“I need a few days off, Sergeant.”
I hadn’t told him about Brad Sullivan and didn’t plan to.
This shit had gone on long enough and I knew the second he knew of my history with the suspect, he’d pull me off. Granted, he couldn’t stop me from staying close to my woman, but he could force me to take another assignment.
I didn’t have time for that. I had to find him and deal with him, myself.
It was the only way.
“Of course. If it was Sarah, I’d be doing the same thing.”
He muttered, his voice taking on a lighter tone as he referenced to his wife.
“Thank you, Sir. If I have any updates on Ashlee’s safety, I’ll let you know.”
The line clicked off a minute later and I lowered my phone to the kitchen counter I’d been leaning against. Dropping my face into my hands, elbows braced on the island, I struggled to get a hold of myself.
I was coming apart at the seams and I needed to get it the fuck together.
Em needed me.
“Hudson!”
My head whipped to the side the instant my ears picked up on the sound, the mixture of despaired sadness and confused awareness in her voice calling straight to my soul. I was running toward the sound, acting on pure and uncontrollable instinct and I didn’t stop until I stood in the doorway of my bedroom. After having a doctor check her bruises and the large cut on her cheek from where the fucker had slammed her head into the bathroom sink, I’d taken my girl home with me because this was the safest place for her. Her apartment had little to no security and the lock on her front door was faulty at best.
That shit wasn’t good enough to keep her safe.
Her wide eyes landed on me and the stark fear in them damn near brings me to my knees. Then she blinks once and the thick tears that fall over her beautiful, battered face had my heart splintering to pieces.
"Shit, baby, I'm here. I'm right here."
Lifting her into my arms, I carried her into the half bath attached to the room and gently set her on the lip of the large, oval tub.
Her face was buried in my neck, her blonde hair matted against my skin and her tears soaking my shirt, causing another fraction of my chest to seize with every horrid drop that fell.
What I would fucking give to take them away.
Her body begun to shake violently and all I could do was tighten my grasp on her, intent to never let her go if I had to. The words that left her full lips had me gasping for air, because this level of fury never touched me until now.
I’m not going to lie and say that I’m a good man.
I’m not.
I’ve killed people.
I’ve sinned.
I’ve done my fair share of horrible things.
But none of that matters now, because the second she’s strong enough to be without me, I’m going after the motherfucker that hurt her.
And I won’t stop until he feels the pain he’d so easily inflicted on her.
"I can still feel his hands on me, Hud. I can't..."
Her voice broke as a ragged sob, loud and filled with torment shook her small body and penetrates my heart which for so long, I’d thought was devoid of emotion. Being a cop, you have to steel yourself for the worst of situations.
You could never let emotion cloud your judgment and because of that, I’d learned early on to blacken my heart from those around me.
I didn’t have a chance of doing that with Em.
She’s mine.
"The only man that will have his hands on you from now on is me, Emberly. Just me."
Her head peeled from my throat as she nodded slowly and her hands made contact with my jaw before she lets her eyes meet mine, again.
They aren’t filled with sadness or pain, though.
They’re filled with love.
And that’s mine, too.
"I...I love you."
Something deeply rooted inside of me shattered at her soft confession and I couldn’t hold down the overwhelming press of emotion anymore. Dropping my face into the nape of her neck, I banded my hands across her hips, needing her to anchor me as I broke for the second time in the past twenty four hours.
The first time was for Tristan, my brother in arms. But this time, its all her. I can’t fucking lose this.
"I don't know what I would have done if you weren't okay when I found you. I'm a fucking mess because losing you is not something I'd survive. You own me, Darlin. Heart. Body. Soul. Everything."
"I love you, so much."
Those words healed the broken in me and I nodded against the top of her head, not knowing what I would have done if I’d have lost this.
"Em. I love you with every thing I'm made of. You have my heart. And I don't want it back, baby."
The words are straight from my heart, the heart I gave to her the second her gorgeous eyes met mine outside of the hospital, a little over two months ago.
The day my entire world changed.
The day I begun living, again.
She doesn’t say another word before she drops her face into my chest and grips the fabric with desperate fingers, holding on for dear life- just as I was holding on to her.
But when she whispers in my ear, I felt it in my soul.
“Don’t let go.”
***
The sudden empty space against my side forced me into consciousness what had to be hours later. By the time my girl was able to fall asleep again, it was barely dawn. And I was exhausted, to say the least. Somehow, I must have fallen asleep because the bright, early morning sun that peers into my bedroom tells me that much.
My hand automatically searched for the warmth of hers, my body’s natural inclination to seek hers driving me. But when I felt the chilled fabric of my sheets instead, awareness of her absence has me rushing off of the bed in an instant.
“Baby!”
The thick, blue comforter was thrown somewhere on the floor as I stumbled to my feet, eyes assessing the room before landing on the slightly open door of the bathroom. My thundering heart beat calmed when I heard the familiar sound of the shower running from inside the room. I’m reminded that we’d never showered last night- my beautiful girl had been physically and emotionally drained and sleep was what she needed more than anything else.
