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“Close your eyes,” I tell him and watch out of my periphery as he obeys. His light red lashes fan down, and I press my lips to his temple and hold them there as I begin to pick up the pace. I can’t get much purchase in his jeans, but it’s enough to get him off.
I force him to endure the tenderness of my kiss while the roughness of my fist carries him over the edge, and when I feel him swell, I dip low and take his lips against mine. He cries silently into my mouth as I squeeze, and then he’s spilling over my knuckles.
Ari comes in long pulses that seem to take forever to stop, and when it does, his boxers are ruined. I swipe my hand on his jeans as I pull it away, and then I dig my fingers into his hair and deepen the kiss until he’s struggling to breathe.
When I lean back, I take in the sight of him: wrecked, shattered, ruined.
He’s so fucking gorgeous this way.
“You needed that, didn’t you?” I say. Everyone is being neglected right now, and it makes me feel like a failure.
His eyes slowly blink open, and his steady gaze meets mine. ‘It’s almost over,’ his fingers tell me.
Does he mean the war or us? I suppose either of those things is possible.
I kiss him again, then knock our foreheads together and just hold him that way until I feel the discomfort start to set in. I let him go slowly, but he doesn’t leap away the way he usually does when it all becomes too much. Instead, he slides off my lap, does his jeans back up, then stares down at me.
His fingers brush over my cheek, my lips, my chin. He pries my mouth apart, then lays a wet kiss there, tongue brushing mine just barely. There’s a message left on my wrist before he goes, and I hold it close to my chest when he leaves the room.
‘I will never lie to you.’
I don’t know how he knew I needed to hear that, but somehow, he did. And in that moment, it means everything.
The house is silent.Ari’s working hard—usually with James at his side and Phoenix monitoring everything, and one by one, the cells begin to empty out. One by one, our cleanup crew goes into disposal mode.
And one by one, families of the Walshes are given a payout because it’s not their fault one of their members turned on us.
I can tell Alice is on edge because Leo is still here, but so far, he’s been untouched. No one has seen him, and no one will see him until she’s ready.
The last thing I’m going to do is pressure her, but the wedding is in days, and I don’t know that I want to stand there and speak my vows to her with Leo’s fate hanging over our heads. Phoenix can tell I’m worked up—hell, they all can—so they steer clear of me.
Days pass, preparations are made. Alice goes to her dress fitting alone, and the boys and I are measured for our tuxes. It does something to see them standing before me dressed andabout to witness my vows to bring our queen into our fold, and it does something to me because I realize now I want this with them all.
When it’s all over…maybe.
Maybe they’ll want it too.
For now, we just live moment to moment as I tick names off my list and resecure this family.
It’s Thursday when Alice finally comes to me, her small fist tapping on the door to my office before letting herself in. She looks sweet and sleepy, her hair in a braid down her back, her belly just slightly rounded under her tight T-shirt. She’s wearing a pair of plaid leggings and long sleeves, and her feet are bare.
They make the barest tapping noise as they cross the office floor, and she comes to a stop beside my desk.
“Darling,” I say to her, just to see her eyes light up. She doesn’t have a praise kink like James, but she certainly enjoys pet names.
“I think I’m ready.”
My heart ticks up a notch, and I open my arms. She slides into my grasp like it’s the easiest thing she’s ever done, and I kiss her on the neck before asking, “Are you sure?”
She nods. “I don’t know what you want me to say or how the hell I’m supposed to get him to trust me, but I’m ready.”
“I don’t need him to give you answers, little goddess,” I tell her, pushing a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. I cup her cheek and graze her jaw with my thumb. “I need you to tell me if he’s lying.”
She laughs, the sound almost bitter. “You think I’ll know?”
“I think you’ll know better than any one of us.”
She pulls her lip between her teeth and bites down so hard I’m afraid she’s going to break the skin. I urge her to let go, and I soothe the hurt with a brush of my fingers. “What if I just want him to be telling the truth?”
