57. Memphis

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

memphis

I let him drag me back to the truck, but I absolutely wasn’t leaving until this house was a pile of burning rubble on the ground and there was a genuine risk of this whole place exploding into a forest fire. I couldn’t make my brain understand what Indy might have done to locate this house, but I was overwhelmingly interested in him finding every other location that was used for this purpose so I could bring them all to the same end.

As the front portion of the house started to collapse under the merciless consumption of those beautiful fucking flames, I hadn’t realized I took another step toward it until Utah grabbed my hand another time to keep me near the truck instead. Watching it topple into nothing was mesmerizing. Knowing that nothing could survive a cleanse by fire like this was exactly what I never knew my busted and broken soul needed.

When another section of the house crashed to the ground, I turned back to the man who absolutely had realized that this was exactly what I needed. He was staring straight up at the sky, at the sound of thunder that was somehow loud enough to be heard over the entire house behind me buckling into total devastation. I followed his eyes to the sky and couldn’t believe that thunder and lightning like this hadn’t been accompanied by rain.

Utah was watching me by the time my eyes made it back to him.

“No rain,” he said, reading my every thought. “You beautiful little witch who acts like she can’t control the weather.”

He winked at me and rather than freezing my heart mid-beat or my knees giving out, I closed every bit of the distance between us to launch myself right into his arms. I only had to hold myself off the ground with my arms around his neck for about half a second before both his hands hooked under my legs to lift me up until I could get them around his waist.

He interrupted my assault on his mouth when he chuckled and pulled his head back.

“Half the state will be able to see that fire by now, angel. We should probably go soon.”

I wiggled my legs free from his waist until he started to lower my feet back to the ground. Then I sent my hands right for his belt buckle.

“Then I guess you better be quick.”

He laughed again. “As you wish, sugar,” that monster added, and my hands froze right where they were while I looked straight back up at him.

“Oh, I could get used to that,” came out of me as just barely a whisper. His hands went to either side of my face.

“I’m so fucking proud of you, girl.”

Being able to see the reflection of the arson I’d committed in his eyes while he said those words melted my entire body.

I couldn’t move quickly enough to get my clothes off to make the lower half of my body accessible to him after that. He opened the truck door and picked me up, sitting me just on the edge of the seat in front of him. He grabbed both my hands to place them on either side of my legs before his grip went to my hips. I had to instantly tighten my hold on the truck seat when I realized he was expecting me to hold myself suspended here while he pulled me close enough to push himself into me.

“Fuck, Colt.”

I couldn’t keep from crying out with the first rough thrust, and I couldn’t keep my eyes from watching the full length of him reappear just to disappear inside me again. I watched goosebumps spread across my own skin when he chuckled. He let go of one hip to be able to wrap his hand around the back of my neck while he leaned in closer to me. He pressed his forehead against mine and waited there until I looked into his eyes.

“You like to watch,” he said, and smiled. I spent less than a second wondering if I was supposed to be embarrassed that he’d realized such a thing, or that he’d called it out so blatantly. This was Utah. There was simply no reason to feel any of that with him.

“Then watch, sugar,” he whispered. He never took his eyes from mine. He certainly didn’t pull his face away from mine, but his hips started to move again. And I absolutely dropped my eyes right back down to where we were connected. “Watch how perfectly you take every inch of me. Watch me fuck you like I can’t get enough. Watch me take away your ability to walk.”

This wonderfully insane man leaned down to kiss the tip of my nose before his hand returned to my hip and he fucked me until I was screaming with every thrust. The lightning, the thunder, the fire, the house collapsing behind Utah, and even Utah himself — all of it. Everything about this felt like it was happening in unison on my behalf. The absolute destruction of everything that made me this way, that led me to this place in life, left all of this wide-open space for whatever was supposed to come next.

And so much of it was because of Utah.

I poured the gas throughout this house, but he brought it with us.

I lit the fire that brought this house to the ground, but he handed me the lighter.

My pure, unbridled rage was going to result in the eradication of this entire organization, but Utah was going to be the method of delivery.