My hands found the caps of her shoulders, and I ran my palms down her trembling arms until I threaded the fingers of both our hands together.
A shiver rocked down her spine.
“I don’t know if I can do this, Jud.” Her voice slipped into grief.
“What’s that?”
“Stay.”
Every cell in my body revolted. I tightened my hands around hers. “I know you’re afraid, darlin’。”
It would have been a scoff coming from her mouth if the sound hadn’t have held so much pain. “Afraid? I’m terrified, Jud. Every day of my life is this. Trying to stay one step ahead of him, petrified of the day he catches up to me.”
“Give me a name.”
Salem’s head shook. “You can’t fix this.”
“Let me try.”
“It’s not your burden.”
My spirit roared and the demon writhed. I swallowed it down and slowly turned her in my hold.
Blue eyes speared me, but where they normally flamed and struck and stormed with determination, they’d dimmed with defeat.
I touched her jaw, running my thumb over the scar that represented everything that she was.
A fighter.
A survivor.
Beautiful, inside and out.
“Not sure how it could be a burden, Salem. Not when you’ve become my everything.”
Anguish lanced through her expression. I tipped her chin up farther. “Is this when it normally happens? When you pack up and go?”
Salem blinked and her head barely shook. “No, Jud, normally it’s just instinct. The feeling that I’ve stayed too long. That I’ve become complacent, exposed. I leave long before I get the feeling someone might be watching me. That’s the moment I turn to vapor all over again. If I were anywhere else? I’d have left the first day I noticed that car lurking around. But because of Darius? Because of Mimi? Because I want to give my daughter a home? Because of you…？”
She trailed off, unable to say it aloud.
We had kept her here. Given her a reason to stay. Given her hope.
I wanted to give her more of them.
A thousand of them. All of it. All of me.
Purpose.
Ferocity fired through the dimness of Salem’s eyes. “If he had found us before, Jud? If he’d caught up to us any time in all these years I’ve been running? You need to understand…we wouldn’t be here. And if that car…”
Alarm bled through her aura, pulsed like the blare of a warning.
Barbs of fury spiked in my insides, demon clawing for a way out. Still, my touch was soft as I took her gorgeous face in my hands. I begged her, “I asked one thing of you, Salem. Asked the next time you felt the urge to run, that you would run to me. Run to me, baby.”
“And what if I crash right into you? What if the weight causes you to fall?”
I cocked a grin I could barely afford. “Nonsense, darlin’。 Have you seen me?”
She choked a soggy laugh, and tears got loose of her eyes. They streaked down her cheeks and into my hands.
“Run to me,” I murmured again.
“Jud.” My name was a whimper.
Hope and fear and ecstasy.
“You’re real, Salem. You aren’t vapor. You exist. You’re real and whole and mine. Exist with me.”
She was in my arms before another denial could fall from her lips.
I lifted her off her feet and slanted my mouth over hers. I had one hand in her hair and the other arm looped around her back.
Her hands were frantic as she tried to find a place to take hold. Fingers in my hair. On my face. Sinking into my shoulders. She curled her arms around my neck while I held her close. Her heart beat wild, an insurgence that overtook mine.
My tongue stroked into the sweet well of that delicious mouth.
Lapping.
Licking.
Salem moaned a tiny, needy sound, and I was carrying her toward the bathroom that was just to the left of the counter. I flipped on the light switch and was quick to turn the lock. I moved another step inside and propped her on the counter. I wedged myself between those thighs, tugged her closer, kissed her deeper.
“Jud.” It was a breath. Throaty and seductive, and fuck…
“I have you,” I promised, letting my hands wander her back, sliding over her hips and to the outside of her thighs. I tugged her so she was barely hanging onto the edge and rocked her pussy against my jean-covered cock.
She whimpered, “More. I need you. I need you. I need it all.”
“You have me, darlin’。”
It was the goddamn truth.
I was done for. Done for.
This girl possession.
A fantasy.
A dream.
I was straight-up spellbound.
“Enchantress,” I rumbled at that mouth as I rushed to shove the skirt of her dress up around her waist. Her legs exposed and those thighs lush. My fingers sank right in.
Every movement between us was wild.
Desperate for more when it wasn’t ever going to be enough.
“Please,” she uttered low as she jerked at the button of my jeans. As she kissed a feverish path over my shirt. The sound of my zipper being ripped wide open echoed against the walls. It mixed with our haggard breaths, with the pants that jutted from our lungs.
In a second flat, she had her greedy little hands on my dick.
She stroked me hard. I grunted, edged back far enough that I could grab hold of her underwear and rip them down her legs. And she was right there, angled back on the counter, her legs spread wide.
Bare, her cunt glistening with her need.
“Always so wet, darlin’。 So fuckin’ sweet,” I rumbled.
I had the aching head of my cock pressed to her center.
A firestorm whipped through the tiny room.
I ground out a hiss at the contact, and I took her by the outside of the thighs.
Wasn’t breathing as I watched myself stretch her wide. As I rocked and jutted and pushed my way into her tight little body.
Bliss clawed its way along my spine.
Girl too much.
Perfect and right and everything.
Salem was gasping, shaking as I filled her, hands under my shirt and pushing it up before her nails were raking down my skin, like she was searching for a way in.
I groaned out when I was fully seated. “Fuck, yes, darlin’。”
Then I was crushing my mouth back over hers.
Fever reheating.
I took her hard. Every stroke of my hips possession as I slipped my arms under her legs and took her by the waist to angle her just right.
Thrusts deep and desperate.
She held onto my shoulders.
Stifled moans wheezed from her mouth as I scored myself into her body.
As I marked her.
Every fuckin’ dive of my dick was a claim.
A proclamation.
Could feel her winding up.
Every nerve ending in her body came alive.
Like all of them were arching toward me.
Pleasure radiated from her being like a shimmery, blinding light.
And I couldn’t get close enough.
Wanted to fall in and sink under and disappear in her storm.
Get lost there forever.
“Forever.” I didn’t mean for it to slip out as I picked her up off the counter and pressed her to the door.
I needed her closer.
I pinned her against the metal.
Felt the coolness echo through the heat.
The flames.
The fire.
I bucked into her as she rode over me.