Page 80 of Ravaged
EPILOGUE
six months later
Ethan
The Las Vegas sun shined down bright on our skin, heating us like eggs on a sidewalk. The cemetery didn’t offer any shade, but was across the street from Silver Bill’s Casino, a place Oliver had frequented before his ex-wife gave birth to Teagen.
I knew more about Oliver than I wanted, but I stopped voicing my hatred for him. Teagen knew my thoughts, and saying my opinion didn’t change the fact that he was gone.
Still, we had put up a plaque for him on a memorial wall, so that his spirit could look up and see the casino… If his spirit wasn’t trapped in hell.
“See? He is somewhere sunny,” Teagen said, then leaned her head on my shoulder. “He would have loved this.”
I put an arm around her. “You did good.”
She touched my cheek. “I mean,youpicked it out.” She pointed to the crosswalk. “You want to go inside? If I’m remembering correctly, there’s a decent buffet on the second floor.”
“I could do a buffet.”
She adjusted the sunglasses on her nose and briefly touched the harp necklace on her chest. Then we walked hand in hand across the street. The simple gold bands on our ring fingers shined in the light. We couldn’t get legally married—the paper trail wasn’t worth it—but being on the run together? You were committed, for better or for worse. And for us? It had been amazing. There wasn’t a morning where I woke up and didn’t look forward to spending the day with Teagen.
Luckily, Silver Bill’s wasn’t in the main part of the city, but in the outskirts where the locals preferred to gamble. We were staying low, moving as much as we could. Teagen played her new lap harp, making music for an anonymous digital music library, and so we could go wherever the Adlers needed us to go. If Derek called, he told me where I could find another one of Muro’s henchmen, and I helped pick them off from a distance. My brothers had been there for me; it was the least I could do for them.
And by helping to eliminate Midnight Miles Corporation, I was protecting Teagen. Supposedly, they weren’t looking for Teagen anymore, now that Oliver was dead and the Pink Diamond had been recovered, but I knew I would rest easier once Muro was dead too. But I had to wait until Derek, Wil, or Axe gave the word. They were making plans. I was ready when they were.
We slung our trays through the different sections of the buffet, sampling bits of each dish.
“Mmm,” Teagen said, eating a bite of a dumpling while we were still standing, waiting for a cut of prime rib. “I bet I could make this.”
“Want to book a suite with a kitchenette next?”
She nodded. “I’d love to go to a grocery store.”
The funny thing about living with someone who had been held captive for almost the last decade of her life, was that the little things, like grocery shopping, were a thrill to her. She loved getting to pick out her own produce, or stopping at a random farmer’s market and searching for tangerine juice, because it reminded her of Iris, and made her sad, but happy, at the same time. We often sent nameless packages to the Dahlia District, full of trinkets we had found, all for her best friend.
The next stop was New Mexico. Mom hadn’t met Teagen yet but had heard plenty about her. She was ready to meet Teagen, and I was ready to introduce her. Teagen Knox. Once my captive, now my wife.
But first, a trip to the mountains.
The desert was my home. Hell, I was conceived in Vegas. But a trip to Mount Charleston, hiking through the woods before sundown, with the light filtering through the trees, did something to me. Seeing Teagen in that light, looking over her shoulder, making sure that I was following her, the bright smile on her lips, the shimmer in her green eyes, a deeper green than the trees around her, made me want to restrain her. To see her pull at the rope and chains, to see how badly she wanted more of this. More of my touch. More of me.
She hesitated next to a boulder, and my cock twitched, thinking of what I would do to her.
“Come here,” I said.
She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, visibly holding her breath. I pressed her against the nearest tree, holding both of her wrists in my hand. Then I touched my lips against hers, gently at first, then harder, until she whimpered in lust and my cock ached for her warmth. I tied her wrists together in a rope I kept with me at all times now, securing it to a branch above her, keeping her on her toes.
“Tell me what you want,” I growled in her ear.
“You,” she said, her voice quivering.
I pulled her shirt down, sucking her nipples into my mouth, and she moaned, melting to me, tripping over her own feet to get closer to me.
“Anyone could see you, little one,” I said in a low voice. “Anyone could walk down that path, look into the trees, and see you here, being used. By me.”
I pinched her nipple between my fingers, then took her into another deep kiss. She gasped, that sharp intake of air that showed how much she loved it. She spread her legs, trying to get closer to me, and I growled, palming her ass, ripping off our pants, hoisting her up until we were fucking. A mewl escaped from her lips, showing that she wanted more, and not because of anything other than the fact that she loved me. Life might not have been the lifestyle I expected for myself. I didn’t have the money that came with being a mobster, nor the brotherhood to go along with it.
But if I got to see her bright eyes flutter awake in the morning, if I got to make her gasp like that in sweet surrender, then life was perfect. It was a future worth fighting for.
THE END