Chapter Forty-Six Pax

Chapter Forty-Six

Pax

I reached over and ran my knuckles down the defined line of Aria’s jaw where she sat facing me in the passenger seat, her expression both sorrowful and serene.

I’d expected her to be completely spent after the ordeal, to be wasted the way she’d been when I’d found her in a heap on the floor of Target, but it was different. Life beat through her veins.

“I can’t believe it’s over,” she murmured into the darkness, which covered the car like a shroud. Lights flickered over her gorgeous face as we passed beneath the streetlamps that tossed a dingy glow through the thick fog of Albany.

“I was so fuckin’ scared, seeing you through that Ghorl’s mind,” I admitted. “I wanted to jump right through it so I could get to you and rip his hands from your throat.”

“I was scared, too, but it feels so different now.” Her voice was hushed, like she was issuing a secret.

I glanced from the windshield to her, and I stroked my thumb over the tiny scar at the edge of her mouth. “You don’t have to be afraid anymore. Don’t have to run anymore.”

Uncertainty held her, and I peeked over to where she was staring across at me.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay with your mom?” It caused me physical pain to ask it.

I kept glancing between her and the road, and her pale, pale eyes were wide in the flashes of light. “You don’t want me to go with you?”

Rejection twisted my stomach. The promise I’d made Ellis at the beginning of all this flashed through my mind—the one where I’d said that after we ended the monster, I would leave her behind.

That fucking nagging worry at the back of my mind. The what if that questioned if what we’d been told might be true. That I’d turn on her.

My head shook sharply.

No. Not a fucking chance. And even if she asked me to, I didn’t think I’d be able to do it. “The only place I want you is with me,” I admitted, the words rough.

“Because that’s where we belong.”

“That’s right. You belong right here, with me.” I reached down and squeezed her upper thigh.

The air shifted, tightening with greed. With the hunger we’d tried to suppress.

Guess we shouldn’t have been surprised that there’d been no chance of that.

“Where should we go after this?” Aria asked, her voice just short of a tease. She curled her hand over mine, which was still attached to her thigh.

“Taking my princess to that island sounds like a pretty good plan right about now.”

Slush fell from the drizzling sky, and my wipers swished over the frozen moisture.

“I think I’d like that,” she said as she turned her gaze out the window, her demeanor going wistful.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Though anywhere I go with you would be perfect,” she murmured, turning her sweet attention back to me.

“Thinking a hotel room tonight, and not one of those shitty ones we’ve been staying at. I want to lay you out right.” There was no keeping the need out of my tone—not that I was trying.

A flush lit her cheeks, and I could feel the heat glide through her veins.

I loved that we could be like this. That I could flirt with my girl and show her what it was like to really be treated right without the worry trailing our every step. Loved that maybe, for a little while, we could let go and relax.

“What about what happened at the facility? Are you not afraid of getting caught?” She whispered it like she was afraid that if she said it too loud, I might.

Thing was, I had committed so many crimes in my life that I hardly considered them anymore. That one was close to inconsequential compared with the rest.

“We’ll face it if it comes to that. We should probably settle somewhere away from Albany, though.”

“We aren’t going to stay on that island forever?” The teasing reemerged. “What, am I only a part-time princess?”

I moved my hand to squeeze the inside of her thigh. A squeal of laughter rolled out of her. God, I loved the sound of it.

Her joy.

Her freedom.

Exactly what I’d hoped to give to her but had never believed could truly make happen.

“Nah, baby, you’re my forever princess.”

That blush deepened, though it was affected, and affection dragged a pretty flush over the surface of her milky skin. “I’ll take that.”

I sobered, too. “I’ll give you everything I can, Aria.”

I pulled into a hotel about ten minutes away from where we’d dropped her mother off at her grandmother’s. It wasn’t quite a five star, but it was a place where we could get cozy and rest. I parked, grabbed our things, and for once, I didn’t ask Aria to wait for me to get us a room. We strolled in together like it was what we were meant to do.

The guy working registration didn’t blink when I pulled out a wad of cash.

We rode the elevator to the fifth floor, and I slung my arm over Aria’s shoulders, and she leaned into my side as we walked down the long hall with doors on each side. I touched the card to the sensor and let us into the room.

Aria moved in ahead of me, and she spun in the middle of the living area, where there was a couch against the wall and a round table beneath the window. Something seductive played over the edges of her features. “Oh, you really are trying to spoil me.”

“That’s the plan, though it doesn’t have a thing to do with this room.”

Her teeth scraped that lush bottom lip, and she moved to the door that led to the bedroom at the back. She peeked back at me. “Are you sure about that? Because I was hoping it might involve this big, comfy bed.”

A smirk climbed to my mouth as I let the door swing shut behind us, and I clicked the lock and stalked across the room toward my girl, who was shifting anxiously on her feet.

And I wanted to play, to keep it light when we’d been through so much bullshit, but the second my hands slanted across her cheeks to frame her face, I couldn’t speak.

I didn’t think there were really any words for this .

This connection that blazed.

The flames that warmed and the embers that licked.

She exhaled a soft sound, too, like she was just as moved.

“You amaze me, Aria. Fucking knock the wind out of me with who you are. And I know I’m the luckiest man alive that I get to be here to witness it.”

