Page 64 of Rescuing Ally, Part 2 (CHARLIE Team: Guardian Hostage Rescue Specialists #8)

He lifts me into his arms, carries me down the hallway like I weigh nothing. Lays me in bed, pulls the sheets over us, and climbs in behind me. His body wraps around mine, strong and solid.

And when he whispers, “I love you,” into the shell of my ear, I don’t cry this time.

I believe it.

He doesn’t stop.

Not after the kitchen. Not after I come apart in his arms.

He laid me down like I’m breakable, but the look in his eyes says I’m not. Not tonight. Tonight I’m something to be claimed. Taken. Worshipped.

“I’m not done with you,” he says, voice low, rough velvet laced with grit. “Not even close.”

My body aches in the best possible way, but I open for him anyway. Wanting him.

Needing to feel the way he used to take me. The way he and Hank would pass me between them, relentless and hungry and so fucking loving, it ruined me.

He presses my wrists into the mattress, settles between my thighs.

“Let me remind you who you are,” he growls, and then he fucks me again.

This time is harder. Deeper. The stretch burns, and my voice is hoarse from crying out, but he doesn’t stop. He chases every sound like a man starved, devours every tremble, every shudder.

He flips me onto my stomach and pulls my hips up.

“Stay,” he growls, palm landing firm on my ass.

I do. Because I want to.

He sinks into me from behind, and everything else disappears. No grief. No guilt. Just heat and friction, and the sound of his breath rasping against the back of my neck as he takes what he needs.

What we need.

He fucks me like we used to—feral and focused. No soft edges. Just the savage kind of love that leaves marks and bruises and makes me feel alive.

I come again. Then again.

Each orgasm strips me down until there’s nothing left but the core of who I am.

Who we are.

When we finally collapse, tangled in sheets and sweat, I think we’re done.

We’re not.

Hours later, I wake to find him watching me, hard again, eyes dark.

He doesn’t say anything.

Just pulls me over him, guides me down onto his cock.

I ride him slow, hips rolling, his hands gripping mine as we find that rhythm again. The one we used to move in with Hank watching, Hank touching, Hank murmuring praise like a benediction.

My breath hitches. Gabe sees it.

He cups my face. “Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop remembering him. But don’t you dare stop loving me either.”

“I couldn’t,” I whisper. “I won’t.”

He grips my hips, thrusts up into me, hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. My moan is half a sob, half a scream.

We break again.

And rebuild.

And when morning comes, sunlight slicing across the bed, I wake to him spooned behind me, breath warm against my neck, hand splayed over my belly like he’s still holding me together.

I turn in his arms. Kiss him slowly. Deep. Hungry again, even now.

He rolls me beneath him, sinks into me without a word.

This time is different. Reverent. Lazy and tender, bodies moving in that soft early morning rhythm, skin slick, hearts steady.

When he comes, he buries his face in my neck and breathes me in like I’m the only thing that’s ever made sense.

We lie tangled in the aftermath, skin damp, muscles loose.

His voice rumbles low. “Hungry?”

I start to nod. But the thought of food curls my stomach.

“Not really.” The thought of food makes my stomach clench with familiar nausea that’s been my constant companion since—when?

Since the rescue?

Since Hank died?

Since some point when grief settled into my body and decided to stay.

“Everything still tastes wrong.”

“You need to eat something. You’ve lost weight.”

“I know.”

My clothes fit differently.

My energy levels remain consistently low despite getting adequate sleep. Even coffee tastes off most mornings.

“I just can’t seem to keep anything down. Grief, probably. Stress.”

“Maybe we should see someone. Doctor. Counselor. Someone who knows about trauma and appetite and?—”

“I’m fine.” The lie comes automatically, a defensive response to a concern that feels overwhelming when everything else requires attention. “I just need time.”

But the worried expression on his face suggests time might not be enough.

“Okay,” he says finally. “But if it doesn’t improve…”

“It will.” Another lie, but one we both need to believe right now.

We spend the morning on the deck.