I grabbed a towel from the warmer near the bathroom door before moving toward the clear shower stall where I’d find her. It’s the soft sound coming from her direction that had my heart stopping in my chest, my pulse thrumming in dread and the renewed fury I’d felt after her attack coming back twice as powerfully.
What the fuck?
The first thing I noticed was the thick bruising on her normally pale, slender shoulders. They’d begun to yellow but the outline of a mans fist was evident. If I hadn’t already hated her attacker with everything inside of me, I would have after seeing her like this.
Darlin’, I’m sorry.
“Em?”
She spun around as quickly as her injuries allow and I fucking hate seeing the broken look in her eyes when she did. That wasn’t what had me gasping in a strangled breath and stumbling back a step. It was her eyes and the hopelessness emanating from their depths.My eyes moved from her face and to the rest of her and the blistered, red skin of her arms, legs and stomach has me grabbing onto the wall beside me in a futile effort to remain standing.
Steam filled the room from the hot water she let plummet her body and her ragged breathing told me how much pain she was in. But then her lavender eyes dropped from mine and she begun to scrub vigorously at her skin again and I fucking snapped. It took me two strides to get to her and even that distance was too far for me to fathom.
“Baby. I need you to fucking listen to me, right now. Got it?”
My grasp on her face was too rough, too urgent but I didn’t know how to ebb my desperation for her.
Her eyes, dull and lifeless when she looked up at me and for the first time since meeting her, I was afraid she’d deny me. Because the wa
rmth wasn’t there when I looked at her. She could so easily rip herself out of my grasp and blame me for all of this and fuck, she would be right.
But if that happened, if I lost her? I would be nothing.
Stepping closer into my space, she nodded her head just slightly, small, trembling hands curling around mine as they held her face and its like I could breathe again.
Made sense doesn’t it?
She’s my fucking air.
“You aren’t dirty, baby. You don’t need this, you don’t need to do this. You’re safe now, Em and I don’t care what I have to do, how many laws I have to break, I will keep you that way.”
I looked down into her eyes, not knowing how to fix it all. The motherfucker had made his way into her mind and fucked with her in ways I didn’t know how to reverse. How the hell was I supposed to fix her if I didn’t know what I was up against?
Ever since I first saw her, I could see everything she was thinking; feeling in these eyes. But right then, I couldn’t see a damn thing. All I saw was her sadness, her pain, her fucking fear.
And I hated it all. So I did what I knew would get through to her.
Lifting my shirt from the collar, I ripped it off of my chest and threw it onto the tiled floor before binding one arm around her waist while reaching for one of her still shaking hands with the other.
My fingers easily slipped through hers as I pressed the palm of her hand against my chest for her to feel the frantic beat of my heart against her fingers.
I knew the very moment she felt it, because she gasped before letting her head fall to my chest, next to where I’d placed our joined hands and I heard her low sobs muffled against my skin. It was breaking me to see her like this, my normally strong willed, courageous girl stripped away from her in the wake of the darkness our world was now covered in.
“I’m your shield, Em. I’m your armor against any threat, any fear, any heartache. As long as you have me, you’ll have a place to land.”
“Hudson-”
“Shh, I know.” My hand goes to her cheek, where I graze my fingertips over her skin before lowering my mouth to hers in a gentle pass of lips that is more of a whisper than a kiss.
It’s an apology.
It’s a prayer.
It’s a breathing of our mouths and a singing of our hearts and I relished every second of it.
“I want to tell you everything, Hud. Everything I’ve kept locked away. I need you to know.”
Nodding, my mouth whispers over her forehead next.
“I’ll listen, Darlin’. When you’re ready.”
“I am.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Hudson
THE MILD GRASP Emberly had on my shoulders intensifies as I moved my hands under her lush ass and lifted her up my body, the sensation of warmth her sweet curves emanate causing my dick to stir to life in my boxers.
Fuck.
Pausing my steps toward the bedroom in order to take a few deep breaths, I shook my head because that shit isn’t needed right now.
Right now, I need to get my girl to confide in me and sex can come later.
God knows I need her body under mine, again.
Soon. I silently promised myself.
“Hudson, I-”
“You don’t have to tell me, Darlin’. I need you to know that. I can see that whatever it is in your past is dark and most likely hard for you to relive and Em, I don’t want you to hurt, not if I can avoid it.”
I swear I could feel her smile against my cheek as she nodded once.
“I know that, Hud. But I have to relive it. I want you to know me, all of me- like I know you, now.”
My hand goes to the back of her head where I took the time to stroke her hair before muttering a curse.
Seems I do that a lot lately.
“Emberly.”
Meant to say more than just her name, but I found words hard to form in the chaos within my mind.
So I hold her a bit tighter while I slowly lower her to the edge of my mattress and begrudgingly release her.
“It’s okay.”
Her softly spoken words are both a reassurance and a comfort and I soak them in before lowering myself to the bed beside her and grabbing one of her hands in mine.
Interlocking our fingers, I realized something I hadn’t noticed in all the times before.
We were a perfect fit.
The thought was sappy as shit and I’d never admit to it. Nonetheless, I was grateful for it.
“I just need you to listen, okay? If I don’t say this now-” I rushed my mouth over hers, the sound of her mounting anxiety burning my ears, awakening my rage all over again.
