17. June

Chapter seventeen

June

T he news hits me like a sledgehammer to the chest, shattering what little calm I've managed to scrape together. Elaine. That vicious, soulless harpy is trying to take my child. My son. The precious life Cara and I created, the beacon of hope that's kept me clawing my way back to sanity.

"June?" Sarah's voice filters through the red haze of rage clouding my vision. "June, I need you to focus on my voice. Take deep breaths..."

But I can't. I can't breathe, can't think past the thundering of my pulse in my ears, the taste of copper flooding my mouth as I bite down on my tongue to keep from screaming.

"Get out." The words tear from my throat, low and dangerous.

Sarah takes a step back, her eyes wide. "June, please. Let me help-"

"I said get out!" I roar, surging to my feet. The tray of pills on the bedside table goes flying, a rainbow of capsules scattering across the sterile white floor. "Now!"

She flees, the door slamming behind her. Good. I can't bear her sympathy, her careful words and gentle touches. Not now. Not when everything I love is being ripped away, piece by bloody piece.

I pace the confines of my room - my cell - like a caged animal. Five steps. Turn. Five steps back. The walls are closing in, suffocating me with their pristine emptiness. I need... God, I need...

Cara.

But I can't. I'm in shackles, chained by the twisted wreckage of my own mind as much as the locked doors and hawk-eyed wardens. One wrong step, one slip of the mask, and everything we've bled for could detonate in our faces.

There's a vicious irony to it, a dagger edge of cruelty honed to devastating perfection. Elaine's greatest weapon is the damage she herself inflicted, the festering wounds she gouged into my psyche with her lies and manipulations. And now, poised on the razor's edge between reason and madness, she wields my own fractures like a scalpel, carving away the last tethers anchoring me to hope and sanity.

Minutes bleed into hours, time an excruciating drip of molten lead. I cling to memories of Cara, the incandescent now-ness of our soul-deep bond, but even those are tarnished, warped by the looming spectre of loss.

When Judith finally appears, bearing news, I'm a ticking bomb, seconds from detonation. Her face is drawn, a portrait of haggard resolve.

"Psych evals for both of you," she says, each word a twist of the knife. "And supervised visitation. The judge's orders."

The words shatter me, a point-blank blast of unthinkable betrayal. Supervised visitation - as if I'm some rabid animal, frothing for the taste of my own child's blood. The pain, the sheer fucking cruelty, rips a snarl from my throat.

"Cara. Where is she? I need her, need to-"

"Sleeping," Judith cuts me off, her tone granite inflected with weary compassion. "The hearing wrung her dry, June. She's deadweight on the mattress, and that's where she'll stay."

My fury gutters out, quenched by a tidal wave of guilt and raw, aching love. Of course she's exhausted, wrung out and struggling beneath the atlas weight of our survival while I've been drowning in the cesspits of my own unraveling mind.

"Rest," Judith commands, the fleeting press of her hand on my nape a hot-cold jolt. "Tomorrow, we regroup and counterstrike. Tonight, stand down, soldier."

I subside with a jerky nod, words a tangle of barbed wire and broken glass in my throat. The snick of the lock behind her is a death knell tolling in my skull.

Sleep. As if oblivion is an option with the taste of Elaine's latest poison acrid on my tongue. My every molecule screams for action, for blood, for the visceral crunch of her bones beneath my fury.

But I cage the beast, wrestle it thrashing and howling behind bars of iron discipline. I'm nitroglycerin with a hair-trigger, one errant spark from an earth-shattering kaboom.

Seconds tick by, a sadistic metronome counting cadence to my unraveling. Sleep dances just beyond reach, wisps of silken darkness dissolving to the harsh fluorescent glare behind my eyelids.

No. No more.

I won't be a passive observer in my own life, won't let Elaine's poison touch what's mine. I am Juniper fucking Deveaux, and I will burn this world to ash before I let her win.

The lock on the door is child's play, picked with a paperclip I've kept hidden for just such an occasion. The hallway beyond is deserted, the skeleton night crew no match for my desperation.

I move like a ghost, silent and deadly, years of training kicking in as I navigate the twisting corridors. My bare feet make no sound on the cold tile, my senses hyperaware of every shadow, every whisper of movement.

And then I'm there, outside the room where I know Cara sleeps. My hand hesitates on the doorknob, a moment of doubt piercing through the haze of determination. What if she doesn't want to see me? What if I'm too broken, too damaged to be the man she needs?

