Sweet Recovery (Ex Ops Series Book 4) (9 page)

As I pulled my hand from her neck, my skin tingled in protest from the loss of contact. Somehow, though, I managed to keep my mind on the task at hand.

Grabbing a condom off the dresser, I ripped it open with my teeth and rolled it down my length. When I was sheathed, I positioned my aching cock at her entrance yet stopped short of pushing inside her.

I had a point to prove, and I was damn sure going to make sure she understood it by the time I was done.

Wrapping my hand back around the front of her neck again, I slid myself inside her until she had all of me. Then I leaned forward until my lips were skimming the shell of her ear and whispered, “Can you see me inside of you?”

“Yes,” she whispered back.

I pulled out slowly then paused with the tip just inside her. “Do you like the look of us together?”

I plunged back inside of her, and she gasped another, “yes.”

Sliding myself out again, I bent my head down so I could lick the side of her neck that my hand didn’t cover, savoring her salty skin. When I was done, I put my lips back to her ear and gave her something to think about.

“Now pretend my hand is the necklace I gave you. Can you see how pretty you would look right now? My gold wrapped around your throat…” I thrust myself back to the hilt inside of her. “You filled with my dick, and both of us exactly where we belong—wrapped up in each other.”

A tear slipped down her face, but I didn’t move to wipe this one away. Instead, I leaned forward until the hand that had been on her hip was now lying over her hand braced on the mirror. Entwining our fingers together, our hands fisted tightly, I spread my other hand so that my thumb and pointer finger were touching the bottom of her jaw as my pinky finger grazed her collarbone. I could feel the air moving in and out of her throat as she panted beneath my touch.

The hold wasn’t about proving my power over her or wanting to hurt her. It was about using the imagery of that piece of gold that should be gracing her pretty, little neck to show her the one thing I needed her to understand: I needed her. It was a small token of proof that she wanted to belong to me as much I already belonged to her. One day soon, I hoped to have another piece of gold wrapped around her. This time on her finger, to show the world she was mine.

My control snapped with that thought, and I started thrusting wildly into her, loving the way she felt around me yet wishing there was no barrier between us. I wanted to fill her up with more than my cock; I wanted to fill her with my seed.

If she had my ring on her finger, my heart hanging around her neck, my last name, and my child in her stomach, I would have finally tied her to me in every way I could. She would be completely mine: heart, soul, and body.

Giving both her hand and neck a soft squeeze, I told her the crazy thoughts that were running through my mind.

“I want you to feel me for days, angel. Feel me in only a shallow comparison of the way I’ve carried you around inside of me for years.”

“Lucas!”

“That’s right, baby; say my name. Let them all hear who’s loving you right now.”

“Please, Lucas,” she begged as I made my thrusts fast and shallow, teasing her.

“Do you see it, Ginny?” I asked her desperately. My balls were starting to tighten, and I knew I would not last much longer. I needed her to see what I saw.

She closed her eyes and tipped her head back on my shoulder.

Plunging balls deep inside of her, I ordered roughly, “No, you open those pretty blue eyes and watch us. You tell me when you see what I see.”

Her head snapped back up, her lips popping open over her glassy eyes. “See what?” she begged. “What do you want me to see, Lucas? Please!”

I eased out of her, just to plunge back in with a renewed ferocity. “No, you fuckin’ look, Ginny. You have to see it!”

Her body went taut as she convulsed, her orgasm striking as hard and fast as a lightning bolt. She squeezed my hand so tightly I thought she might cut the circulation off my fingers, not that I would care if she did. I was sliding in and out of her, filling her up with me, not stopping as she climaxed in sensual waves around me.

Her head fell forward onto the glass as I continued to drive myself into her, and she opened her eyes to look at us in the mirror. Something in her eyes had changed, and suddenly, she was sobbing, “I see it. I see it now, Lucas.”

“What do you see?” I demanded.

“Nothing will ever be as good as this. Us,” she sobbed back.

“Exactly, I grunted out. Then I slammed myself inside of her two more times before I lost the fight, abandoning myself to the pleasure of being inside my angel, filling her up with me.

