deaths missing you, grieving you.”
“I didn’t want to stay away. But I didn’t know how else to keep you safe.” His heart, the one that belonged to me, was on his sleeve. I saw the hurt and anguish in every line on his face, heard it in the tired tone of his voice.
I couldn’t rail against that, against him. I was mad, yes, but I’d lost a lot of time without him already. I touched my forehead to his.
“I don’t care if I was safe.” My voice cracked. “I only cared about you.”
“I know. I’m sorry and I’ll ask you to forgive me as many times over as you want.” Gray wrapped me into his arms tight enough I couldn’t move, except for the sobs that wracked my body.
I wasn’t crying. I was done with tears. But the grief and torment of the past months fought to come out. I gasped for air, and my entire body tremored with the earthquake of emotions under the surface.
“Look at me, baby.”
I lifted my head, looked into his eyes, and space and time and grief and pain slipped away. Which left me and Gray. Together at last.
He stared into my soul and continued to stroke my hair. “I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. Because I am yours. You’ve claimed me.”
Slowly my breathing returned to normal. A hollow place in my heart had been filled in again. I wanted to melt into him. I still wasn’t sure he was real, but there was still anger inside of me that had to be dealt with. “Don’t forget that I’m yours too. Never forget that.”
He nodded and glanced at Serena. “I should have before. It was my mistake to think that letting you and Foster think I was dead would keep you safe.”
I’d much rather be mad at Serena than Gray. “Why didn’t she come forward if she knew so much? She could have prevented this whole disaster.”
“She couldn’t,” Gray said, shaking his head.
“She wouldn’t.” I didn’t know if she was a coward or plain mean. Both probably.
“No, love. Serena is CIA. As far as we or anyone else knows, she was never even here at all.”
The CIA? Then she sure as shit had the resources to have prevented this, or let me know that Gray was alive, or not gotten involved with Foster in the first place.
Serena had some splainin’ to do. “I get that the CIA is all super-secret sneaky, but that doesn’t explain why I had to think you were dead.”
Gray and Serena exchanged a look, and Gray nodded his head. Giving her some sort of signal.
She nodded back and then looked at me. “I was deep undercover when Gray and Foster’s team got the call to rescue me.”
Let her defend herself, or apologize, or whatever. “And?”
A dark cloud crossed her eyes. I recognized the pain of losing someone in her. I could empathize, but my sympathy wasn’t ready to come out and play yet. I stayed silent and frowning.
Serena took a breath and stretched her neck like a long-lost ache was still there. “My cover was blown because the organization who thought I was simply the ambassador’s daughter found out about my CIA affiliation because of the affair with Foster. We were damn young back then. I was idealistic and stupid, and I paid the consequence.”
“As did Foster.” Gray piped in trying to help Serena’s plight.
I gave him a dirty look for it. “Not nearly enough.”
“I betrayed him, am still betraying everything the two of us had. I thought he’d get over it, over me. I knew I never would, but I didn’t think he’d carry those scars around for this long.”
She jumped up like something had bit her on the butt and started pacing. “Or that they’d drive him insane. I watched him make more and more wrong turns, getting darker and more vengeful by the day. I told myself it would all be okay. Until he came here.”
“You knew he was coming after us and you did nothing.” For that, she was worse than Foster to me. Gray might trust her, but I never would. She could have warned us. We could have been prepared.
She turned away from us, staring into nothing. “I came to stop him. But I was too late.”
We waited for her to say more, but either she wasn’t going to, or couldn’t.
Gray continued her story for her. “When the car exploded, she had a choice. She could either nab Bennett or save me. She pulled me from the wreckage. I woke up in a hospital, a week later. Serena had already begun the wheels of her plan to draw Foster away from you and to her. I wanted to contact you right away, but I thought she was right and I couldn’t risk your life because of me anymore.”
Mierda. “I will always be grateful that she saved you. But it’s going to take me a long time to forgive her for taking you away from me.”
Gray kissed me gently on the lips. “I know, my love.”
Serena rubbed her fingers across her brow again. “I’m sorry, Angelina.”
I nodded. “I need you to do something for me.”
“Name it.”
“One of my… friends, has gone missing, and I think Foster had something to do with it. Can you use your resources to find him?”
“Ilario?”
That surprised me. “Yes. I know he wasn’t working for Foster like the FBI says. He would never do that to us.”
