Page 53

One looked up, then jogged over to where he and Laryn were standing.

“Yes, Sir?” he asked, saluting his superior officer.

“I’m taking Laryn home. She won’t be here tomorrow. Don’t fuck up my chopper, okay?”

Chuck smirked. “Of course not, Sir. It’s about time she got a day off.”

“Tate! I need to talk to him.”

“No, you don’t. You need to go home. Relax for half a second.”

“I agree,” Chuck said. “Don’t worry, we won’t do anything you wouldn’t approve of. ”

“You better not,” Laryn said, narrowing her eyes and glaring at the man.

The sergeant simply chuckled.

Casper put his hand on the small of Laryn’s back and pushed her toward the large open bay doors. “If you need anything…don’t call,” he told the sergeant.

“Roger.”

“Ignore him!” Laryn called over her shoulder. “If anything happens, let me know!”

Chuck merely waved, then turned back to the group of men he’d been talking to before being summoned.

“That was rude,” she admonished.

He simply shrugged. “If I let you have your conversation, it would’ve lasted for at least an hour. I simply took the more expedient route.”

“You’re annoying,” she groused, but Casper noticed she didn’t contradict him.

“But you love me anyway,” he told her with a smirk.

“Yeah, I do.”

Her words sunk in as they stepped outside, and Casper stopped in his tracks. “What?”

“What, what?” Laryn asked, looking around in alarm.

Casper took her face in his hands and tilted her chin up, so she had no choice but to look him in the eyes. “What did you just say?”

“Um…I don’t know?”

“You love me?” he asked, feeling uncertain and off-kilter for some reason.

She chuckled a little nervously, then shrugged. “Oh. Yeah.”

“You love me.” This time it wasn’t a question.

“Tate, I’ve loved you for years. We’ve talked about this. It’s why I was looking for another job. Because being around you and having you not even know I existed was becoming too painful. ”

Without a word, Casper took Laryn’s hand in his own and strode faster toward his car.

“Tate! What’s the rush?”

At the passenger side, Casper turned and pressed her against the metal.

He leaned in and said, “The rush is that I want to get the woman I love, who loves me back, to my apartment. My bed. I want to make love to her and show her in a million different ways how sorry I am that I didn’t see the best thing in my life was right in front of me for years.

Make sure she knows that from here on out, she comes first in my life.

Before my job, before my team, before any kids we might have.

You’re my everything, Laryn Hardy. I’ll spend the rest of my life making the last three years up to you if you’ll let me. ”

“Tate,” Laryn whispered as tears filled her eyes.

“No crying,” he admonished, not able to stomach seeing her tears, even if they were happy ones.

“Sorry,” she said with a sniff.

Casper wiped the wetness from her cheeks. “I love you, Laryn. So much it should scare me. But instead, it just feels right.”

“Same.”

“Good. So you have any objections to me taking you home and making love to you in my bed? My domain. I am man, hear me roar. Me man, you woman.”

She giggled. “No.”

“Good. Because when I’m done with you, you’re never going to want to look at another man.”

“I don’t want anyone else. Just you. It’s always been you, Tate.”

Her words echoing in his brain, Casper leaned down and kissed her hard. “My brother wants to come out and meet you. Really meet you, not just in passing on a ship like last time. He’ll bring Josie. You have a problem with that?”

“Of course not. I want a chance to get to know both of them too. I really liked Josie when we talked on the phone the other night.”

A bone-deep rightness settled in Casper’s belly. He realized it was happiness. Contentedness. A feeling of having found someone who fit him perfectly. He’d only felt this way with one other person in his entire life before…his twin.

He stared at her for a beat, before pulling her away from the door and opening it. “In,” he ordered.

Laryn rolled her eyes at him. “No, I thought I’d ride on top.”

“I’ll let you ride on top,” he said suggestively.

“That was so corny,” she sighed, but she was smiling when she said it, so Casper wasn’t worried she was turned off by his crassness.

He realized he was smiling like a loon as he ran around to the driver’s side. He couldn’t wait to get them home and finally make long, slow, sweet love to the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

Laryn woke up and turned over, grinning when she saw Tate lying next to her with one arm over his head, mouth open, snoring slightly.

When they’d gotten home the evening before, he decided they should eat before they went to bed, that they’d need the energy and calories for what he had planned for that evening.

