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“It’s me, beautiful,” I say as softly as I can but loud enough for her to hear me. Her body instantly relaxes, and she swings around and jumps at me.
“Declan, I love you,” she cries, and I hold her tighter.
“Callie, baby, we need to get out of here.” I’ll address what she said when I have her safe.
I direct her to the window and pull it open when Carter gives me a thumbs-up from the other side. He cut the lines to the alarm. I lift Callie up and hand her over. As I climb out the window, I hear someone coming into the room and turn to see Benedict. He has a gun raised, but I can’t get to mine fast enough. A gun goes off, and I feel the movement of air displacing next to my head. Benedict falls to the floor dead. I jump down and take Callie from Carter’s arms. We quickly hump it out of the area to an adjacent property, where we board a boat at the dock. A couple of miles up the coast, a helicopter waits for us to get us across the island to where a private plane is waiting for us. During all this I just hold her close to my body. I can’t let her go, and the words she said earlier keep ringing in my head.
As soon as we get on the plane, I carry her to the back bedroom. Carter tries to stop me.
“I need to speak to her first, and she needs rest.” I’m not going to let him upset her. She’s been through too much. I don’t know what happened in that bedroom before I got there, but she isn’t going to forget she killed a man so easily.
“But I need to talk to her,” he demands.
Callie trembles as she burrows into me closer.
“No. It’s my job as her man to protect her, even from her own family.”
I move around him to the private room at the back of the jet. I lay her on the bed. She rolls to look at me and watches what I’m doing. I pull off my vest and extra gear, leaving it in a pile on the dresser. Then I pull my backpack from the closet. I open it and lift out the perfectly trimmed lengths of synthetic rope. The bright color isn’t hard to miss. She knows what it is, and I watch as her eyes flare wide.
“Do I need to restrain you to help calm you? Or do you want me to just hold you?” I give her the option. I know she needs to get out of her head. I know she’s seeing Rusty’s cold dead eyes in her mind. She won’t sleep until she can get that image out of there.
“Do it, please,” she begs, holding her hands up to me.
I climb on the bed and carefully straddle her body. I wrap the ropes around her wrists in a two column tie. Then I lift her wrists and tie them up to the anchor at the top of the bed. As I wrapped the rope around her wrists, I focused on touching her. To bring her closer to the erotic release she needs. Once I get her secured, I drag my hands down her body until I get to her stomach area. My hands cup her lower abdomen. She starts to tremble again, and I look up at her. With her eyes on mine, I ask the question I need to.
“Do you have my baby in here, beautiful?”
“Yes.” She sighs, and I lean down to kiss her still flat stomach.
“I love you too, Callie.” I give her the words she needed to hear. “I want all of this with you. Let me protect you.”
“Please.”
I cut the dress from her body and slowly make love to her, building her up. When I finally pull the ties from her body. I continue the erotic touch, putting her deeper into subspace. I hold her and caress her until she falls asleep against me.
* * *
Two weeks later I finally get the chance to call Taliah back. I let her know my cover is blown and that so far Elle hasn’t been found. But I can’t promise her it will stay that way. I direct her to call Maya and Joshua, hoping they really aren’t compromised and they could help her make sure Elle is safe. Elle is a case I worked with Taliah to protect a young teenage girl that was almost murdered. I’d worked with Taliah before on a few cases in Boston. So when she contacted me to help with Elle, I knew I had to help.
We are settled at my large ranch in Montana. Here I can see anyone coming after us, and it’s completely buried where no one can find it. This is the place that started my family’s money a long time ago. Ranching started it all.
Callie has still avoided talking to Carter, and he can’t get any information from S.I. on what the status is.
EPILOGUE
CALLIE
I’m now over fourteen weeks along in my pregnancy. We got to hear the heartbeat. Declan also forced me to marry him by the justice of the peace in the small town near his ranch. I’m married to a billionaire, and I didn’t even know he was one until the day after the wedding. I knew he was rich, but not this rich.
I’m sitting in an Adirondack chair on the covered deck. I have a blanket over my lap to keep my legs warm and a heavy coat over my shoulders. The crisp November air has the smell of snow, Declan says.
“We need to talk.” Carter’s voice comes from behind me. I’ve avoided this confrontation. Declan agreed I needed time to heal. I still wake up several nights a week from the fight I had with Rusty.
He had pushed me into the room and said he knew I was pregnant. He called Sir right then and they talked about keeping me until the baby was born, then they’d take it. I was beside myself. No one was taking my baby. I got to the bed where I’d hidden the knife and then I attacked. I was able to get the upper hand only because of surprise. He wasn’t paying attention to me while on the phone with Sir.
I can still feel the warmth of his blood as it splashed against my skin. Declan knows what happened because I told him after a nightmare. Carter only knows I had to kill someone.
“Are you going to acknowledge me?”