She fiddled with her sunglasses and moved toward the door. “No. He wouldn’t have, and he didn’t.”
I was seriously going to have to kill this woman. “Wait. You know where he is.”
“I do, and so does Gray. I’ll let him talk to you about it.”
That was a too omino
us sounding for my liking.
“I have to go. Gray, you should stay under the radar for a few more days, at least until my staff sorts out the files on your death.”
Gray raised an eyebrow. “You mean hack the databases and make it look like I was never gone.”
“Something like that.” Serena left, and strangely, the doorway camera I’d kept even after I’d fired the bodyguards showed her in the hall one minute, and then nothing, the next.
I cared about that for less than a millisecond. I had a big, dominant, sexy, love of my life to spend my time caring about.
“I’m still mad at you.”
He pressed his forehead to mine. “That’s fine, as long as you allow me to spend the rest of my days making it all up to you.”
“You’ve got a lot of missed time to make up for, mister.”
“Then we’d better get started.” Gray lifted my shirt and kissed his way across my chest, across the scar from the bullet in my shoulder.
His lips on my skin felt like a dream. Not a fantasy, but a dream I’d had so many of the nights he’d been gone.
I reached behind my body and unhooked my bra, then slid it off my arms. My hands were in Gray’s hair faster than a blink and I pulled him to my breast.
He licked and sucked, nipped and tugged on my nipple with his teeth. “You’re fucking beautiful, Angel. You have no idea how many times I imagined exactly this. How much the denial of your soft skin made me shake with need.
But I did. “I do know. As often as I dreamed of you.”
Gray moved me off his lap and laid me on the couch. In not so much as a minute he had us both naked.
I ran my hands across his chest. There were new scars there too, one that ran all the way from his ribs to his collarbone. “Are these from the explosion?”
“Yes. But the bigger one is the one you can’t see across my heart. It tore bloody damn shreds into me each day I had to be away from you.”
I took Gray’s hand in mine and pressed it against my sternum. “I have one that matches.”
“I know you do. I intend to love you hard enough that every day the pain will fade.” Gray pressed his lips to the skin above my heart and then worked his way up my neck until our mouths locked.
I would never get enough of kissing him, feeling his body pressed to mine. Not as long as we both would live.
I broke the kiss and held his face in my hands. “Gray, will you marry me?”
He smiled and gave me a quick peck on the mouth. “You’re stealing my line, sweetheart.”
I’d make a happy thief. “But have I stolen your heart?”
“You didn’t need to. You’ve had it since the day I met you. I’ll marry you, Angelina, and I’ll love you beyond death, until the end of time.”
All the wounds of my past, all the hurts that had tortured me from the day I was born until now, were soothed, healed, and a new life began for us that moment.
I wrapped one leg around his, opening myself to him. “Make me yours now, Grayson.”
He buried his head into the crook of my neck and his cock deep inside of me in one thrust.
He filled me like only he could, like only he ever would. I hugged his body close to mine and we moved in a rhythm all our own, making each other feel every beat of our hearts, every touch of our bodies.
“God, I want this with you forever, my love.” He peeled my arms from around his body and pushed them over my head, holding them there.
“Yes, Gray. Take me, make me yours.
His thrusts became more rapid, pushing my body, my pleasure higher.
“You are mine. Mine. You’re mine forever.”
He split my hands, taking one in each of his, our fingers intertwined over my head. I couldn’t tear my eyes from his even if I wanted to. Our bodies reached for the climax together. Our souls yearning to prove we were together forever.
“Say my name, Angel. Say you’re mine.”
“I’m yours, Gray. Forever I’m yours.” With my words, my body exploded, brighter than the light of a thousand stars. I arched into Gray, pushing him deep into my body.
He called out my name and let his own release take him. We were one. We were together.
Forever.
At Last
Gray and I didn’t leave the loft for a week. We didn’t even leave the bedroom for the majority of that time.
Once I was sure his return was one-hundred percent real and I knew he wasn’t going anywhere, I got up the courage to ask him about Ilario.
I hadn’t made his voice up that day at the club. He had been there and he’d tried to save us.
Ilario had been the bleeding man in the car. When we’d left Texas and Ilario needed something new in his life, Gray had used his connections to get him recruited. To what I didn’t exactly understand. All I knew is that Ilario had military intelligence experience that he was putting to good use.
It was how Gray had found him for me in the first place.