Struggling for breath, I stopped behind her, dropping my head next to hers on the mirror. Our rapid breathes fogged up the surface in front of us, but it didn’t keep me from viewing all the beauty in front of me. It cemented what I had been trying to make her understand all along.

“Nothing,” I panted, “compares to the way I love you.”

Chapter

6

Ginny

The Next Morning…

Consciousness slowly filtered back to my being, along with a beautiful, languid warmth throughout my entire body. I had never felt this way a day in my life. Every muscle I owned was deliciously sore, especially the ones in the lower half of my body.

I didn’t need to open my eyes to know who was snuggled up to my back with one arm under my head, acting as a pillow, and his other arm wrapped around my waist, trapping me in his embrace. It was almost as if he was afraid I would disappear again.

Every fiber of my being knew him. He was the boy from across the street who had broken my heart. He was also now the man who had found me by a stroke of serendipity and didn’t waste a second before gluing that broken heart back together.

Remembering the past thirty-six hours or so, I thought it seemed too good to be true. Not even my dreams over the past five years had been as good as the things Lucas had done and said to me. After spending years thinking no apology from him could ever be good enough, he just had to go and prove me wrong.

He used his words, his hands, and even his kisses to show me how much he had missed me, to prove to me how much he loved me. There wasn’t a bone in my body that doubted him. Perhaps it was foolish to jump so blindly back in love with a man who had shredded me into almost non-existence before, but I couldn’t help myself, not when it came to Lucas Young.

On one hand, he was my kryptonite. On the other, he was my Holy Grail.

The last thing I should want, yet the very thing I needed.

The literal, breathing contradiction of my life.

The only person who could destroy me with a word and build me back up with no words at all.

He also had given me something I had not felt in years: hope. Perhaps, if I told Lucas about my father, he could find a way to keep me safe, to get my mother to safety. It was probably wishful thinking, but maybe fate was answering my prayers, bringing the man of my dreams back into my life to save me. Sure, he was nowhere close to being one of those knights in shining armor who rescued the princess, but I didn’t want a knight from some fairytale. I wanted Lucas—scars, demons, flaws, and all.

He didn’t have to be anyone’s hero but mine, and after five years of living with my father, I now knew that no perfectly chiseled and impeccable guy was going to be able to go against the monster who was Richard Wellington and win. It was going to take someone who could look a man without a soul in the eye and not blink in fear.

My heart broke a little at the knowledge that Lucas had endured a life hard enough to become that man who could save me. It was obvious from the slashed and puckered skin of his old wounds that he had been to hell and back, something I wished I could have protected him from somehow or been his shelter when he had come home to lick his wounds.

Then an old, familiar thought I’d had a thousand times before came to mind: I would do anything for Lucas Young. That was what you did for the people you loved.

Anything.

Walk through fire. Brave the fiercest storm. Even give up your life if it meant they got to keep their own.

Therefore, did I really want to risk losing the man I loved to a father who meant absolutely nothing to me?

As I stared at Lucas sleeping so peacefully on the bed, the funniest thought came to me.
He
looked like an angel. He would roar with laughter if I told him that, but it was true to me.

He might call me his angel, but he was really mine. He was so strong and beautiful inside and out, whether he saw it or not. Fierce in the way he loved those around him. So giving once he opened himself up.

Sure, he had enough emotional barriers around him to look like a metaphorical minefield, but after whatever he had seen and done, he probably had good reasons for it. The shadows in his eyes told me what he wouldn’t say. My poor Lucas had experienced the blackness of death, the blues of loss, the purples of bruises and misery. He had seen firsthand the daunting redness of blood, the fresh brown of overturned dirt on top of a grave.

After all of that, he needed someone who could give him the beautiful in the world; the golden rays mixed with peach, kissing the sky as the sun rose in the mornings; the silver and white of the stars, twinkling down on him tranquilly at night. He needed someone who could sit with him underneath a big, old, beautiful tree and stare out at a green field and see nothing except the future before them.

I wasn’t that girl anymore.

