“Yours,” she whispered back, her hand coming up to rest over my heart.
And I felt it then. The steady beat beneath her palm. Proof that I was still alive. Still here. Still capable of feeling something other than grief and rage, and guilt. She made me feelhumanagain, and in that moment, I knew there was no going back.
She was mine.
Mine to protect.
No matter what came next—Shadow’s wrath, the club’s rules, the consequences of our choices—I would face it all.
For her.
Because losing her would destroy me more completely than Julie’s death ever had, and I wasn’t strong enough to survive that kind of loss twice.
Chapter Twenty
Hope
Throughout the night, Chapman made love to me.
Again and again, until I couldn’t tell where he began and I ended. Until my body was nothing but sensation. Raw, aching, and alive in ways I had never imagined possible.
This is what I’ve been waiting for, I realized somewhere in the haze of pleasure and need.Not Angel. Not some vague future. Him. Always him.
Even before I knew his name, before I saw his face in daylight, my body had recognized him at the pond. My soul had known. And now, in this run-down motel room with peeling paint and faded curtains, he claimed me completely. Made me his in the most primal, undeniable way.
Even now in the early morning, he was slow and deliberate. His hands mapped every inch of my skin like he was memorizing me, his mouth following the path his fingers traced. He whispered my name—myname, not hers—like a prayer, like I was something sacred he was afraid to break. “Hope,” he breathed against my collarbone, as his lips trailed fire across my skin. “Oh God, Hope.”
Each time he said it, something inside me unfurled. He wasn’t lost in memories of Julie. He was here, present, withme. Seeing me. Wanting me. Choosing me. His hands were everywhere. Cupping my breasts with a reverence that made my breath catch, tracing the curve of my waist, sliding down to grip my hips. The rough calluses on his palms scraped deliciouslyagainst my skin, sending shivers racing through me. I arched into his touch, and silently begged for more, and he gave it to me.
As his mouth closed over my nipple and sucked gently at first and then harder, I gasped, my fingers threading through his hair to hold him there. The sensation shot straight to my core, making me impossibly wet. I could feel the slickness between my thighs, could feel my body preparing itself for him, and the knowledge made me flush with heat.
I want this, I thought desperately.I want him. All of him. Everything he can give me.
He kissed his way down my body. My sternum, my ribs, my belly, and I trembled beneath him, overwhelmed by the tenderness in every touch. This wasn’t the desperate, grief-stricken coupling at the pond. This was deliberate. Intentional. This was Chapman choosing to worship every inch of me, to learn my body, to make me his.
When he finally settled between my thighs, his broad shoulders forcing my legs wider, I felt exposed in a way that should have terrified me. But the look in his eyes, dark with desire, soft with something that looked dangerously like love, chased away any fear.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, his breath hot against my inner thigh. “So perfect.” And then his mouth was on me, and I stopped thinking altogether.
The sensation was overwhelming. His tongue stroked through my folds, circled my clit, and then dipped inside me. I cried out, my hips lifting off the bed, but his hands gripped my thighs, holding me in place as he devoured me. The scratch of his stubble against my sensitive skin added another layer of sensation, pleasure bordering on pain, as I fisted my hands in the sheets to keep from flying apart.
When he finally pulled back, his lips glistened with my arousal, and I trembled, desperate, aching for more. “Please,” Iwhispered, not even sure what I was begging for. But he knew. He moved up my body, settled between my thighs, and I felt his cock—thick and heavy and impossibly hot—pressing against my entrance. My breath caught. Even after the pond, even knowing what to expect, the reality of him was overwhelming.
“Breathe, baby,” he murmured, his forehead pressed to mine, his eyes locked on my face. “Just breathe.”
I tried, but the fullness as he pushed inside was almost too much. He was so big, stretching me open inch by inch, and I felt every ridge, every vein as he sank deeper. My body trembled beneath him, adjusting to the intrusion, and he held still, letting me accommodate him.
He’s inside me, I thought, dazed.He’s filling me completely, and it feels like coming home.
“You okay?” he asked, his voice strained, his muscles taut with the effort of holding back.
I nodded, unable to form words, and then he started to move. Long, slow strokes that made me gasp. The friction was exquisite, his cock dragging against every sensitive nerve inside me, lighting up places I didn’t know existed. I wrapped my legs around his waist to pull him deeper, needing more, needing all of him.
“God, Hope,” he groaned, his breath hot against my neck. “You feel so fucking good. So tight around me.”
His words sent heat flooding through me, pooling low in my belly. I arched into him, wanting more, needing more, and he gave it to me. His hips rolled in a steady rhythm that built the pressure inside me with each thrust. I felt the sweat gathering between our bodies, the slick slide of skin on skin, and the way his breath came faster against my neck.
This is what it means to be alive, I thought as pleasure spiraled through me.This is what I’ve been waiting for.
