Page 71 of The Stallion
She was mine to protect, and I would make sure that she was safe at whatever cost. Bria would always be my number one priority. There wasn’t a single thing that she could do to make me believe otherwise.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, my sweet girl.” Wrapping a hand around the back of her neck, I pulled her the rest of the way toward me, crashing her mouth against mine with an intensely deep kiss.
My wife may be covered in blood, but she was mine forevermore—completing her test all on her own like a fucking badass.
I don’t know how she managed to do it, and none of those details mattered—at least not right this second.
“Can we go home now? If I remember correctly, you promised me multiple explosive orgasms.”
“See, murder turns you on, too, wifey. That alone justifies that we were made for each other.”
“Being alive turns me on. Now, get your fine ass in the car and drive before I change my mind.” She sarcastically huffed, crossing her arms over her chest with a look that made me want to just drag her into the backseat and fuck her right this very second.Because why wait when she was ready to go?
But instead—being the gentleman I was and displaying the utmost restraint for my sexual fucking needs—I chuckled, pushing myself up to stand and shutting her door before getting in the car and driving us home with a long sigh of welcome relief.
My wife was safe, and from this moment on, mine to keep.
Chapter 28
Bria
Itprobablywasn’tinmy best interest to rush into fucking my husband so soon after being nearly strangled to death. But that minor detail aside, I could see why people become serial killers. The rush that came from the initial attack and the high that followed the final blow—a hazardous addiction to anyone’s health.
When we arrived home, Dallas refused to let me walk into the house, and on any normal day when I wasn’t sticky or caked in blood, I would have protested and made his life increasingly more difficult. But I loved the attention he gave me and wanted to soak in every single drop of it as he carried me into the bathroom and started the shower.
After setting me down on the bamboo bench just shy of the water’s reach, my husband crouched down in front of me with a damp white cotton cloth and gently started washing away the evidence of the night’s events.
“You’re positive that none of this is yours… that he didn’t—” His tone was as soft as his touch.
Dallas clenched his jaw before he could finish his sentence, his gaze dropping between my thighs, and without further question, I knew exactly what he was asking.
I had never seen him so emotionally distraught—vulnerable, at war with himself. I loved seeing that he had a sensitive side, even if it was for my eyes only.
“He didn’t stand a chance against me.” I cupped his cheeks, lifting my husband’s face and pressing my grimy forehead against his. “That man was dead before he even entered the room, and I had absolutely zero intention of letting him so much as get a peek at what I was wearing underneath my clothing.”
Removing my shoes and jacket was as far as I had committed myself to playing pretend whore for this test. Every part of my body belonged to my husband, and I refused to let anyone—even for a challenge like this—see what was his and only his.
I assumed that Dallas had been doing this form of work for several years, and it baffled me to see that he was somehow unsettled by my minor injury. This should have been nothing new to him, but how he acted told me that there’s a lot more still left unsaid between us.
He should have easily moved past the marks by now, seeing that I was perfectly fine and in one piece. And yet, he was acting as though he were the one guilty of creating them.
A man like Dallas didn’t show weakness in the face of death, but there was something more that he wasn’t willing to tell me—something was bothering him on a far deeper level.
“Dallas…” I sighed, wishing there was a way that I could snap him out of his clouded mind.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Bria… for everything.” I could barely hear his words as he mumbled under his breath.
Oh no, my husband was not about to break on me now, not when I needed him to be my armor. My morally fucked up knight.
“Look at me, Ponyboy.” I locked eyes with his bright swirls of color, my words forming directly from the deepest recesses of my heart and soul. “I don’t know where all this sudden guilt stems from, but you did nothing wrong. Sure, the whole marriage trap was initially out there and entirely insane—” I had thought about it for a good long while. And no matter how many times it angered and frustrated me, I always ended up coming to the same goddamn conclusion: “But I love you. Regardless of everything that has happened from then until now—I. Fucking. Love you, Dallas.”
After his confession over a week ago, I spent more time than I’d like to admit figuring out my feelings for my husband, still trying to determine if I was ready to put my heart on the line and risk it all one last time for another shot at forever.
Everything I had once felt for Connor paled in comparison to how my heart beat and thrived for Dallas—how my soul interlocked with his like two flawed puzzle pieces—soulmates.
“And if you ever choose to hurt me, what happened to Leroy will look like goddamn child’s play in comparison to what will happen to you.”
Dallas smiled with a warm laugh as his head fell to my chest, and I wrapped my arms around his strong shoulders, one hand stroking through his hair.
