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I’d left Jack passed out on his couch hours ago, opting to let him rest and hopefully sleep off his funk. I’d spent some time in the gym, then had lunch with Evan, and paced the hall in the apartment for a good twenty minutes before turning on an ambient log fire video. I needed something to stare at while I let my thoughts consume me, and since the windows in this building were few and far between, I was sitting on the couch, knees tucked to my chest and staring at the screen of flickering fire.
There was something hypnotizing about the flames dancing and crackling that let my mind open. I’d tried to do this with Jack, but he’d just made jokes about my inner pyromaniac coming out to play. Honestly his half-assed attempts to push everyone away were concerning me, but this was my fire; I didn’t want to waste it worrying about him. It was my introspective time and the star of the freakout would be me.
I needed the therapist of the Remington Security family, but Fitz had been on a job somewhere in Canada. and while I was impressed that they were farther reaching than the United States, I wanted him back. I was having a hard time grasping my rollercoaster of emotion when it came to losing my father. Since the age of 13, I swore I wouldn’t care if he were just gone one day. Now that he was, I found it was easy to cry about the missed opportunities with him. Finding out that Dominic had manipulated him from the beginning and took my father’s attention for the sole purpose of torturing me, it had been a hard pill to swallow.
It made the what if game in my head far too loud to think about the reality of what was. Those were the moments I broke down and Decker was always there, pulling me into his embrace with some seriously psychic skills to know when said break down was coming. The worst of it had been in the hospital. Inconsolable as the true extent of the horror I’d managed to survive really washed over me.
I sobbed continuously the first few days after I finally woke up. I couldn’t figure out how the tears hadn’t dried up, but judging by how often IVs of saline were switched out, I had a feeling the nurses were my liquid dealers. It had been an early morning where sleep had finally broken up the gut-wrenching tears when I felt Decker shift away from the familiar position he’d taken on my bed.
I heard him whisper “outside” to someone and two pairs of feet shuffle toward the door. The early hour made the hall they’d entered silent, and I listened as the nurse informed Decker that it would be beneficial to have me evaluated for my mental health. It all sounded like they wanted to commit me to a psych ward, fearing I was a danger to myself. My heart rate had picked up rapidly before Decker’s words had calmed the fire of anxiety blazing in my chest.
“That woman in there just had to run the gauntlet of her life. She lost the only grandparent figures she’s ever had, two old friends, two new friends, she was kidnapped, tortured, and watched her father be brutally murdered in front of her. You think the fact that she cries to release some of that tension is too imbalanced? I think the fact that she isn’t catatonic from the stress is a miracle.” I couldn’t hear what the nurse had to say, but I certainly heard Decker cut her off.
“No, seriously. I’m done listening to people say that her crying isn’t healthy. I’ve known men who’ve eaten a bullet after dealing with less. Even while bawling her eyes out and curled up on her side, that fucking woman is the strongest person I’ve ever met. As long as she’s crying, she’s reacting. And that’s a fuck of a lot better than she could be.”
There were mumbled apologies and a hurried retreat before I felt Decker slide back in beside me. I flipped to face him, surprising him. He’d assumed I was still asleep, but he wasn’t surprised to see the tears that filled my raw and aching eyes. But these tears were different.
“Hey, I thought you were sleeping.” He didn’t even blink twice at the tears, just curled up on his side facing me, thumb tracing my cheek bone, his palm a reassuring pressure on the side of my face.
“I love you,” I whispered through the moisture in my eyes. His brows dipped in confusion for only an instant before that beautiful, soul shattering smile grew on his lips.
“I love you, too. But why are you declaring your love for me at 2:30 in the morning when you should be sleeping?”
I hadn’t answered. I’d simply forced him to his back and curled around his side, throwing my leg over his hips and snuggling in. But the tears had dried up by sunrise, and hadn’t returned.
“Hey, sexy.” The voice startled me out of my log fire induced hypnotic trance and the kiss to the top of my head made me jump. “Whoa, you okay? I didn’t exactly sneak in.” Decker was leaning over the couch when I craned my neck to look at him.
“Sorry, I was in my head.” The words were second nature by now and like always, I listened to him tell me not to apologize as he moved into the bedroom to change from the suit to his sweats.