But the memory of Elaine's smug face, of her claws reaching for our child, banishes any trace of hesitation. I twist the knob, slipping inside like a thief in the night.

The room is bathed in soft moonlight, casting everything in shades of silver and shadow. And there, curled on her side in a nest of blankets, is Cara.

My breath catches in my throat at the sight of her. She's so beautiful it hurts, her face relaxed in sleep, one hand resting protectively over the swell of her belly. Our child. Our miracle.

I approach the bed on silent feet, drinking in every detail. The soft fall of her hair across the pillow, the gentle rise and fall of her chest, the tiny furrow between her brows that speaks of troubled dreams.

"Cara," I breathe, reaching out to brush a stray lock of hair from her forehead. "Wake up, baby. I need you."

She stirs, those storm-gray eyes fluttering open. For a moment, there's only confusion in her gaze. Then recognition dawns, and she gasps.

"June?" Her voice is thick with sleep, but there's an undercurrent of fear that cuts me to the bone. "What are you- How did you-"

"Shh," I murmur, cupping her face in my hands. "It's okay. I'm here now."

She sits up, the blankets pooling around her waist, and I can't help but stare at the changes in her body. Her breasts are fuller, straining against the thin fabric of her nightgown, and the curve of her stomach makes my throat tight with emotion.

"You shouldn't be here," she whispers, but her hands come up to grip my wrists, holding me in place. "Judith said you weren't ready, that you needed more time to-"

I silence her with a kiss, pouring every ounce of longing, every shred of desperation into the press of my lips against hers. She makes a soft sound of surprise, then melts into me, her mouth opening under mine with a familiar heat that sets my blood on fire.

"I couldn't stay away," I growl, breaking the kiss to trail my lips along the curve of her jaw. "Not when that bitch is trying to take our child. Not when you're facing this alone."

Cara shivers, her fingers tangling in my hair. "June, we need to talk about-"

"Later," I cut her off, nipping at the sensitive spot behind her ear. "Talk later. Right now, I need to feel you. Need to know you're real."

I crush her to me, claiming her mouth in a kiss that's all teeth and tongue and desperate need. She tastes like home, like salvation, like everything good and pure in this fucked-up world.

My hands roam her body, relearning every curve, every dip and valley. She's softer now, lush with the changes of pregnancy, and it drives me wild. I palm her breasts, swallowing her moan as I roll her nipples between my fingers.

"Missed you," I pant against her skin, trailing open-mouthed kisses down the column of her throat. "Missed this. Missed us."

"June," she whimpers, her hips rocking against mine. "Please, I need-"

"I know what you need, baby," I growl, pushing her nightgown up and over her head. "I'm going to give it to you. Just shut up and take this dick like a good girl."

And then we're crashing together, hands and mouths frantic to map every missed inch, to recommit every freckle and follicle to tactile memory. I claim her lips like a man possessed, pouring every ounce of my desperate love, my aching need, into the slide of tongues and the nip of teeth.

But even as I lose myself in her taste, her scent, her satin heat, Faulkner's poison whispers insidiously at the back of my skull.

She's not real. She's a trick, a trap, designed to break you.

I flinch, the programmed revulsion warring with the soul-deep certainty of our connection. Cara feels my hesitation, draws back to search my face with eyes that see too much, know too well.

"June? Baby, what is it?"

I shake my head, a muscle jumping in my jaw as I fight the compulsion, the sickening swirl of manufactured hate. "It's nothing. Just... kiss me. Please."

Understanding dawns in her gaze, chased by a fierce, protective tenderness that threatens to shatter me. "I'm here," she whispers, cradling my face in hands that tremble with restrained emotion. "I'm real, June. This is real. Don't let that bastard win."

I turn my head, pressing my lips to her palm in mute worship. "It's so hard," I rasp, the confession ripped from my throat like rusted barbs. "I look at you, and I see... I see everything. Love, home, forever. But there's this voice, this fucking voice telling me it's all a lie, that you're just another trick, another-"

"Hey. Look at me." Her voice is soft, but shot through with steely command. I obey instantly, helplessly, drawn like a moth to her blazing conviction. "I am not a trick. I am not a trap. I am yours, June Deveaux, in every way that matters. And no two-bit quack with a torture fetish is going to change that."

Something in me breaks at her words, the last fragile barrier holding back the tidal wave of need, of worship, of soul-searing devotion. I surge against her, capturing her lips in a kiss that's both savage and achingly tender, a silent vow seared into every slide of skin on skin.