Her eyes narrowed and creased at the edges. “I don’t think I’m the only special one here, Pax. There’s something ... between us. Something we can’t see.”

I gathered one of her hands between both of mine and pulled it tight to the thunder at my chest. “But we can feel it.”

She blinked with the slightest nod, a soft affirmation. “Yes. We can feel it.”

“I’ve always felt you.” I murmured it.

A confession.

An oath.

She hiked up on her toes and threaded her fingers through my hair, and she brushed a whisper-light kiss across my lips. “Always.”

And that was all it took for us to snap, and I dove in to take her mouth.

This kiss?

It was fevered but slow. Fierce yet languid.

Demanding brushes of lips and delirious nips of teeth. Her blunt nails scraped down the back of my neck when my tongue played against hers in a slow slide of need. Desire rolled up her throat, and she kissed me back so intensely that I was struck with a rush of lightheadedness.

Her lips enchanting.

So damned sweet.

I backed her into the room. We only broke apart long enough for me to peel her sweater over her head and for her to rid me of my shirt.

Cool air skimmed across our bare flesh, and chills lifted on her skin. I chased them with my mouth. Kissing down over her jaw, the delicate column of her throat.

She whimpered when I delved over the swell of her left breast, then licked over the fabric of her bra, my hands eager as they wrapped around her to flick the clasp.

I groaned when I edged back so I could draw it down her arms, my stomach in knots of lust and fists of devotion.

The light from the attached bathroom was enough to illuminate her in silhouette, and my fingertips dragged down her stomach, over the scarred, marred flesh.

She did the same, her hands exploring, the woman leaving trails of fire over my jagged, uneven skin.

The marks of who we were felt profound in the night.

Every touch was filled with reverence.

Every caress filled with praise.

I kissed her and kissed her, my hands bunching up in her hair, gliding over her shoulders, skimming her back, before I cupped her small breasts in the palms of my hands.

On a moan, Aria pushed harder into my touch, and I brushed my thumbs over the hard peaks of her nipples.

“Pax.”

“I know, Aria. I know what you need.”

She slipped her hand down to the waist of my jeans and flicked the button, and the sound of the zipper ripping open filled the heat of the room.

I edged back an inch. “On the bed, Princess.”

Another blush, the girl standing there bare from the waist up, black hair raining around her shoulders and cascading down to brush over her breasts.

Aria scooted onto the high mattress, her hands planted behind her to keep herself upright as she watched me lean down to unlace my boots, then shuck out of my jeans.

I straightened, standing before her completely bare.

A full-body offering.

“You’re so beautiful.” Her words cracked in the dense, dense air.

“No, Aria, it’s you that’s beauty. It’s you who’s the light.”

I was just the lucky motherfucker who got to bask in it.

I knelt in front of her, between her knees, and I looked up at her as I popped the button of her jeans and loosed the zipper, and a breathy sigh left her as I began to peel them down her legs, taking her underwear with them.

I crawled up over her then, hovering above her and gazing down at the ferocity that she was, at the gut-wrenching power that rippled across her flesh.

She scooted farther up onto the bed, and I rolled us so she was on top.

“I need to see you,” I murmured.

This exquisite woman straddled me, her hands planted on my chest.

My hands cinched down around her waist, and she eased back to take me.

A tremor rocked through us when she sank down.

An earthquake.

A flashfire.

And again, Aria glowed, lit up in striking lights that speared me to the core. To the center of who I was. From my beginning to my end.

“Pax,” she whimpered as she began to move.

“You feel so good. So perfect.” The words were grunts.

She was my perfection. My ecstasy. My completion.

Aria rolled over me, taking me again and again. Pleasure licked up my spine, and my head spun with dizziness.

With the rapture she created.

She arched and pitched and rocked, and I curled my hands around her narrow waist, holding on, chasing down the pleasure that was meant for only us.

“Touch me,” she demanded, and I slipped my hand down her hip and rolled my thumb over her clit.

I swore lightning struck in the room, and she bucked, taking me harder, deeper, wholly.

Bliss sparked at the edges of my being. In every corner. It sped inward to gather in a pinpoint to become one giant molecule of pleasure.

“I need to feel you come around me,” I urged, and I jolted upright so I could kiss her.

So I could swallow the sounds of her pleasure that erupted from her tongue as an orgasm rent through her body.

Her throbbing around me cut me in two, and that molecule exploded. My climax hit me so fast and hard that I couldn’t see. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t process anything but the feel of this woman around me.

With me.

In me.

And we were there, on a plane that belonged to only us. Aria and I elevated. Removed. Floating on a sheet of pure white.

And there was no darkness.

No regret.

No fear.

There was only stark, gutting relief.

Her nails sank deep into my back as we rode it out. As we rolled and writhed and coasted through ecstasy.

Finally, Aria slumped against me, exhausted and sated, her chest heaving against mine as those sweet arms clung to my neck.

I brushed back the locks of hair stuck to her cheeks and edged back so I could look at her stunning face. I had one hand bunched in her hair, and the other was on her cheek. “I will always find you.”

She dragged her fingertips over my lips, her soul eternally etched onto mine, and she whispered back, “Forever.”