by Body, Heart
He tightened his hand around her throat, and she didn’t even blink.
“Twelve years is a lot of years with a person. You forget, darling, I know where the bodies are buried.”
He heard Kira’s gasp and smiled. He’d have to assure her later he was merely speaking metaphorically.
“You want to rot, be my guest.” He shrugged. “You want to take Miguel, Jack, Gracie, Ben with you,” his lips pressed together, slanting downward, “I couldn’t care less. But you will not touch Kira.” He spat out each word slowly and watched her expression of defiance. “In about two seconds, I’m walking out of here with her and if you so much as send us a Christmas card from the other side of the world, I’ll be on the phone to your brother so fast, you won’t have time to blink, let alone hide.”
He saw the blood drain from her face and for a half second he had a flash of conscience, before he remembered it was wasted on her.
“You’re bluffing.” She laughed a little nervously. “You don’t have the balls, darling.”
Dev tightened the grip on her throat, a snake like grin slowly spreading across his face.
“I’m not playing anymore. I’ll leave you alone, wish you God’s speed, never darken your doorstep again, but I will protect what’s mine to the death, Barbara, and I won’t have a hint of conscience doing whatever I need to.”
He loosened his hold on her throat and took a step back, sorrow swamping him for a second, because whatever it had become, it had started out saving him. A momentary flicker of tenderness had him kissing her forehead, then whispering in her ear, “Take care of yourself and don’t waste so much energy on destroying people.”
Dev watched her for a moment, knowing he’d rattled her, but knowing she wouldn’t let him have the last word. She didn’t disappoint.
“You think she’ll stay with you? You’re tainted, remember?”
He ignored her. Turning instead to Kira and taking her hand, he led her from the building. A light mist was rapidly turning into a light rain as they made their way across the parking lot. When he got her to his car, he stopped to kiss her hard and greedily on the mouth as the rain became heavier quickly soaking through Kira’s soft sweater. He pulled off his leather jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. When he finished, she blinked up at him, wiping water from her face. “I love you.”
He laughed, spreading his arms wide and dropping his head back letting the now consistent downpour drench him, before taking her in his arms. Never had he been happier.
“And I love you, beautiful. More than I ever knew it was possible to love someone. Will you ever forgive me for everything I’ve done? Every time I failed to trust you, pushed you away and said deplorable things to you. When I think back on it all, I should have been shot that first night.”
He caressed her cheek softly, pulling her body as close as possible to shield her from the worst of the downpour.
“I can’t believe how base I was that night.”
Kira smiled up at him, blinking rainwater from her lashes.
“I’m glad you are exactly who you are, Dev. I wouldn’t change anything.” She kissed his lips softly. “You are absolutely perfect in your imperfections and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Relief washed over him in buckets as he laughed from his heart. Thanking God above for bringing him Kira, because there wasn’t any other way he could think of that someone like her would cross the path of someone like him. He turned the key in the lock and opened the car door for her. As she got in, she looked back up at him. “Where will we go now?”
As love swamped his heart and the realization dawned that his life wasn’t over as he’d believed for so long, but was only just beginning, he kissed her lips and whispered back,
“Everywhere, beautiful. Everywhere.”
Epilogue
Two years later.
As Dev held his infant daughter in his arms, the sun was setting off the port side and his beautiful wife was having yet another Titanic moment, laughing, her arms outstretched welcoming the strong mist that drenched her hair and made her thin summer dress transparent.
He smiled, feeling his groin tighten.
“Your mama’s one sexy water nymph.” He kissed the soft dark hair of his precious angel. “And one hell of a woman to boot. You’re a very lucky young lady.”
The infant gurgled as if in agreement and Dev tucked her against his chest. Two months later and he was still in awe. The kind of bone-deep awe only a helpless child that you helped create could inspire. He splayed her teeny little fingers and his breath caught in his chest the way it always did. He had no idea what he’d ever done to deserve such a life, but he’d known the instant he’d seen the tiny bundle in her mother’s arms, that he would protect her with his life. Nothing was going to harm his angel.
It was in that moment that the last vestige of darkness standing between himself and all the happiness life could hold melted away. Summer had come to the frozen depths of his soul. Sunlight shone in, sweeping through, warming everything when he realized once and for all he was nothing like his father.
He moved up behind Kira, wrapping his free arm around her waist and pulling her back against his chest beside their daughter. Kira reached behind her to brush the child’s hair.
“Ava asleep?”
“Almost. Want to go below with me and tuck her in?”
