Page 63 of Keeper

“Did you doubt it?” she teases, running her fingers through my hair. “I haven’t been with anyone but you. Not since Jake.”

The mention of him makes me want to kill him again, but I find I’m surprised when I look deep inside and see I had no doubts. I trust her. “No doubts, beautiful.” I kiss her stomach again. “Still feels really fucking good to hear, though. Knowing you have a piece of me inside of you always.”Especially because I can’t always be with you.“I can’t explain it. All I know is it makes me happier than anything else ever has before.”

Hard as stone too, but I keep that bit to myself for the moment. “I’m so sorry it’s happening like this,” she whispers. “You deserve to be a dad out loud.”

Her words have my fingers curling into her hips. I didn’t know I needed to hear her say them, but here we are. In another life I’d be screaming from the mountain tops and killing every man that looks at her. Instead I’m destined to stand on the sidelines and smile like I don’t want to die every time he touches her. “Me too.” It’s not enough to make her feel better, but it’s all I can say on the subject right now. “Have you told him?”

“No. Maddy and Shay brought me the results so I told Maddy to go get you. He can squirm and wait and freak out all he wants. I know he’s your brother, but I really think I hate him.”

It makes me laugh. It shouldn’t, but it does. “Me too.” I don’t, but I haven’t had to be jealous of him in a very long time, and now it’s all I feel. “Because he gets to hold your hand. I’m just the mistress.”

“You are a lot of things, Draven Creed, but you are nobody’s mistress,” she corrects sharply, gripping my chin to force my gaze up. “You’re beautiful and terrifying, loyal and violent. You made this possible by killing Jake and giving Damian access to your father’s system. You stepped up when Alex couldn’t. While he was paralyzed between love and duty, you did what needed to be done, even knowing the consequences. You’re ten times the man he is, and you are nobody’s mistress.”

Again, she feeds me words I didn’t realize I was craving, and I swallow them down like I’m starved. She sees me as the man I never thought I could be, and it gives me hope that I might not be completely fucking this all up. She’s met the dark monster inside of me and yet sees me under a light I didn’t know existed. Those things she’s praising me for... all of them were done because I’m a selfish bastard and nothing more. All of them were done because I want her.

I’m seconds away from telling her to marry me instead. Marry me now before she ever walks down the aisle to him, but I choke on those words knowing the world of shit it would bring down on us. I want her to be my wife, not his, but I’ll take that pain and more to keep her safe.

Marrying me puts her in danger, and I refuse to put her in any situation where she’s more at risk than she already is. My beautiful little keeper is scared enough.

For once... I won’t be selfish.

“I’d be anything you and our mini keeper needed me to be, Sullivan.”

“I know you will,” she says much softer, leaning down to kiss me gently. “I’m just sorry they’re taking this from you too after everything else.”

Standing, I cradle her face in my hands and kiss her again, deeper this time so she feels what I’m about to say more than she hears it. “If you tell me deep down you’re truly mine, they can never take you from me. Not really.”

She huffs, turning her head just enough to kiss my palm. “No one else’s, Dray. We’re both yours, even if it won’t always seem like that.”

It’s all I need to hear for now, so I back her up against the wall and hike her leg up, my fingers finding her soaked pussy before she can even realize what I’m doing, and when she gasps I can’t help but grin. “Always so wet for me. You sure as fuck feel like you’re mine. Say it again.”

Her hand wraps around the back of my neck as she nods. “It doesn’t matter who puts a ring on my finger, Dray. You won. I’m yours.”

“One day it’ll be my ring on that fucking finger, woman. It may take a while, but one day we’ll toss both of those fake promises into my father’s grave and never look back. You will be my wife.”

I shove two fingers inside of her and replay those four words as I curl them:You won. I’m yours.

It’s enough.

They’ll never take her from me.

Hearing her moan, feeling her pussy clench around me... she was made for me. My father can promise her to whoever the hell he wants, but she’ll be mine when the dust settles. The moment I figure out how to protect our child, I’ll burn the world to make her mine.

“Dray,” she gasps, squirming and digging her nails into my skin. “Oh god.”

“Even god couldn’t make you feel this good, little keeper. Only your future brother-in-law knows how to work this pretty cunt the way you love. Now give it to me. Come all over my fingers before you go see your fiancé and remind him that your baby is mine.”

Her head tips back, lips parted and eyes fluttering closed as she gives in. I feel it in the curl of her fingers, the flex of her pussy, the wetness coating my fingers and the palm she just kissed.

I work her through it until she manages to catch her breath again, and even after that I keep my hand cupping her pussy possessively. “That’s my girl.”

She kisses me deeply, not trying to move. “Yours.”

We stand there for a moment with our foreheads pressed together, sharing the air between our lips like neither of us ever want to move, and if it wasn’t for the soft knock on her door I don’t think we ever would. “Thank you for growing my baby,” I whisper.

“Don’t thank me yet, we still have a long way to go.” She fixes her clothes and her hair as she steps away from me, yelling toward the door that she’s coming.

I make her watch me lick my fingers clean, and then grab her hand before she can disappear. “Wait for me?”

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