“Remember the first time we brought you here?” Gabe asks, settling beside me on the bench that spans the deck’s width.

“When you and Hank tag-teamed me into agreeing to stay?” I lean against his shoulder, breathing salt air that tastes of home and possibility. “Hard to forget. I was terrified.”

“Of us?”

“Of wanting you both so much it made me stupid.” The confession comes easily. “I miss his laugh,” I say suddenly. “The way he found everything amusing.”

“I miss his coffee. He made the best coffee.”

“I miss the way he smelled after training. Sweat and soap and something that was just—him.”

“I miss his terrible jokes. The dad jokes that made us groan but also made us laugh despite ourselves.”

We trade memories like currency, each recollection both precious and painful, necessary steps in the process of transforming loss into legacy.

“I’m scared.” My admission surprises me, although it shouldn’t.

“Of what?”

“Of forgetting. Of moving on so completely that he becomes just a memory instead of part of who we are.” I turn to meet Gabe’s eyes and see similar fears reflected back. “Of being happy without him and feeling guilty about it.”

“He wants us to be happy.”

“I know. But knowing and feeling are different things.”

“Yeah.” Gabe pulls me closer. “But maybe that’s okay. Maybe guilt is just love with nowhere to go. Maybe carrying it means we’re honoring what he meant to us.”

The insight surprises me. Gabe usually processes emotion through action rather than analysis.

“When did you become so wise?” I ask.

His smile holds sadness alongside determination. “When I realized that the best way to honor his memory is to become the man he believed I could be.”

“And who is that?”

“Someone who loves you completely without trying to own you. Someone who protects without controlling. Someone who builds instead of breaks things.” He pauses, considering. “Someone who makes you happy instead of just making you come.”

The observation draws unexpected laughter from my chest, bubbling up from somewhere deeper than grief. “You’re good at both.”

“I try.”

“You succeed.”

“Ready to go inside?” Gabe asks.

“Yes.”

We step through the sliding door into warmth and light, but I stop just inside, my gaze drawn toward the hallway that leads to his half of the condo.

To the closed door at the end. Gabe’s room—a space of dominance and submission, control and surrender, pleasure and pain.

Gabe tracks my gaze, understanding flickering across his features. “Ally…”

“I know it’s there,” I say quietly. “I know what’s behind that door. I just… I don’t know if…”

“Hey.” He turns me to face him, hands gentle on my shoulders. “Look at me.”

I do, seeing patience in his eyes instead of expectation, understanding instead of disappointment.

“That room, what happens in there—it’s not going anywhere. The equipment, the dynamic, all of it can wait.” His thumb traces my cheek. “We don’t have to figure it out tonight. Or tomorrow. Or next week.”

“But you need?—”

“I need you. However you can give yourself to me. If that’s sex in our bedroom for the next year, then that’s what we do.

If it’s never going back to my room, then we don’t.

” His voice carries absolute certainty. “What I don’t need is for you to force yourself into something you’re not ready for because you think I can’t live without it. I can and I will.”

The relief that floods my system is unexpected, washing away tension I didn’t realize I was carrying.

“What if I’m never ready? What if losing him changed what I can handle?”

“Then we adapt. Find new ways to connect. New things that work for us instead of what worked for us before.” He leans his forehead against mine. “Everything’s in flux, Ally. We’re different people than we were. It’s okay if what we need from each other has changed, too.”

“You’re really okay with that? With not knowing?”

“I’m okay with whatever lets us be together. The rest we’ll figure out when we’re ready to figure it out.”

The acceptance in his voice provides permission I didn’t know I needed—to heal at my own pace, to redefine intimacy on my own terms, to let our relationship evolve instead of forcing it back into familiar patterns.

“I love you,” I tell him, meaning more than simple affection.

“I love you too,” he replies, understanding everything the words carry.

We move past the closed door that holds memories of different kinds of intimacy, toward the space we shared as three and now must learn to share as two. The room feels different—larger and smaller simultaneously, familiar yet strange, ours but also empty.

Tomorrow we’ll take another step forward. Today, we’ve done enough.