My neck stings like a mother. Waking up in hospital was unsettling, but being away from that sick fuck made breathing a little easier. Jenna’s image taunts me and tears build in my eyes. I failed her so bad.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
“Hey,” I croak to a nurse who’s placing a jug of water next to me.
“There’s someone here who needs to speak with you.”
Slade.
“Okay.”
My stomach knots when Dean’s father walks in. My lip trembles and tears trickle down my cheeks.
“Hey. Nasty business what that boy did to you.” He jerks his head toward me. “But nothing compared to what he did to my boy.”
Thud.
“To Jayson Reed.”
Thud.
“The cashier, Robert Green, a father of one.”
Thud.
“I know you were there.”
“I don’t know who those people are.” I swipe at the tears betraying my words.
“I have pictures of you and Dean together on his cell phone.”
Thud.
“I meet people all the time at parties. Perhaps I know him by face.” I jerk my shoulder up in a shrug and then wince when sickness from the scorching pain in my neck threatens to spill over the bed.
“Well, let’s go take a look at his face then, shall we?”
What?
He crooks his finger at someone, signaling them to come here. A uniform officer wheels over a wheelchair.
“Get in.”
What the hell is he doing? Dean will be buried, decaying and gone. Where is he going to take me?
“Get up or I’ll get you up,” he warns, venom in his tone.
Pulling the covers back, I pull the clip from my finger and disconnect the drip feeding me pain medication.
“I can walk,” I tell him.
“Sit.”
He pushes me through the hospital, out of the ER where I must have been brought in. He adds a code to the door he’s brought me to and an officer opens it for him. Pushing me inside, a nervous flurry of blood rushes to my head and makes me woozy.
He comes to stand in front of me and jerks his head to the hospital room behind him. “Go on.”
Pure fascination brings me to my feet. I take the few steps to the door and push it open. My legs buckle at what greets me.
“Dean.” His name leaves me in a whispered plea.
“He will wake up and he’ll learn that you aided his killer and kept him from being caught.”
“No.”
“Tell me what happened and go on record,” he snaps.
Turmoil twists inside my mind like a tornado picking up everything I thought I knew and tossing it into the air, collapsing back to the earth a jumbled mess.
“I’ll keep you safe from Brenner and Slade Walker. You won’t have to worry about them. We can have your marriage annulled and void. They both won’t see the outside of a prison again.”
Slade.
A sinking feeling tears at me at the thought of never seeing him again.
“Tell me what you were doing that night.”
“What makes you think I was there?” I weep, sniffling.
“I have a witness.”
What?
The red headed woman. Oh God.
“Then why do you need me?”
His jaw tightens and he reaches for me, grabbing me by the back of the neck. Pain explodes up my head, a fierce burning and searing, stabbing pain. He pushes my head toward where Dean lies with tubes going in and out of him and the oxygen pump making a whooshing sound into the room.
“Look at my fucking son. You will tell me why you were there and what happened.”
“Everything okay in here?” a nurse asks, coming inside and gaping at the hold he has me in. Shoving him away from me, I cry out in pain.
“You’re bleeding through your bandages. Come on.” She takes me by the elbow.
I stop before we are through the door. “I hope your son gets better, but I can’t help you.”
“When I come for them, and I will, I’ll take you down with them. You made your bed.”
Yes, I have.
I bypass the room the nurse tries to take me to and instead aim straight for the exit.
I’m so sick of people threatening me. Putting their hands on me. I didn’t know it fully until the sheriff threatened him, but my soul shattered at the thought of losing him. I love Slade. I couldn’t betray him with the truth.
Brenner needs to pay for all the lives he’s taken, and if Slade wants me, he will agree that Brenner has to go. I want him dead.
I’m wearing nothing but a hospital gown and don’t even have my cell phone to hand, or money for a cab. I could go to my father and demand a car and some clothes. Axe won’t let me leave. I can’t risk it. I’m about to begin a trek of a lifetime, maybe hitchhike, when it dawns on me I look like a crazy escapee from the mental hospital.
“Avery,” a voice booms, and I stare at the Lilith’s Army’s VP.
He looks around the parking lot and rubs his hand over the back of his neck. “What are you doing here?”
“I need money,” I tell him, and he rears back. “Please.”
He digs his hand in his pocket and pulls out a roll of stacked bills. He peels a couple of hundred from it and then stuffs it back in his pocket. “Here.”
“Thank you. I’ll make sure it’s returned to you.”
Shaking his head, he waves off my offer. “Where are you going?” he calls after me as I begin walking away.
“Home.”
The cab driver didn’t say anything about my attire, he just kept staring between the road and the rearview mirror to look at me. I think he thought I was going to freak out in the back seat and attack him. He swapped with a second driver halfway because I was going so far out of his way. That driver also gazed at me the entire route. I threw the money at him and darted inside when I finally got home.
