Page 124 of Stolen By the Alpha Hunter
His arms crush me to his chest, and I cling to him like I’ll never let go. The attraction is there too, simmering between us in the water, in the scent of each other, in the bare skin and desperate love—but this isn’t about sex. It’s aboutsurvival. About making it. About choosing each other again and again and again.
Then he suddenly pulls back.
“The baby,” he says. “You’re…are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I tell him. “Suyin checked me out at the clinic. Can’t you feel it?”
I take his hand and put it over my stomach, which still looks perfectly normal. Even so, I’m certain he can feel this thing we made together—this good, beautiful part of the horrific experience we had on the Rig.
“They’ll never know pain and suffering like we did,” I say. “They’ll be safe.”
He goes still.
Then his brow furrows. “Wait…you saidthey.”
His eyes flick to mine. Confused. Hopeful. Scared to hope.
“You said they’ll never know pain like we did.They.”
I nod, tears stinging again. “We’re having two, Javi.”
He exhales like the ground just disappeared beneath him.
“Twins?” he chokes out.
I laugh through my tears, cupping his face. “Yeah. Twins.”
His arms wrap around me again, fierce and shaking, like he’s trying to protect all three of us from the world.
“They’re safe,” I say into his shoulder. “Because we got out. And because you came back.”
31
JAVI
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 females-only hot springs, 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 across the Gulf. 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 drapes 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.
