Leah
I'm coming to, and the situation tears into my brain. Someone has come after Jacob, and they've got us both zip-tied up. They want to hurt Jacob, and now I don't care anything about myself. None of the fear I lived in is within me now. Only the agony at the idea of anything happening to Jacob.
"Marry me," I say, shaking as I say the words. I'm nervous as hell that he doesn't even want that. After all, he owned me. I tried to put him in prison. But now I'm back, and I can't imagine my life without him. I need him to tell me that he wants me to be his forever. That he'll be mine.
My eyes well up. I don't want them to, but I can't help it. After the rollercoaster ride I've been on, and now when I'm probably about to die, I cannot fucking contain the storm inside me. Not when it needs to meet Jacob's. Not when I need his everything to consume all of me.
"You're afraid, I'm so sorry, Leah, but you don't have to pretend that you want me," Jacob says, and he's shaking. He's enraged at our captors, and I know he's never been so out of control. But the hurt that drips from his voice, the pain I see when his eyes look at mine. I can't breathe. A thousand daggers are attacking my heart. "I love you, Jacob Renaud. I fucking love you, and if I live, I will steal you if that's how I get to have you forever."
Jacob looks at me. I'm shouting my exasperated words, and he must think that I sound crazy, but he's laughing with a wide and genuine looking smile. I start laughing, too.
"Does that mean you love me too?" I ask him, and I can't help how desperate my words sound. I don't even give a shit right now. I need him to know. If we don't make it out of here, he has to know that I loved him with every fiber of my body, even if I didn't want to. Now, if I get the chance, I'm going to have to show him just how much I love him. I can never be away from him again.
"Of course I love you, Leah. I've never loved anything the way I love you," he says, and there's a pain on his face. I think it is because Jacob has loved me, for some time, and I never let myself see it.
"If you love her so much," the cretin who has us hostage says as he comes at me with a knife. "Then when I cut her heart out and hand it to you, it will be the only thing left in your collection."
Jacob shouts, and I see him trying to break free and blood coloring the ties at his wrists. Fuck. Let this asshole come at me closer with this knife. I will do something. I don't know what. But this isn't the end of our story, not for Jacob and me. I know now that it can't be it. We're so much more. We've barely started. The asshole gets close enough to me that he's torn my shirt and pricked the skin of my stomach where he's stabbing, and he's tearing my shirt and a tiny, stinging line up my stomach and to my breast where my heart is. He thinks he's torturing me, but I swallow back the pain, gritting my teeth, and take my one shot. He's close enough to me, and he's got his guard down. My head isn't restrained. Jacob taught me the value in having some parts bound and some parts free. My hands are bound, but I slam the full force of my forehead into this asshole’s face. He falls back just a second, and the knife breaks free from his hands. I try to kick at it, but through the shouting yelps of pain from the cretin with a knife, I see that Jacob has broken his zip ties. He grabs the knife, and runs to set me free as quickly as he can. He kicks that asshole for a second, so he doesn't get up, and then turns to stab that jackass as soon as he does stand. It all happens so quickly, and for the second time, I see Jacob kill a man for me. I don't love him any less. It is fucked up, but I may love him more for it. I know killing is wrong, but he's protecting me. He's committing the ultimate sin for my safety, and I can't pretend not to feel a rush of love for him at that, no matter how wrong it is. He runs to wrap his arms around me, and I jump into his. I can't be without him.
"Yes, I'll marry you," Jacob says, kissing me over and over again. "I love you so much, Leah Renaud."
Of course, he's claiming me, down to my name. And for once, I don't want to just be my first name. I don't want to change it. I want to become Leah Renaud, and I feel like I always should have been.
"I fucking love you so much," I say, and I realize I'm blubbering through tears. "I didn't want to," I tease. "But you always get what you want, even if you have to steal it."
Jacob looks at me with the most aching, heartbreaking face. He's at once the strong man I trust more than anything to protect me, and he's the man who desperately needed to hear the words I have kept from admitting to myself and saying to him. "I love you so much," I repeat. "I'm going to tell you every day for the rest of our lives," I promise him.
His hands cup my face. "You came back to me. You really...you're really mine," Jacob says. I hear his words catch in his throat. This powerful man is so tender for me. He needs me. I can never leave him again.
"Always. I can't be without you ever again. I've never felt so horrible in my life. I couldn't stay away...and you were at the house...and I just needed you. I needed you so damn bad," I said, and now I'm crying. His thumbs reach up to wipe away my tears, and he kisses the top of my head.
"Fuck, Leah, how can you love me? After everything? I've died a thousand deaths since I last kissed your lips," he says, his eyes hooded with lust, his voice thick with need, and I feel his cock pressing into my stomach, hard. All of him needs all of me, and this is everything I want. Everything I need. Jacob completes me in a way that I can't even put into words. I vow to try every day from here on out. I will never doubt the depth or necessity of my feelings for him ever again.
His lips are slightly parted, and he's waiting for me to kiss him. The man who claims everything wants me to kiss him, me to give myself to him. "I'm always going to be yours, be with you, Jacob. I love you forever," I say, and I stare him down with my eyes, trying to drill this truth in. I press my lips to his and kiss him, tenderly, deeply, without care or thought for when I need to breathe until I'm gasping and still I want to kiss him more. He's holding my hand but he points to the body, now eerie and lifeless. "I have to take care of this," he tells me. I know he does. I should be horrified, or grossed out, or upset, or something. But I'm a selfish bitch right now getting the man of my dreams, who is mine forever, and who I know has escaped a near sure thing to land him in prison. He's killed the man who was supposed to put him there. And this man, who was supposed to be dead already? He's a fucking footnote in what shaped up to be my twisted, fucked up happily ever after.