Page 110 of This Reckless Home

Ant uses his grip on my throat to pull me in, pressing our foreheads together.

“We’re coming home. Every single one of us, Bloom. Together. And we’re never leaving again.”

I inhale his words into my lungs, surrounded by them and feeling safe and loved and beyond lucky.

“Can we go home now?” Justin’s voice sounds from just outside the huddle I’m in. “The place has been weird without you fuckers.”

I huff a laugh as Ant shakes his head against mine.

Something settles in my chest as he presses the lightest of kisses against my lips before pulling away, even though I can feel his need to devour me. My face is turned so first Nox and then Steele can do the same, a promise of more to come later when we’re not outside this awful place that tried to take them from me.

I look at each of them when they step back, Justin’s hand sliding into mine. Ant gives my pulse point a final stroke, then removes his hand from my neck, much to my dismay. As if he sees my thoughts written on my face, he smirks in a way that has my pulse fluttering wildly.

“Later, Bloom. Promise.”

Heat unfurls inside me as something in my solar plexus settles, a thing that has been unsettled for so long I’d almost forgotten what it felt like without it.

I look at these men who saved me when I didn’t even know I was drowning. They may be rough around the edges. They may look tired — though who am I kidding they are still sex on legs. But they’re home.

I turn to Justin, giving his hand a squeeze.

“Yes. Let’s go home.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

“UNCONDITIONAL” BY FREYA RIDINGS

NOX

Itake my Petal’s free hand as Jus grabs Ant’s and leads us over to the car. Henry is standing by the open passenger doors — because there are two of them — his weathered, pale face wreathed in a wide smile, silver threaded through what's left of his dark hair as he watches us approach.

“Welcome home, boys,” he greets when we reach him, and I find my lips tugging upwards. “You were sorely missed.”

“Thanks, Henry,” I say, and our eyes meet, his warm and full of affection that I hadn’t realised I’d earned.

The car is one I’ve not seen before, a big fuck off seven seater so Jus drags Ant into the seats behind the driver, leaving the back for me, Blossom and Steele.

Fine by me.

I need to be close to her, to touch her and know that she’s real and not something I’m imagining in that fucking concrete cell.

We pile in and then we’re driving away as if the past few weeks never happened. Were just another nightmare to add to the collection.

My hand finds my Petal’s thigh, and I briefly lament the fact she has jeans on so I can’t feel her skin. I press my fingers into her anyway, assuring myself once again that she’s here. That I’m fucking here. And that we’re all going home.

Steele’s arm wraps around her shoulders and she leans her head onto him. His thumb moves in slow circles on her arm, grounding himself as I am.

Ant twists briefly, placing his hand on her knee and squeezing while Jus talks at him a mile a minute, telling him all the things we missed including the fact that more than once Debbie slept in his room, Blossom huffing a laugh at that.

She’s like the star we gravitate around, all of us needing to orbit her after weeks of concrete walls and controlled, forced distance.

Her hand comes to cover mine on her thigh, our fingers intertwining like it’s the most natural fucking thing in the world.

Her smell fills my lungs as I inhale her deep, cherry blossom and spring breezes, and it starts to lower my shoulders by increments. Starts to loosen the tension that I feel like I’ve carried since the night of our wrongful fucking arrest.

It feels like it takes both minutes and hours until we’re pulling up to the guardhouse, the gates. Unlike that very first time, the guards give us nods and don’t look at us like we’re dog shit. I suppose not being in Ant’s beat up truck might help, but also, this is our home now. Which sounds fucking crazy given people like us don’t get to live in a mansion on the nice side of town.

Though I guess now we do and everyone else can go fuck themselves.