Page 46

TWO MONTHS LATER

Sweat drips down my face and back as I push myself to run faster along the track beside the coastline. The ocean crashes on the cliffs beside me, drowning out the sound of my rapid breaths filling my chest with salty air.

In the distance, the sun rises, the first rays of daylight promising me a new day and all its possibilities.

A life that I won’t ever take for granted.

I slow my pace as I approach my home.

Peyton’s home.

Our home.

Two months ago, I walked without crutches for the first time. Now, I’m running up hills and taking combat classes.

Last week, I returned to the Legion and tested my strength in a training session with Slade, gratified to find that I’m strong enough to challenge him again. He seemed pleased about it—right before he put me on my backside.

I slip inside the front door and head through the space Peyton has taken to calling the visitor’s area , moving very quietly once I get to the private part of the house.

There isn’t much point in trying to creep inside.

To provide an airlock of sorts between the outside world and the private area, I had a door placed at both the bottom and the top of the stairs leading up to the private area.

But the moment I open the door at the top of the steps, Peyton’s aware of it.

On her first night here, I stayed in one of the guest bedrooms. Well, that is, my head had rested on the pillow for about two seconds before she came to find me.

“Is this where you want to sleep?” she’d asked, hovering in the doorway with her brow furrowed.

“Not really,” I said.

“Then don’t.” She held out her hand to me, and when I took it, she drew me back into the private area of the house, across the living area, and into the bedroom I’d prepared for her.

She must have looked through the closet already because the few pieces I’d added to it—I’m not about to tell her what she should wear, only give her some options before I send her out with a credit card—were strewn about the floor.

“Will you sleep here?” she asked, pointing to the bed. “With me?”

“Sleep, yes,” I said firmly.

She broke into a smile that made it very difficult to keep my resolve and said, “Okay. For now.”

By the time she emerged from the shower dressed in a soft shirt and shorts, she looked half-asleep. All of the worry lines were gone from her face. “The water pressure is amazing.”

She slipped into the bed, curled up beside me, and immediately closed her eyes.

All of the tension seemed to melt out of her body.

“Better,” she whispered.

Within moments, she was asleep, her breathing deep, her features completely smoothed out.

She looked more peaceful than I’d ever seen her.

It was all I needed. That peace on her face. It was everything.

After that, we took it one day at a time.

At the end of the first week, she asked if she could convert one wall of the living area to bookshelves. I told her she could change whatever she liked.

That same week, I went to work, and she went shopping, coming home with jeans, shirts, pajamas, and underwear.

But that night, while I slept, she went out hunting.

It drove home to me the impact on her of a single day spent among people.

For three nights after that, even if she fell asleep beside me, I would wake in the middle of the night to find her gone.

She came back covered in blood, levitating straight to the shower so the floor remained clean, and then she crawled into bed beside me again, scrubbed and clean once more, pressing close to me before her features smoothed out, and she looked peaceful again.

Darkness will always be a part of her life, but not here.

Not with me.

If I can give her a safe place to come back to, then that’s all I need.

A week ago, in the evening, she surprised me when she slipped up to me, lifted herself onto tiptoes, and pressed her lips to mine, her hands sliding under my shirt.

“I’d like to do more than sleep,” she whispered.

I caught her hands and made a vow to her within my mind, making sure she could hear it: I want to know your moods and your needs before I know your body.

“Suit yourself.” She gave me a sultry smile, slipped out of her shirt and bra, and dropped them onto the floor behind her as she sauntered away from me toward the shower, making it damn hard for me to keep my word.

Now, I pad across the living area to the bedroom to find her sitting upright in bed, her red hair tangled around her face.

“Morning,” I say, heading across the room and removing my shirt, nearly at the bathroom door when she arrests me.

“Striker?”

I turn immediately, responding to the urgency in her voice. “What’s wrong?”

As I speak, I take another look at her, searching for signs of distress, but she looks relaxed.

She slips off the bed, her T-shirt caught up around her waist, under which she’s only wearing underpants, but I keep my gaze on her face.

“Do you know my moods yet?” she asks, her eyes searching mine when she reaches me.

I relax a little. “Some of them.”

“What about my needs?”

“Likewise.”

Her brow furrows. “Do you know enough of them?”

“Enough for… what?”

She levitates up to my eye level. It’s the first time she’s done this since arriving here. Her fingertips brush my bare shoulders, and she doesn’t seem to care about the sweat.

“Enough,” she says.

“ Enough enough?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“Do you think I know enough?”

She gives a sudden, breathtaking smile. “Can we find out?”

I wait for my heart to catch up, and she doesn’t hurry me, her eyes bright as she studies me, no doubt listening to my thoughts.

“I love feeling your thoughts,” she says. “They’re full of life.”