They’d both had a glass of wine with dinner, and when she’d gone into the bedroom while he tidied the kitchen, she’d fallen asleep before he’d even arrived.

The full belly, the exhaustion of the previous week, of still recovering from her ordeal, and the alcohol, it had all combined to make her essentially pass out.

But now she was awake, after a full night’s rest…and remembering the sweet way Tate had said he loved her had Laryn more than ready to make up for lost time. Yes, they’d had sex…made love …before, but this time felt different. Special. More permanent.

She eased the covers back, smiling as she remembered doing this previously, in her own bed.

In her apartment. But this time, the second she wrapped her hand around his cock, he woke up.

It took him only a split second to figure out where he was and who he was with.

Then Laryn found herself on her back with a very aroused Tate hovering over her.

“Morning,” he said huskily.

Would she ever get used to waking up with this man at her side? She hoped not. She hoped it would feel as special as it did right this moment.

“Morning,” she told him with a shy smile. She had no idea why she was feeling so bashful all of a sudden. They’d slept plastered against each other for the last week, and he’d had his mouth between her legs before, not to mention his cock.

“How do you feel?”

“Um…good. Why?”

“Rested? Are you hungry or thirsty?”

“Yes, no, and no.”

“I don’t care who calls, who knocks on the door, or if aliens land outside this apartment building, nothing is going to keep me from making love to you.”

Laryn shifted under him with arousal. “Sounds good to me.”

“I love you, Laryn. It sucks that we lost so much time because I had blinders on for three damn years. But I wised up, and I’m so excited for what the future holds for us both.”

“Me too,” she said, feeling the pesky goose bumps she got so often around this man spring up on her arms. “I should warn you that I’m not going to be the kind of woman who quits her job to stay home and raise the kids.”

Her words made Tate smile even wider.

“What? Why are you smiling like that? ”

“Just hearing you talk about having kids with me makes me feel ridiculously giddy.”

Laryn rolled her eyes. “I’m not ready right this second,” she added.

Tate nodded. “But someday. I can’t wait to see our little red-haired terrors running around. We’ll go camping, I’ll build a tree fort in the backyard of the house I’ll buy for you someday.”

“Wait, why can’t I buy a house for you ?” Laryn argued.

“I don’t give a shit who buys what for who. Just that we talk about it beforehand and it’s what’s best for our finances.”

“Good answer,” Laryn said with a grin. “And I want to teach our kids, no matter if they’re boys or girls, everything my dad taught me about cars.”

“Sounds good. And I’m going to want to spend as much time with Nate as possible. And any kids they have. I want the cousins to be as close as siblings.”

“That sounds awesome. I always wished for someone to hang out with when I was growing up. I think that’s why my dad and I were so close. Oh! And we need a beagle.”

“The one you want to name Waffles,” he said.

“You remember that?” Laryn asked.

“I remember everything.” Tate was still smiling.

“I’m happy,” he said almost reverently. “I know some people would say our relationship has moved too fast. That you being kidnapped just accelerated things even more and we need to hit the pause button. But screw that. I know what I feel, and I love you. I’ve known you for years and vice versa.

You know all the negative things about me and yet by some miracle, you’re still here.

With me. In my bed. My job isn’t easy, I’m away a lot…

hell, so are you. But we can make this work.

I know it. I’m keeping you, Laryn. You’re it for me. ”

Laryn had never heard more romantic words in her life.

When Tate said he was keeping her, it felt so different than when Mert had declared her as his.

She wanted to be Tate’s. Wanted him to keep her forever and ever.

“I never thought this would be my life,” she said softly, her voice full of emotion.

“I tried to be content just being around you and not being with you. Things won’t be easy, but I hope I’ve proven to you that I have your back, and you more than did the same for me.

Hey, wait…whatever happened to Barb the Bitch from Anchor Point? ”

“She’s gone.”

“She is? What happened?”

Tate smirked. “Let’s just say, rumors spread about Barb’s…

er…eccentric sexual preferences. All lies of course, and nothing illegal, but embarrassing enough that people laughed every time they saw her at work.

Sailors who went into the bar joked about her, loudly.

Basically, they made every shift she was working extremely uncomfortable.

She was the butt of everyone’s joke and she finally quit. I heard she left the state.”

“Oh. Good.”

“Are we done talking about other women?”