I couldn’t give him quiet mornings in bed with nothing between us but love and naked skin. Nor could I give him the days and nights filled with all the good in the world that he deserved. After all, no matter how strong I thought my silently sleeping guardian angel was, I couldn’t dare risk losing him to the monster who was my father.

My attention was grabbed by a small chirp coming from across the room in my purse, which Lucas had brought in from his car for me earlier. I stared at the purse as if it were a snake ready to bite me because, in a way, it was.

There were only two people who would text me on that phone: my mother or my father. Either way, it meant my time here with Lucas was over.

Reality seeped into my bloodstream like a slow moving poison, and I felt myself slowly dying inside. No matter how much I had known this was coming, I would never be prepared for it.

My purse chimed again and, looking back at Lucas to make sure he was still asleep, I tried to move as quietly as I could in the hopes that I wouldn’t wake him. With a shaky hand, I fished the cell phone out of my purse and cringed when I saw the name on the screen.

Richard Wellington.

The message was short, sweet, and to the point.

Walk out of that motel room right now, or my men will kill him.

The black and white words on the screen of my cell phone ripped my heart out, stabbed me in the gut, and taunted me with the reality of my life. Immediately, my eyes stung with unshed tears, knowing what I had to do to protect the person I loved more than my own life.

Moving to the window, I pulled one of the curtains open a crack and peeked out at the parking lot. Sure enough, there stood Dexter next to our rented luxury car, his gun clearly holstered on his waist with his arms crossed over his chest and an angry expression on his face. Brad was sitting in the front passenger seat, clearly unhappy and scowling with a black eye.

Reality was sitting in the parking lot, reminding me my lot in life was not meant to be a happy one. Fate had sown the seeds of my destiny long ago, and apparently, I was supposed to be a modern day version of some sordid Greek tragedy, because I had to choose between the two people I loved most: my mother and Lucas.

Without a doubt, I was pretty sure most people would tell me that my mother had chosen her lot in life years ago by falling in love with my father. And now she was choosing to stand by his side instead of trying to run again. However, there was Lucas, standing on the other side of the dangerous chasm that separated us with his arms held out, waiting for me to run to him.

I could wake him up, ask him to run away with me right now, and he would. Knowing my father, we would never stop running, though.

He wouldn’t give up on retrieving what he considered his, which was me. I couldn’t do that to the man I loved. He deserved so much more than a life on the run with never a moment’s peace. He deserved better than me.

Turning my focus back to my phone, I immediately sent a text back to my father.

Understood. Be right out.

Hardening my resolve, I grabbed my red dress off the floor and pulled it on. It was time to leave my happiness and go back to where I belonged.

Chicago.

What did you do for the ones you loved? Absolutely anything that kept them happy, healthy, and alive, even if it meant sacrificing your own happiness and life.

Lucas

A rustling sound of cloth woke me. A bit disoriented from the deepest sleep I had experienced in years, I shot up in the bed to take in my surroundings. It didn’t take me long since I was in a dinky-ass motel room. I was surprised by the sight of Ginny pulling her dress on as if she were going somewhere.

A peek at the window showed daylight filtering in around the heavy curtains, so maybe she was going to get us breakfast.

Plopping backward on the bed, I slowly stretched as I watched her sit on one of the chairs to slip her shoes back on.

When she stood up, I playfully growled, “If you’re going to sneak out of bed, you have to at least bring me coffee, angel.”

I was met with silence, and it raised the hairs on the back of my neck. My gut was churning, and the air was almost static with tension.

Sitting up to get a better look at my girl, I tried to read her body language.

Did she regret what we had done? God, I hoped it wasn’t that. Anything but that.

For the first time in years, I had felt that sense of belonging that I had only ever experienced in her presence. I couldn’t handle it if she regretted that.

Her body was strung more tightly than a guitar string, and I knew without a doubt that she was about to snap. The question was, from what? And how? We had fallen asleep tangled up together. Now, with the way she suddenly wouldn’t look at me, I felt like a chasm as wide as the Grand Canyon had opened between us.