Dev waggled his brows at her. Kira instantly appeared to get the underlying implication and giggled her sexy, God-I’m-so-turned-on giggle. Dev went completely hard so fast he had to maneuver his cock within his pants.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
A little while later, with their daughter safely tucked in her crib and the moon bathing their cabin, Dev devoured his wife’s pussy until she screamed. Luckily for them, Ava was a heavy sleeper. Dev knew within the year he’d need to buy them a house with a yard and probably a dog, but for now he loved living on his boat with his little family. Although Kira nearly delivering Ava on board with only himself, Dodge, Sarah and Banfield as mid-wives hadn’t been good, but they’d made it to a port in time and she delivered safely, and in the end that was all that mattered.
“Tell me how much you want me, beautiful.”
He lapped at her pussy, savoring the juices his desire called forth.
“I want you, Dev.”
She was breathless and so close, but Dev wasn’t in the mood to be fast tonight. He slowed his pace, smiled wickedly and asked, “But how much, mon amour?”
God he loved her. loved her more every day. And he was so damn proud of her as well. With Dev’s encouragement, Kira finished her art degree via distance-education classes over the internet. He knew that regardless of her new attitude about her own self-worth, not finishing when she was so close would someday come back and haunt her. She was a gifted artist, and in the time they’d been together, she’d sketched and sculpted him in every media possible. She said he was her muse. And though he always blustered a slew of curses and denials whenever she brought it up—especially in front of people—he liked that idea.
To celebrate their daughter’s one-month birthday, she’d presented him with a sketch of their baby daughter. He’d had it framed and hung here in the cabin next to the first sketch she’d ever given him. She’d done it over that first summer, sketching him secretly whenever he slept. He nearly cried when she’d given him that and still wasn’t sure anyone had ever given him something that had touched him more. Well, except for maybe his daughter.
“So much, Dev.” She was breathless and whining. “Finish me, Dev. God please, I want to come.”
She had her sketches and sculptures displayed in over a dozen galleries now. All in little cities with harbors, and when they visited the towns, she was treated like royalty. Dev ate it up, loved that his wife was successful and happy, and was currently writhing beneath him in a last bid of frenzied passion before he sent her over the edge.
Her sighs became moans, became screams, became whimpers. It was
then Dev moved up beside her, kissing her deeply, sharing her essence from his tongue with her. She sucked at it wildly and he nearly laughed remembering thinking she’d never be able to keep up with his sexual drive.
They’d married almost immediately. Dev had even had Darius stand up for him as best man. And though he’d sorely missed Drake that day, no one had even heard from him in years at that time so there was really no other choice. Darius’ presence had meant a lot though, and the fact that Kira and he had gotten on so well really lead to a reconciliation between the brothers, and Darius had been the first person he’d called when Ava was born.
He couldn’t believe he was about to celebrate his fortieth birthday with a wife and daughter all his own. It was all he’d ever been afraid to dream for, and he owed Kira everything.
He brushed his hair back over his head as her soft mouth took hold of him and she sucked his cock into her wet, hot mouth. He thought again about when he had believed his sexual appetites too voracious for any one woman. He realized now that it wasn’t the type of sex he had been experiencing that was deficient, but the quality.
Kira filled him up more than any ten women ever had and as his cock tightened and his seed spilled into her willing mouth, he knew that would always be true. He drew her up beside him, kissing her head, nuzzling her nose with his, then filling her pussy completely with his engorged cock, hard again after exploding only minutes before. He could never get enough of Kira, and thank God, she seemed to feel the same way about him.
She moved herself atop him, smiling down in the moonlight. He grabbed her breasts, making her arch her back. Her long hair brushed his thighs as her head dropped back in ecstasy and he remembered the first time he ever laid eyes on her. Remembered all the wicked fantasies he’d had about her.
While some had never materialized, more than he ever could have dreamed that night had.
“I love you.”
She moaned as she rode his hard cock, picking up the pace, her pussy clamping down on him as she almost came off him, then releasing him as she rode back down. Exquisite torture.
He groaned and flipped her beneath him just as he felt her muscles clench and her breathing seize.
“Mon amour, ma vie.”
She fell forward, digging her hands into his hair as she came. Her pussy clamped on his cock, causing his seed to surge into her. Her tongue swirled with his, slowly tantalizing him as both their breathing slowed and she smiled against his lips as he held her body close on top of his.
“I do love you, Dev. With my whole heart.”
He nudged her nose with his, caressing her softly with his cheek, brushed his lips over hers, then her eyes, and nibbled on her lobes. His hand possessively slid over her spine and her incredible ass, pulling her so close they felt like one, and he knew it would always be this way, that they were meant to be, and no amount of running or hiding was going to change it.
Kira had taught him a very valuable lesson, something he would someday teach his own children so none of them became as much of a moron as he had.
Love has the power to change, the power to heal, and the power to save.
“And I love you, beautiful. Body, heart, and soul.”
BODY, HEART, AND SOUL
THE END
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