Losing the hospital gown and putting my own clothes on, I curl up on the bed and let my tears fall until exhaustion kicks in and takes me to the dream world for a little while.
A crashing sound jars me awake. My injury smarts and I wince. Another crashing sound and my stomach flips. Crawling from the bed, I search the bedside drawer for the gun Slade keeps there and tiptoe from the room. If it’s Brenner, I’m going to shoot and ask questions later. He wouldn’t come here, would he?
A roar rips through the house and I recognize Slade’s voice.
Rushing down the stairs, the gun aimed out in front of me to kill whomever it is he’s fighting with, my feet falter at the bottom of the stairs. He’s alone and ripping the place apart.
“Slade!” I call out into the open room.
He stops moving. He looks like he’s stopped breathing. His red rimmed eyes gaze at me in wonder. “Are you real?” he whispers, and my heart cracks.
“Yes. Yes. I’m home.” I rush toward him.
Picking me up, he breathes me in, gasping like I’m his air and his lungs are deprived. “You came back to me.”
Bringing me back to my feet, he cups my cheeks and gazes into my eyes.
“I love you.” I sob.
“I love you too,” he croaks, and my soul settles in his arms.
Crashing his lips on mine, he kisses me with a hunger that takes my breath away. I can’t seem to fill my lungs, and I don’t want to. I want to survive on Slade only, thrive on him. I need him. I need him to take all the bad away.
Lifting me, he places me on the counter and shifts between my legs.
He’s still not close enough and, wrapping my arms around him, I pull him closer. “Slade,” I beg on a breath when he finally releases me from the kiss.
His lips move down the front of my throat, kissing tenderly where he feels the tremor of my pulse.
“I couldn’t leave you,” I whisper.
“I thought I’d lost you.” His voice holds so much emotion that tears puddle in my eyes and tip over the edge.
“Never,” I reply. “Never.”
Lifting my hips when he tugs at my jeans, he pulls them down my legs and steps back into me. He doesn’t even remove his own pants, just unbuttons them and slides slowly inside me. Delicious pleasure drenches every fiber of me, and I moan at the sensation.
“This is always where you belong, princess. With my cock buried deep in your pussy, and my heart contained in the core of your soul.”
My head falls back and I have to slam my hands behind me to support myself when he starts powering into me. The head of his cock glides over a part inside me that bursts shots of ecstasy up my spine.
My whole body is riding higher and higher, the jolt in my muscles drenching me in bliss. The turmoil and chaos screaming out of us and pouring into this crazy connection we have. All the darkness, the blood and loss only made bearable by having each other to lose ourselves in. His arms circle me and he lifts me up, his waist supporting my legs as he carries me up the stairs. We fall back onto the bed, where he hooks his arms under my knees and rests them on his shoulders.
“Look,” he orders.
Opening my heavy eyelids, I look down between us. His thick cock slides in and out of me, and instinctively I reach down and circle it with my fingers.
“Look how perfect we are together. Don’t leave. Don’t ever leave me. Promise me no matter how bad things get. We will work them out and always have this, us.”
I nod, my voice box so high on pleasure it’s unable to function properly.
His thumb presses to my clit and he slowly caresses it. I cry out when an orgasm rips through my body, sending every muscle into spasm.
I haven’t come down before he rolls us over and I’m straddled over him. “Say the words and show me how much you love me, Avery Walker.”
Leaning down, I kiss across his chest as I move up and down on him. He smells of sweat and sin, he tastes like heaven, and the rubbing against his tattooed chest stimulates my nipples as I move, lurching me nearer to another climax.
“Say it.”
“I promise.” I pant. “I promise.”
“You’re mine. All mine. Forever.”
“All of me is yours. It’s all yours.”
He thrusts hard inside me, my words powering him on. It’s the trigger to a mind-blowing orgasm that is felt in every single nerve ending. Slade’s arms surround me, holding me tightly as my climax makes my body jolt and vibrate. Sorrow and bliss mix and torment my mind as I cling to him to rid me of the ache. Warmth floods my womb as Slade yells out his own climax, his body trembling alongside mine.
The feeling of him coming undone underneath me propels my own orgasm to a new level. My teeth start chattering and every cell in my body is overcome by both pleasure and pure agony. I can’t make it stop; it rushes through every bone in my body, the pure heat of it turning the marrow to lava.
I’ve never felt anything like it. I touch heaven and hell as extreme rapture invades my soul and clears my mind. I’m oblivious to everything but the beat of my heart, the sound of the thud, thud, thud, the rhythm of our love-making.
I collapse on Slade, into the safety of him.
“Stay safe, Slade,” I murmur.
“Stay strong, princess,” he returns, before sleep guides us in.