Page 61 of At Last

18.

Caitlin

“I just don’t know how I’m supposed to stay.” I tell Hero out of the blue after walking back out from Jade’s room, down for her nap. We’d ended that line of conversation earlier before fresh fruit and playing outside. But that doesn’t mean I’d stopped thinking about it. Quite the contrary. Leaving here, getting away from Houdini seems all I can focus on.

When he crosses his arms over his chest and glares at me, I continue. If for nothing else than to defend myself. “That truck came barreling around the bend, Hero. Like he’d been waiting to see us leave the compound.”

“We figured,” he replies, dryly.

“No.” I protest as I sit down on the sofa and turn to rest my back against the arm, pulling my knees up, and squeeze a tan and blue striped throw pillow to my chest, curling around it like a rollie pollie bug. “You don’t get it. He’s watching me specifically. I’ve been thinking on this. Doesn’t it seem odd I get run off the road? My house gets broken into. And then we get run off the road a second time in only a couple of weeks? Whose luck is that bad?”

“I’ve been thinking that all along, Caity. So tell me why it means you should leave when we’ve already establishedwhy you shouldn’t.” Hero cocks his brow and waits for me to continue.

“I told Tommy I thought it was probably someone texting and driving. But that’s not what happened. I’m sure of it. Jade was with me both times. She’s his target. The rattle incident with Gunner just proves it. That asshole is going after Lords kids.” My eyes water, though I manage to keep the tears in check.

Hero pulls his cell from his pocket after it had chirped with a text, then he looks at me. “Oh shit. You gonna cry? I can’t handle crying.”

“No, I’m fine. Deal with your text.”

But he doesn’t text back as he starts to walk out of the room with his phone to his ear. “Blood.” I hear him before he disappears to the laundry room.

This is not good for so many reasons. Because it means Houdini has been in town, he’s been watching more than just the Hollisters. To run me off the road, he had to have watched Duke take me to get to an injured Jade. Watched as he stayed all night at the hospital with me. Watched him bring us home, and when he brought bags laden with groceries over to my house. And watched when Duke took us to Nashville.

We’d been watched by a madman and never knew. Not until he’d broken into my home. I hate my daughter being the Guiney pig for Houdini’s next dastardly plan, but I can’t help think it was good Boss had been out of town. Otherwise he could’ve gotten to Elise again, or baby Gun.

Before he leaves my sight completely, Hero pops his head back in the room. “Just don’t do anything stupid, okay? Shit went from bad to really freaking bad when Elise took off. Boss was a mess. And we haven’t seen Chaos in… how many months? I don’t even know anymore. You’re a strong woman. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be the president’s old lady. Stick, Caity. For all of us, but mostly, for him. Stick.” Then just as quickly as he’d shown back up, he’s gone.

Stick? Could it be that easy?

No. It can’t. Because at the end of the day, he doesn’t have a daughter targeted by a psychopath. I have the daughter targeted by a psychopath. Duke loves Jade. I know he does. But he’s not her father. He’s never made any promises or declarations of his future intensions toward her. Or me, for that matter. He hasn’t asked us to move in with him permanently, only to stay until the other families went home.

God, my head is so messed up.

No time to stew on that, though. Not when the man himself strides into the kitchen. He’s the handsomest man I’ve ever laid eyes on in my life. The kind of handsome that sucks you in and forces you to reveal all your secrets. He’s the most dangerous kind of handsome there is.

Gruff, gritty, rough around all his sexy, impossibly strong, tattooed edges. Yet he has the softest heart of any man I’ve ever been with. And the way he looks at me, with so much warmth, he makes it hard to consider leaving.

“Hey honey,” he says. But the honey cracks and he has to clear his throat. My heart beats erratically in my chest. “Quit looking at me like that, or I’m gonna fuck you so hard on that sofa, we’ll end up breaking it, too.”

Defiantly, I continue to stare at him as I have been, taking up the challenge. Because I want him. I want him so badly my entire body vibrates with need. When Duke and I connect, I feel safe. I feel alive. Nothing in the world can get to me. To Jade. When Duke slides inside me, I’m home. And right now, with my head a mess and my emotions prickling my skin, they’re so close to the surface… Corny. I know, I know it’s corny, but there’s no place like home.

“Right,” he murmurs. Then, lightning fast, he’s across the room. Hands on each of my forearms, he pulls me up off the blue jean sectional to press his lips against mine. Gliding his tongue over the seam back and forth until I open for him. Taking a long pull, he drinks down my kiss as if it’s the coldest beer in the cooler on the hottest day of the year.

But right when I’m ready to find home, he breaks the kiss, closes his eyes and rests his forehead against mine. We’re both breathing heavily. I couldn’t catch my breath if I tried.

“W-why did you stop?” I ask. Shock and disappointment thick in my words and meaning.

“Ain’t been cleared yet. Still healing.”

I wince because I know how much it cost him to stop. Because there’s a physical ache in my heart that only Duke can ease when we’re connected. And I can feel his very prominent erection pressed against my belly.

His next words undo me. Make me not care if every healing wound rips open.

“God woman, I wanna fuck you so bad. Fuck you ’til you know down to your bones how I feel about you. But that’s why we can’t. Because I won’t ever risk hurting you. Never.”

I close my eyes and breathe him in. It might be lame, but at least it’s an attempt to calm my raging libido.

“But I will lay with you,” he finally whispers, taking my hand as he leads me inside our bedroom. He pulls off his boots, drops his cut on a chair, pulls back the comforter, then gently helps me down onto the bed, pulling me practically on top of him after he settles. In a last move, he flips the comforter back over the top of us.

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