"Mine," I growl against the thrumming pulse in her throat, teeth and tongue and the barest hint of suction. "Fuck, Cara. I love you so goddamn much."

"Show me," she breathes, and it's a plea, a challenge, a benediction. "Shut up that lying voice and show me. "

I worship her body with lips and tongue and teeth, leaving a trail of marks in my wake. Mine, every inch of her is mine, and I'll be damned if I let anyone take her from me again.

When I finally slide into her, we both cry out at the exquisite rightness of it. She's tight and hot and perfect, clenching around me like she never wants to let go.

"Fuck, Cara," I groan, burying my face in the crook of her neck. "You feel like heaven."

"Move," she demands, her nails raking down my back. "Please, June, I need you to move."

I obey, setting a punishing rhythm that has the headboard slamming against the wall. It's too much and not enough all at once, pleasure coiling tight in my gut as I drive into her again and again.

"That's it, baby," I growl, hitching her leg higher on my hip. "Take what you need. Show me how much you missed me."

Cara throws her head back, a breathy cry escaping her lips as I hit that spot deep inside her. "June, oh God, June!"

"That's right," I snarl, feeling my control slipping. "Say my name. Let them all hear who you belong to."

She gasps, fists clenched in my hair as I work her higher, tighter, hurtling towards the edge of utter dissolution. "Just like that, baby."

"Say you're mine, Cara" I rasp, fingers joining my tongue in a devastating counterpoint. "I want you to scream it, to let the whole fucking world know who you belong to."

Her back bows like a drawn bow, taut and quivering. "I'm yours," she keens, a broken hallelujah. "Yours, June. Only ever yours."

But even in the grip of mindless need, I pause, holding her gaze with an intensity that robs us both of breath.

"Tell me you want this," I rasp, the words raw as fresh road rash. "Tell me you need me, that this isn't just some fever dream or fucking hallucination."

Her eyes blaze, twin stars gone supernova. "I want this," she says, deliberate and diamond-cut. "I want you, June. In me, on me, possessing every fucking atom. Now shut up and fuck me ."

I comply with a snarl, a single brutal thrust seating me to the hilt in her grasping, dripping core. We both cry out at the soul-deep connection, the feeling of utter completion. It's like coming home, like finding religion, like staring into the face of the divine and seeing only infinite acceptance, infinite grace.

"Fuck, you feel incredible," I groan, already moving, falling into the ancient rhythm of bodies and hearts and raw animal need. "So tight, so perfect, so wet just for me."

"I was," she pants, scoring lines of sweet fire down my heaving flanks. "Yours, June. Designed for your cock, for your come, for-"

Her words dissolve into a low, keening wail as I change the angle, hitting that spot that turns her molten and boneless and incoherent with bliss. I set a punishing pace, driving into her like I can fuse our very molecules, like I can crawl inside her skin and live there, safe and loved and unshakably sane.

Every thrust, every slap of skin, every broken endearment feels like an exorcism, a savage purging of demons both literal and figurative. Faulkner's poison recoils with each cry of my name from her lips, each declaration of eternal devotion gasped into the sweat-damp hollow of my throat.

"That's it," Cara hisses, eyes wild and glassy with lust, with love, with the all-consuming need that mirrors my own. "Harder, baby. Wanna feel this for days, wanna be split open and dripping with this perfect fucking cock."

I comply with a roar, folding her nearly in half as I pound into her soaked, swollen flesh. I'm close, teetering on the knife's edge of shattering ecstasy, but I'll be damned if I fall without her.

"Come on, gorgeous," I grit out, working a hand between us to circle the throbbing pearl of her clit. "Come for me, let me feel this sweet cunt squeezing me dry."

She seizes up with a choked scream, spasming and fluttering around my dick. It's exquisite, obliterating, the most intensely perfect sensation I've ever known. I thrust once, twice more, and then I'm coming like a freight train, like a force of nature, painting her trembling walls with thick jets of my seed.

I collapse against her, both of us gulping air like drowning victims finally breaching the surface. She cradles me close, fingers twining in my sweat-soaked hair, legs locked around my hips as if she can't bear even an inch of separation.

For a long moment, we lay tangled together, our hearts racing in tandem. I press my forehead to hers, breathing her in, reveling in the feel of her skin against mine.

"I love you," I whisper, the words inadequate but all I have to offer. "I love you so fucking much, Cara."

