Page 65 of Whiskey Shivers

I was making a difference, in only my second year of teaching, and it was all I had ever wanted. The moment of realization was made more perfect when Hex kissed my forehead, sliding his hand up and down my back in a light and soothing pass.

“Mm,” La Croix grunted. “I’m taking my woman to bed,” he declared.

“You are, huh?” Alina asked, all smiles.

“Fuckin’ right I am,” he said, giving her ass a little swat. She laughed a throaty and full-bodied sound and clambered off him and the recliner they were in.

“We’re headed that way, too,” Hex declared. “After I get my woman in the shower. I took one when I get home but, man, I still feel like I got that place on me.”

I felt my face crumple into lines of empathy, and I got up carefully, holding down my good hand and saying softly, “Come on.”

“Have fun, you two,” Alina said as she and La Croix trailed up the stairs to their bedroom in the loft.

Once in the bathroom, Hex shut the door behind us and turned back to me, coming to me to kiss me with purpose. I kissed him back and melded to his front and said, “I want to try again.”

We’d made love only once before, and I’d paid for it the next day. It’d been worth it to me, though Hex had put a moratorium on going any further until I was more healed. I wasn’t sure what a difference a week would make, but I was keen to find out and desperate to feel him against my skin, moving inside of me once more.

“We’ll see,” he rumbled against my ear as he kissed along my jaw.

I put my hand to his chest, and he drew back to look at me. I looked up at him solemnly and said, “I need you inside of me.”

His lips twitched into a pleased smile, and he didn’t even come close to rejecting me again, simply saying, “Okay.”

He kissed me slow and sweet then, his hands careful and gentle as he started working at our clothing, to take it off. He’d left his jacket and cut hanging off one of the dining room’s chairs. That was less that we had to go through, although Alina had to tell him to take off his coat and to stay awhile earlier. It was as though he’d worn it like armor, and now, the way he kissed me… it was fraught with the kind of energy that said he was home and desperate to erase something he’d seen or that he’d done. I couldn’t imagine that was something a simple bar fight would bring on.

Then it clicked.

I leaned back, cocked my head, and said, “You did it on purpose, didn’t you?”

He cocked his head in the opposite direction of mine, mirroring me subconsciously, and a slow smile filled with an amused pride spread his lips.

“Say what’s on your mind, baby.”

“You went to that bar. You got in that fight…” I swallowed nervously. “And you did it on purpose. Youwantedto get arrested. You did what you said you were going to do, didn’t you?” I asked.

He searched my face and all but confirmed it when he said, “Nobody hurts my girl and lives to talk about it, or to hurt her some more by making her go through a bunch more bullshit that she doesn’t want or need.”

There was a darkness in my heart that rose to the surface. It was a darkness that I knew had always been. The same darkness that had left me sighing with relief at my mother’s passing. The same darkness that had made me glad for it, in knowing that she couldn’t or wouldn’t let me down ever again. The relief that’d flooded my veins like its own sordid drug that I wouldn’t ever have to be disappointed, or scared of her, or hurt by her, or worry about what one of her boyfriends would try and do ever again.

It was the same sense of relief that flooded my veins now. I know it wasn’t something that was healthy or good for me, and it was definitely toxic… but I couldn’t help myself from falling absolutely head over heels in love with the man in front of me for doing it.

I pulled him to me with both arms, ignoring the sharp pain in my chest and shoulder from my protesting and still healing collarbone as I pulled him to me, and breathed out, “Thank you,” before dragging his mouth to mine.

I was the fabled princess in that moment, and he was my brave knight, my prince charming, who had slew the dragon.

I know that it was likely awful of me to feel this way but damnit, I would spend the rest of my days making it up to the universe. I swore it. I would be good in every other way, but I would embrace this and revel in this moment. The monster was dead, and I wouldn’t have to face him again. I wouldn’t have to face the stuff of nightmares and that was so precious to me.

“Careful, your arm,” Hex growled against my mouth when I pressed to him too tightly and wound up making an unconscious mewling pain sound into his mouth.

I put it back down, where it needed to be, and said, “It’s fine.”

He tipped back from me slightly and said with the first real vulnerability I’d ever seen in his eyes, “So, you don’t think I’m a monster?”

“No, you’re my knight in shining armor if you’re anything. You slew the monster,” I said honestly.

He smiled and said, “On my trusty iron steed.” I bit down on my laugh. I didn’t want to disturb Alina and La Croix.

“Take a shower with me,” I murmured. “Make love to me and leave that place and all of that shit behind for a while.”

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