Page 157 of Carrick
I shifted slightly, cradling Bellamy closer against me, and pressed a kiss to her hairline. She let out a quiet breath, not shaky this time, but steady—like the last of the weight had finally slipped from her ribs and dissolved into the air between us. “You did so fucking good,” I said softly, the words meant only for her. “You let go. You gave us everything.”
“I needed it,” she breathed, her voice small but sure. “I didn’t know how much until I started to fall.”
“You didn’t fall,” I murmured, brushing my hand down her spine.
She tilted her face just enough to whisper against my throat. “You caught me?”
“Always.”
We stayed on the floor for a long time. Her legs curled over mine, her cheek resting against my chest. One of my hands moved slowly over her scalp, the other anchored low on her back. Her breathing eventually evened out, her body softening, limbs heavy with afterglow and trust.
When she stirred, lifting her head just enough to look at me, something in my chest tightened. She was soft. Unmasked. Still a little glassy in that post-subspace haze—but here. Present. Entirely herself.
“You okay?” I asked.
She nodded. “Better than okay.”
I brushed a few damp strands of hair from her cheek. “You stayed with me the whole time.”
“You didn’t give me a reason not to.”
That shouldn’t have hit me as hard as it did. But it did. I kissed her forehead—just a press of lips. No dominance, no heat. Just her. Just us.
She shifted slightly, eyes moving toward Jax’s empty rig, then the neatly coiled ropes by the wall. “That was…”
I waited.
She exhaled. “Intense.”
“Too much?”
She shook her head. “No. It was everything I didn’t know I needed.” Her voice cracked. She dropped her forehead to my shoulder again and let herself rest. “I wasn’t thinking about Rayden. Or what comes next. Or what happens if everything falls apart. I was just… here.”
“You deserve to have that. To feel that way.”
She curled closer. “You made it safe to let go.”
I didn’t answer right away. I didn’t trust my voice. Because she wasn’t just talking about the scene. She was talking about everything. And fuck if I wasn’t already in too deep.
“I used to think I couldn’t hold on to anything like this,” I said quietly, the words heavier than they should’ve been. “That everything in my life would always be temporary. Tactical. Disposable.”
Bellamy’s hand stilled against my chest. “And now?” she asked.
I looked at her. Really looked at her. At the faint red imprints of rope still etched along her skin. At the way her eyes held me—unflinching, unwavering, steady despite everything we’d just walked through. She looked exhausted and radiant, all at once.
“At some point,” I said, breath catching just a little, “this stopped being about the mission.”
She didn’t smile or speak—just reached up and touched my jaw, fingers warm and soft. The gesture was slow. Reverent. Not possessive. Not pleading. Not submissive. Just real. And for the first time in longer than I could remember, I didn’t shut it out.
She wasn’t just another name in a case file. She was my anchor. My compass. The gravity I hadn’t known I needed. Whatever came next—whatever we uncovered or lost—she wasn’t facing it alone. Neither was I.
29
Bellamy
Early the next morning,I sat at the long dining table, both hands wrapped tight around a mug that had gone. I couldn’t remember what I’d brewed. Mint? Chamomile? Something meant to soothe. It hadn’t worked.
The ceramic had long lost its warmth, but my fingers clung to it anyway—something solid to anchor me while the inside of my chest frayed thread by thread.