She cups my face in her hands, her eyes shining with tears. "I love you too, June. Always."

But as the afterglow fades, as reality starts to creep back in, I see the doubt shadowing her gaze. The fear.

"June," she says softly, her thumb tracing the curve of my cheek. "We need to talk about what happened. About Elaine, and the custody hearing, and-"

"No." The word comes out harsher than I intend, and I feel her flinch beneath me. "No, I can't... I can't think about that right now. Just let me have this moment, Cara. Please."

She hesitates, worry creasing her brow. But then she nods, pulling me close once more. "Okay," she murmurs, pressing a kiss to my temple. "Okay, my love. We'll face it in the morning."

I close my eyes, breathing in the scent of her, letting it calm the storm raging in my mind. For now, in this stolen moment of peace, I can almost believe that everything will be alright.

But deep down, in the darkest corners of my soul, I know the truth.

This is just the calm before the hurricane.

The afterglow fades, reality seeping back like poison. Cara's warmth beside me is a lifeline, but even that can't silence the demons clawing at my skull.

"We should talk about names," Cara murmurs, her fingers tracing lazy patterns on my chest. "I was thinking Onyx might be nice."

I hum noncommittally, drinking in her scent - jasmine and sex and home.

She chuckles softly. "Song and Louis were joking about Bernard earlier. Can you imagine?"

Louis. The name ignites a flashfire of memories - Faulkner's twisted illusions, Cara writhing beneath Louis while I'm forced to watch. My body goes rigid, a snarl building in my throat.

"June?" Cara's voice is distant, muffled by the roaring in my ears. "Baby, what's wrong?"

I blink, struggling to separate reality from the nightmares Faulkner planted. Cara's eyes are wide, concern etched in every line of her face.

"It's nothing," I grit out, but my hands are shaking. "Just... don't talk about him. Please."

Understanding dawns in her gaze, followed quickly by a fierce protectiveness that steals my breath. "Oh, June. What did that bastard do to you?"

I shake my head, unable to voice the horrors. Cara cups my face, forcing me to meet her eyes. "Listen to me. Whatever Faulkner showed you, whatever he made you think you saw - it wasn't real. I'm yours, completely and utterly. No one else."

Her words are a balm, but the poison lingers. I crush her to me, burying my face in her hair. "Make me forget," I rasp. "Please, Cara. I need..."

"Shh," she soothes, pressing kisses along my jaw. "I've got you. Let me take care of you."

What follows is a haze of sensation - Cara's lips on my skin, her hands mapping every scar, every ridge of muscle. She takes me apart piece by piece, driving the shadows back with each touch, each whispered endearment.

When she finally sinks down onto me, it's like coming home. I grip her hips hard enough to bruise, desperate to ground myself in this moment, in her.

"Look at me," Cara demands, and I obey instantly. Her eyes blaze with love, with a possessiveness that matches my own. "You're mine, June Deveaux. My husband, my heart, the father of my child. Nothing and no one will ever change that."

I surge up to capture her lips, pouring every ounce of devotion, of need, into the kiss. We move together, finding that perfect rhythm that speaks of years of intimacy, of knowing each other's bodies as well as our own.

It's not gentle. It can't be, not with the storm of emotions raging between us. But it's exactly what we both need - a reaffirmation, a reclaiming.

When we finally come apart, trembling and gasping, I feel... not whole, not yet. But closer than I've been in months.

Cara collapses against my chest, and I wrap my arms around her, marveling at the swell of her belly pressed between us. Our child. Our future.

"We're going to be okay," Cara murmurs, already half-asleep. "You, me, and little Onyx. We'll figure it out."

I press a kiss to her temple, tightening my hold. "Yeah," I whisper, allowing myself to believe it, just for this moment. "We will."

As Cara drifts off to sleep, I'm left alone with the weight of what just happened. The passion, the desperation, the edge of violence - it both exhilarates and terrifies me. Did I go too far? Is this who I've become?

I brush a gentle hand over Cara's bruised skin, guilt warring with a possessive satisfaction. She said she wanted it, trusted me completely. But can I trust myself?

Faulkner's conditioning still echoes in my mind, a poison threatening to corrupt even this moment of connection. I tighten my hold on Cara, as if I could physically keep the demons at bay.

Sleep won't come easy tonight. Not with Elaine's threats looming and the knowledge of what I'm capable of when pushed to the brink. I'll protect my family at any cost - but at what cost to my soul?