Ilario hadn’t been trying to run me down in the parking lot, he’d been racing to save me.
My poor sweet Ilario.
My sweet super secret sneaky spy, Ilario. Who had given his life to save mine.
Gray held my hand, as we stood in the cemetery surrounded by our friends. Our family. “You’re sure this is what you want to do, Angel?”
“Yes. I’m sure. The club means mostly pain to me now. But it means a lot to many other people. This is the right thing to do.”
“We’re ready to begin, Miss Cruz.” The officiant I’d hired to conduct the funeral touched my arms and nodded toward the people gathered at the columbarium.
“Thank you.”
We moved over to the wall and I took the hands of both Cade and Dominic. They were the two other people closest to Ilario, and would miss him as much as I would.
“We are gathered here to remember the life of Ilario Russo. He was a bright spirit in a world with too much darkness and he will be missed by all those who knew him.”
The service lasted as long as it took for us all to say a few words about our beautiful friend. Which turned out was a lot of words and a long time. When it was over, we all met back at the bar at Devils and Angels.
Jim poured drinks for everyone and we toasted Ilario, his smiling face, and his true faithfulness.
Dominic raised his glass and we all followed suit. “To Ilario the Lothario. Our friend till the end. He died trying to save our skins, now he’s up in heaven. Here’s hoping you’ve found a big-bottomed angel of your own whose thick thighs you can spend eternity between.”
“Hear hear.”
We drank and told stories and laughed and cried a bit more.
“I can’t believe he’s gone.” Cade held hands very tightly with Vanessa.
I was glad they’d found each other, and Danica had been right. They were perfect together.
“I could kill the little bugger for trying to save us from Foster. If he hadn’t been in that car, if he’d just stayed in city….” Hawk was taking the news of Ilario’s death hard.
Lilly rubbed her belly, and I was sure it would pop at any moment even though she still had a few more months. Pregnancy had agreed with her, filled out her angles and given her curves. She was beautiful when I’d met her. She was stunning with this healthy glow of imminent motherhood on her. “We’ve been meaning to talk to you all about this, and I guess now’s a good time. We’d like to name the baby Ilario.”
I hugged Lilly and let one more tear fall. “That would be lovely. He would be tickled.”
“The lad’s going to have a mouthful trying to get his own name out. Ilario Callum Robert Finn.
Lilly’s eyes got wider with every syllable Hawk said aloud. She rolled them when he’d finished. Under her breath she said to me, “If I have my way, and you know I always do, two or three of those names are not making it on the birth certificate.”
“I heard that, lovey.”
She winked at me, and I had no doubt about who would win that battle
.
A few of the club’s other members who felt like family, but who hadn’t known Ilario in person came to the wake to lend their support, including Danica.
I was glad to see her there.
“Dani, do you have a minute for me?”
“Of course.”
“Good, let’s sit.” I led her to a couch a few feet away from everyone else. “How’s it going with Grant?”
She shook her head. “Oh, geez. I don’t know. He drives me crazy in all the worst ways and all the best. I think we’ll probably end up killing each other.”
“I know a very sturdy St. Andrews cross that might help you work your problems out.”
She laughed.
I took her hand in mine. “I’d like to give it to you.”
“Give me what? The cross?” Her brows turned down, confusion written across her face.
“Yes. That and the club too.”
The confusion turned to surprise. “Umm, I don’t understand.”
This was the right thing to do. For all of us. “Gray and I have talked a lot about what we want out of our future. The key thing is time with each other. It’s not like either of us has to work, so we’ve decided not to.”
She stared at me open mouthed for a full ten seconds. “You’re giving up Devils and Angels?”
I took her hand and squeezed it. “I’m giving it, as in my majority share in the business, to you.”
“But…”
I knew this would be a surprise, but I was also confident she’d take me up on the offer. “You get what I was trying to do with this place. You’re the perfect person to take over the helm. You’re strong, confident, and you’ll be able to put those domination skills to work for you, instead of against you.”
She opened her mouth, shut it, then opened it again. She managed an “uh.”
“I’ll understand if you decide this isn’t right for you. But I think it is. You could get as much out of running this place as it will get from you.”
She shook her head, but it slowly turned to a nod. “I’m flabbergasted.”
That was okay. There was a built in family to help her. “I understand. I’ve already talked to Cade, Dominic, Hawk and Lilly. They all own a share and had a vote. Every one of them wants you to accept.”