“Pupa.” He whispered her name like a secret. “My wife. My love. My life. You’re mine. Forever.”
Her stomach twisted as she looked up at her husband’s face.
She still couldn’t believe it.
She couldn’t make sense of how she’d ended up there. As if it’d been destined. Maybe planned.
Her fears had only amplified when she’d voiced reservations, and she’d been silenced. Carlo had attempted to assuage her concerns by telling her she had no need to worry at all. He’d promised to take care of her. Give her a life that she could only dream of. One that she had yet to discover.
But it’d felt rushed. As if she wasn’t given time to decide for herself. It’d felt wrong when he’d laughed when she’d asserted she still planned on starting college in the fall.
Mimi had been the only one to try to stop it. She’d warned it was a mistake. Salem had only truly begun to believe it when she’d said she wasn’t ready, when she’d begun to believe this wouldn’t be the life she’d want at all, and Carlo had shown and taken her to the chapel, anyway.
With a smirk, he’d told her it was cold feet, but Salem was more afraid that her heart didn’t warm when he was around.
That there was a piece of her that felt frozen.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you,” she said back, unsure if it was a lie.
Because truthfully?
That love she’d once thought she’d felt?
It now came with a heavy dose of fear.
“You do whatever it requires. Am I clear?”
“Yes, Sir.”
Salem pressed her back to the wall as she listened to the conversation Carlo was having with Darius. She tried to press her eyes closed even tighter. Like maybe if she did, none of this would be real.
Her life wouldn’t be a nightmare.
A sad, cruel joke.
A moment later, Darius ducked out of the room. When he saw her cowering there, he sent her a worried scowl. But he didn’t say anything as he headed down the hall. The front door clicked shut behind him when he left.
Chills lifted on her arms when she felt the presence beside her. Carlo traced them with his fingertip. “What are you doing out here, Pupa?”
The tone of his voice was a soft accusation.
Salem gulped. “I was checking to see if you were ready for dinner.”
Hooking his thumb under her jaw, he studied her face. “That’s all?”
“That’s all,” she rushed.
He angled his head, pressed his mouth to hers, and muttered, “This mouth…this body…this mind? They’re all mine, Salem.” He angled back, rubbed the pad of his thumb on the middle of her forehead, stared at her when he said, “Be sure not to let it run places it shouldn’t. It’s dangerous out there.”
Salem forced a smile. “I’m happy right here.”
His smile was slow. Appraising.
Fear spiraled down Salem’s spine.
“Good, my love. Neither of us would want me to have to waste my precious time if I had to come and find you, now, would we?”
“Where would I go?”
He tapped her chin. “Good girl.”
Then he turned and strode down the hall toward the kitchen, calling out, “It smells delicious. I’m starving. Let’s eat.”
She waited until he turned left at the end of the hall then breathed out a pained breath.
She tried not to weep.
TWENTY-FIVE
SALEM
“What’s this?” My fingers played along the dress that was sitting on the end of Jud’s bed while I held the sheet to my chest with the other.
The palest light floated in through the square windows that ran high along the wall behind his bed. Dawn had barely broken the night, and the barest rays filtered through the darkness to give a token of the coming day.
I’d woken with Jud’s massive arms curled around my body, the man holding me tight, his steadying breaths filling my ears and my spirit and my lungs.
It’d taken my all to peel myself away from the sanctuary of his arms, but I needed to get home before Juni woke and Darius and Mimi realized I hadn’t come home all night.
Before my heart got any deeper.
Before I fell any farther.
But there I was, careening through the air, no ground below.
Diving into his dark abyss.
My fingers traced over the material. My heart stuttered. This man cared for me in a way no one else had done in my life.
I felt him shift from behind, and I looked back to watch the giant sit up in his bed. The covers slipped down around his waist. He roughed his fingers that worked magical things through his sleep-rumpled hair.
My stomach fisted in a bid of want. In a crash of affection. He was beautiful. In every way.
After last night, I’d never been so sure of anything.
He squinted in the glow of the morning at the things that were laid on his mattress.
“Uh, Logan texted a few hours ago to check how you were after everything went down. He asked if there was anything he could do. I figured you might not want to go slinking back into your house wearing your trashed dress from last night and those heels, so I asked him to pick up a couple things. Not the best selection in the middle of the night, but hell, the man’s got shopping skills.”
Jud chuckled an uneasy sound. Clearly, he was unsure of his actions.
I glanced back at the dress and noticed there was a box with a pair of sandals tucked inside and some toiletries.
“Hope they fit.”
I shifted back to look at him. I couldn’t keep the edge of my mouth from tipping up in a slow smile, returning to the day that had changed everything. “I thought I told you if I fucked you there would be no shame to it?”
Jud grinned, though it was soft, his handsome, rugged face kissed by the morning light, hair lit up in the glow where errant pieces were sticking up all over his head.
“No shame at all, darlin’， but I figured what happened last night is between you and me.”
My heart panged, and my chest squeezed.
Crap.
I was in so much trouble.
I had crossed a line that I was terrified to have crossed.
Trust no one.
But I wasn’t sure I could cling to that any longer with him.
With this man who had me crawling back up to him until I was pressing my lips to his wicked, sexy mouth. “Thank you.”
A big palm found the side of my face. Obsidian eyes flared as he edged back to meet with the truth in my gaze. “The pleasure is all mine, darlin’。”
My teeth clamped down on my bottom lip. What I really wanted to do was curl back into this bed with him.
Let him ravage me all over again.
The way he’d done time and again last night, neither of us sure if it would be the only chance we would have. And those moments? Those hours? They’d belonged to us.
I didn’t want them to end.
My chest squeezed with dread, the reality that in a blink, in a second, I might have to leave him behind.
Run, the way I always did.
Because as much as he promised to stand for me, if it came to it, there was no way I’d drag him into the line of fire.
“I really need to get home.”
He nodded. “I know. Why don’t you go get dressed, and I’ll get you there?”
“Thank you,” I said again.
I wasn’t shy, definitely not after last night, but I felt a blush flushing my body as I slipped off his bed and took the sheet with me. Jud sat there, watching me gather the things he’d had Logan get for me and then shuffle across his floor to the bathroom.