I followed him, watching him undress, heat flooding my belly as he unbuttoned his shirt with those deft fingers I desperately wanted inside me just then. Anytime I watched him strip, my arousal shot to ten and I was ready to mount him. His eyes rose to mine and seeing my want he gave a small tsk.
“You know we aren’t doing anything to causethatlook until your stitches come out.” Even as he said the words, I watched his cock grow in his pants. He was just as turned on as I was by a simple look, but he had the self control of a saint.
“I can think of at least five different activities that don’t involve me working my one small injury.” I gave him a playful pout, sticking my bottom lip out.
With inhuman speed, Decker was suddenly in front of me, leaning down and catching my bottom lip between his teeth, pulling gently before releasing it and kissing me full on. Pulling back, he shook his head with a sigh.
“Not happening, babe. You forget, I’m well acquainted with watching you come.” I felt my face heat at the bold words, not from embarrassment, but from the flame of desire suddenly engulfing my body. Anytime my gorgeous, stoic man started talking sex, every single nerve-ending woke up to greet him. He leaned down again, this time to trail his nose up the side of my neck before sneaking his tongue out to tease the sensitive spot just below my ear. “Your whole body tenses like a wire stretching to its limits, each muscle straining to release, building up until you finally crash down, letting go all at once.”
His hand stroked down my side and across my stomach and arousal had those muscles tightening, causing a pained hiss to escape me as my thigh screamed out in protest. Decker stepped back immediately, a pointed look on his face that seemed to tell me “I told you so” without him having to utter a single word.
“No one likes a know-it-all,” I grumbled, limping over to the step stool Decker had been kind enough to get for my side of the bed. It actually helped that I had the injury because I had a feeling that spending the rest of my life needing a boost to get into bed would wear on me. He chuckled to himself as he finished changing in the walk-in closet before returning in sweats and nothing else. How was I supposed to keep my hands to myself with him flaunting that body in front of me?
“Have you thought more about your plans after your party girl retirement is official?” Since the public still took my radio silence on the club scene as a time of mourning, it was a conversation we’d discussed a handful of times. He didn’t seem to care about it either way, but I held an inner resentment for the time I’d wasted playing a part. My father had played his and instead of working on our relationships, we’d reacted.
“I have, actually. I want to do more with kids in the foster system. More than just writing checks anyway. I think we’ve both seen the difference love can make to shape a child.”
Decker crawled onto the bed and laid back against the pillows before pulling me into his side, letting out a content sigh as my arm draped over his chest, my hand resting on his camouflaged scar. “You know, even if Avery hadn’t found the Mullins, I wouldn’t have turned out like Parker.” He kissed the top of my head and I snuggled closer. The contact with him was always the cure for the constant storm of what if’s rolling in my mind.
“I know, but the fact that you two were in two completely different places and still endured the same versions of hell…there's a problem there, Decker. I hate the thought of children being exposed to evil like that, especially after losing so much to begin with.” I followed the inked lines of Lady Justice with my finger, taking a familiar path across his defined pec. “Since I can’t adopt every kid out of the system, I can work on something that will make life better. Even something as small as a safe space for them would be better than just pretending there isn’t a problem.”
I hadn’t been expecting the movement, so when Decker flipped quickly, raising over me and pinning my arms to the bed, I let out a surprised squeak. His eyes were ablaze with that unfiltered and all consuming love that pulled me in every damn time. His lips lowered to mine and he teased me, passing soft brushes of his lips against mine, staying just out of reach as I tried to push up to seal my mouth to his.
“You are the most amazing woman I’ve ever met,” he whispered, feathering kisses along my jaw before dipping to my neck. I turned to the side, giving him more access as he continued a heated trail down to my collarbone. “Your capacity for compassion is limitless, and I can’t wait to spend the rest of our lives learning every corner of that giant heart.”
“You say the sweetest things when you withhold orgasms from me,” I replied before a breathy moan escaped me. I was touched by his words more than I could say, and because I couldn’t say… I made jokes. But just like with everything else, my man saw through it as he continued lower.
“I hate the idea of leaving you unsatisfied,” he purred against the exposed cleavage at the top of my tank. “Hands on the headboard and if you so much as flinch, I’m stopping.”
