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Going to sleep on the Rig and waking up in the Austin den gives me more than a little culture shock.
For one thing, there are no rules—except about intruding on the omega baths, which I’ve already broken. We can go where we please, talk about what we wantwhenwe want, and we could leave and never come back if we wanted to. Not that Peaches wants to go anywhere; she’s satisfied now that she’s back home, and I have to admit it’s nice here.
The second thing that’s changed—and something I’mveryhappy about—is that I can show the world how much I love this woman.
I keep my arm around her shoulder as we walk through the halls of the den, Peaches regaling me with the story of how we all escaped from the Rig and arrived here. Whereas she was forced into silence on the Rig, I see now that it’s her nature to talk and make friends…and she has a lot of friends here. Every other turn we make, she’s waving at someone, laughing with someone else, the joy inside her seeping into everyone we pass.
It’s strange to hear her talk like this out in the open—loud and unafraid, her eyes bright as she describes her friends’ arrival, my fight with Gideon, our journey on the Valkyrie ship. I don’t remember a second of it; everything after Gideon dosed me with kraken is a blur. At least I took the bastard out before we left.
Even though Peaches is happy now, I can tell she went through a lot to get here. The minute the bond snapped back into place, I felt her pain and fear, a stream of unpleasant sensations that made it hard to break away from her. It’s why I haven’t taken my hands off her since I woke up, and why I never plan on leaving her alone again.
She leads me back to her room after we’re done in the baths, a little nook in the maze of tunnels. The light from the hall spills across a small bed in the corner, a battered old sofa on the opposite wall covered with a handmade, brightly colored blanket. Peaches herself is dressed in something I haven’t seen her in since we initially took her—a fuzzy purple sweater that drape down to her knees. I fixate on the dimples in the backs of her thighs, my eyes trailing up over her ass, the small of her back, draped in comfort.
“Well, this is it,” she says, her back to me. “Home.”
I follow her inside and slide my hands around her waist, pulling her into my chest. I splay my fingers to hold her closer, tighter, to convince her that I’m back.
She’s so bright and bubbly, but the bond doesn’t lie—she’s still scared.
“Home,” I rumble, then press a kiss to her temple.
She turns in my arms and runs her hands over my chest and shoulders. Her brown eyes are red and puffy, her brow furrowed. She’s been crying…and I hate that I’m the one who made her cry.
“I thought you were a goner for a bit there,” she says quietly. “I’m so glad…”
Her voice breaks and she buries her face in my chest.
I sigh into her wild curls. “I’m so sorry, Peach.”
“For what?” her muffled voice says.
She’s always forgiving me when I don’t deserve forgiveness. I take her gently by the shoulders and meet her teary eyes, gazing down at her.
I love her so fucking much. I know I don’t deserve this sweetness, that I did nothing to earn her love, but I can’t ever let her go.
Maybe that makes me selfish.
Maybe that’s how all men feel when they have something as good as this.
“For taking you in the first place,” I say. “Not trying harder to get you out of there, losing my mind when you needed me most of all.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and huff out a breath, but her hand comes to rest on the center of my chest, over my heart.
“Javi,” she says softly. “It’s okay for you to need me too.”
I open my eyes again and lift her chin. “I think I’ve always needed you, Peach.”
I bend to kiss her, Peaches standing on tip-toe to reach me. She melts into my chest as our lips meet, her hair brushing over my knuckles when I place my hands on the small of her back. She’s so tentative, soft, gentle. It could be because she thinks either one of us might break after what we’ve been through, now that we’re in this safe place.
She clings to me with her arms around my neck, snatching little kisses from my lips, across my jaw, on all the scratches and bruises that haven’t healed.
“You can’t ever do that again,” she whispers, nose to nose. “Promise me.”
“I swear, Peach.” My hands come around behind her and I scoop her into my arms, holding her tight. “I promise I’ll never leave you again.”
I carry her to the bed, careful with my steps when I’m still so unsteady on my feet. She holds my face in her hands and covers every inch of me with butterfly kisses, from the tip of my nose to the corners of my lips, to the hinge of my jaw. She finds the single bite she left on me and opens her mouth to run her tongue over it, and my breath hitches as I kneel to set her on the bed.
She settles in with me between her legs, my hands on her thighs. A plain pair of pink underwear covers her pussy, but I can already scent her, a wet spot between her legs. I find the bite mark in her inner thigh and run my tongue over it, pressing an open mouth kiss to the spot as I gaze up at her.