“Not going anywhere, Darlin’. Tell me what you need to but know this.”
My hands cupped her pale, tear stained cheeks and the roughness of my flesh against hers draws my attention before I looked into her soulful, colorful eyes and just like every other time we’re close, I get lost in them.
“I’m in love with you, Emberly. Madly. Whatever shadows are in your past won’t change the way I feel about you. Nothing will.”
Her eyes gave nothing away as I said the words but the minute they registered, they closed tightly and her body softens in my hold before she peered at me, again.
“I love you, Hudson. More than you know.”
Didn’t have words to express how fucking wrong she was, since in everything she did, I felt the way she loved me.
Every time she made breakfast for me in the early hours of the morning, even on the mornings where she had to work early and could have used the extra sleep.
The way she watched me when we were together, as if she couldn’t take her eyes off of me from fear that I’d disappear. Whether simple or complex, her ways of showing me her feelings for me were a knockout punch to my chest and it was crazy that she wasn’t aware of any of it.
I wasn’t stupid; whatever she’d been avoiding telling me all of this time was big. Huge. Because otherwise, she’d have told me before today. She was the most open and honest person I’d ever met, even with her guard up. If she hid something from me, it was because she was afraid to lose this.
Felt the same way. Difference was that I knew it’d be okay in the end.
Walking away from her wasn’t an option.
“I think I always knew my dad wasn’t right. Not like fathers should be. Warm, loving, good. That wasn’t my dad. Or maybe at one time it was, before everything went wrong. When I was five years old, he lost his job at a cushy law firm he was a partner in. He’d had a contract with them, but it defaulted when the firm went under.
Since my mama hadn’t worked since giving birth to me, there wasn’t any money coming in. Soon after that, he started drinking.”
The sensation of her hands loosening between mine put my entire body on high alert and while bracing a hand on her hip, I pulled her closer to my chest and pressed my mouth to her forehead in what I hoped was a reassurance that she was safe, here with me. Always.
I couldn’t imagine the heartache this woman had felt in her young life but none of it mattered now because I was here. She was mine, now and it didn’t matter how many voices in her head told her she wasn’t worthy of this. I’d be beside her to quiet every one of them.
“I got you. Take your time.”
“It’s okay. It’s just hard to think about it, I’ve avoided it for so long, now. Thought it was easier that way.”
I nod, but don’t take my lips from her skin as I speak.
“Sometimes it is. But keeping all of this inside is a big burden to carry. You have me, now. You don’t need to carry it alone, anymore.”
“I know that,” Her hands come up to my neck where she laced thin fingers through my my hair, a soft touch that speaks volumes.
Like I said, little things.
“I didn’t think I’d have this, Hudson. A relationship didn’t seem plausible, with my past. I knew whoever I chose to love would have strong soldiers, able to handle anything and everythi
ng thrown their way. I know I’ve kept you at arms length at times and I haven’t always been easy to love-”
“Loving you is like breathing to me, Em. It’s fucking easy. And even if it wasn’t? Even if I had to fight everyday to get inside your heart? I would gladly fight with you. Because that’s the thing about love. It’s unconditional. I don’t love you because of how you look or if your thin. I don’t want you because you fit a type, because you don’t. And that’s why I fell for you, so fast, so hard. You have the biggest heart of anybody I have ever met and it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful the way you care for those around you and love so deeply. The way you make others feel is what drew me in. You have this way of lighting up the room you walk into and you never have to say a word. Darlin’, you’re perfect for me and I don’t care whether it’s easy.”
My voice was rough and unsteady and so was my touch as I caught her blushing face in ardent hands and leaned my forehead against hers as I uttered the rest.
“You are worth the fight.”
Her mouth was on mine not a second later and despite the crushing weight on my chest and the uneasiness of worry that settled in my gut at the very thought of having this conversation, I found myself breaking the brushing of our mouths with a stunned smile.
“Tell me.”
Two whispered words but I knew she heard them because she again settled herself into my side and nodded.
“I hated the night time the most. I would lay in my bed and listen to it all happen but I never got out of my bed, I never… protected her. If I could change anything in my life, it would be that.”
“Em-”
My chest felt like fucking led as I heard her words, the breaks in her voice and the subtle tremble of her full, bottom lip but her hand pressing to my chest stopped me from interrupting her. I wanted to tell her that I didn’t need to know. That she didn’t have to share this part of herself with me.
That would be a lie.
But if saying it meant she wouldn’t have to relive it all, it’d be worth it.
A white lie.
Isn’t that what they call it?
“He’d blame it on the house being a mess, call her lazy and ungrateful. He didn’t just beat her, he beat her heart down. Her soul. I remember hearing the horrible, awful things he said to her, late at night when he thought I was asleep tucked in my bed and I wanted to run downstairs and scream at my mom to fight back. To be strong. To protect herself. Imagining her sitting there, just taking his nasty words was even worse than when his belt came off. Her cries as he hit her. Her begging him to stop, the desperate pleas that went unanswered. I hated him for so long, I don’t know if I ever stopped.”
Breath We Take (Cuffed By Love Duet Book 1) Page 15