I reach out for her, drawing her toward me, her body floating through the small gap between us. Her legs wrap around my hips, her body weightless against me as one of her hands slips to the back of my neck and rests there.

For a moment, my thoughts get away from me, taken by the intensity of the pleasure I gain just from holding her, the sensation of her pelvis pressed to mine and her breasts against my chest, the feeling of her lips close to mine, and then all of that giving way to my need to dispense with her clothing, to draw moans to her lips?—

She gasps, her lips parting and her body trembling against me. “Oh,” she whispers. “ More .”

My eyes widen, and I can’t hold back my thoughts, the way I want to tip her onto the bed, push up her shirt, take her nipples into my mouth one after the other, and stroke her between her legs until she comes?—

She jolts against me, her breathing fast, and I don’t stop, letting my thoughts go, picturing the way I want to reverse our positions and lift her up on top of me, have her settle herself onto my length, and rock against me as fast or as slowly as she likes.

She moans into my ear, her body shivering, her thighs clenching against my sides, and her hand tightening across the back of my neck.

“Yes,” she gasps. “I want that. All of it.”

It only takes me three steps to reach the bed, at which I lower her onto it, but I don’t want to rush this. Setting her down in a sitting position first, I take my time removing her shirt, determined to get to know her body again.

Every inch of her skin mesmerizes me. Every curve. Every quick breath she takes as I plant kisses down her neck and across her shoulders before I kneel between her legs and continue kissing every part of her torso and lower.

Her skin tastes like wildflowers, a heady scent that draws my hellhound to the surface.

About fucking time , he grumbles, at which a needy smile breaks across Peyton’s face.

“Yes,” she moans, “it is.”

I give a growl, raising myself to claim her lips, sending my beast to the back of my mind because this … I want this all for myself.

That, too, seems to draw her approval.

She arches against me as I pick her back up and reposition her higher on the bed, stretching out beside her to begin again.

By the time my hand reaches her center, she has hooked her leg across my hip, pressed her chest to mine, and demands my kisses.

She’s slick where I touch her, and the temptation to slide my fingers inside her is intense.

As soon as that thought enters my head, she gasps and takes matters into her own hands, nudging me onto my back, her legs neatly straddling me. Her claws appear a moment later, and she dispenses with her underpants in two quick tears.

She pauses where she rests lightly on my stomach, her hair falling about her shoulders, her cheeks flushed, her lips parted.

I choose you, I say within my mind. Always and forever, you.

“I choose you, too, Striker,” she says, leaning forward to brush her lips to mine, a quiet touch that deepens as she lowers herself onto me.

Her needy moan drives my control to the edge. I reach down to stroke her center while she lifts herself up and slides herself down again, her own movements pressing my thumb harder against her.

The tightness of her muscles and the quickness of her breathing tell me she’s already close, her beautiful body moving to a rhythm of its own. The more intense my own need becomes, the more she responds until she cries out, and her orgasm nearly takes me over the edge.

I seize control, intending only to finish when her thighs clench around me again, and she rocks into the thrust, her moan only intensifying. An even needier sound.

I respond on instinct, rolling us over so that I’m on top, taking the next thrust carefully because until now, she’s been in control, but she arches up beneath me, her hands gripping my lower back, drawing me faster into her.

Five more thrusts that I never want to end, and she orgasms again—or maybe she never stopped—her cries of release rising and filling my mind.

She takes me into the crash with her, and it’s powerful, devastating, and fragile all at once.

I lose my sense of time and space, of where I end, and she begins, knowing only that she means everything to me.

Turning us onto our sides, I wrap my arms around her, not even trying to catch my breath, my heart thumping hard in my chest.

She nestles herself against me, planting kisses on my shoulder and neck wherever she can reach before she settles down against me again.

Forever , I say within my mind, drawing a smile to her lips.

“Forever,” she whispers back.

We will walk through this life together. There will be difficult times ahead of us, along with the good. But we will hold each other’s hearts with trust and faith, honesty and love, taking care of each other, listening to each other, and building a life together.

And maybe… one day… we might even be lucky enough to welcome children into it.

“Two,” she says, clearly reading my thoughts as she curls up against me, her breathing finally evening out. “Or one. Or maybe three.”

“Okay, then, Fury,” I murmur, dropping a kiss on her forehead. “One or two or three.”

As I stroke her back, she gives a satisfied sigh that turns into a needy moan. “ More .”

“More than three?”

She tips her head back and grins at me, and I can’t help but smile when I realize she isn’t talking about children.

I have a lifetime to love her, a lifetime to protect her freedoms, a lifetime to share her joys and sorrows, and challenges and hopes.

And I’m not going to waste a minute of it.

Scooping her up from the bed, I carry her to the wide windows, where the sunlight shines brightly, and we can begin again.