I guessed he read it in my eyes. That I couldn’t fully accept his claim. As long as Carlo still roamed, I knew we’d never truly be safe.
“Who is he?” Jud demanded, his voice a growl.
“A monster.”
Dark shame dimmed his features for the barest second before rage rushed in to burn a path through his expression. He edged me deeper into his room. His hands slid up and down my arms in a soothing fashion.
It didn’t matter.
I could feel the violence skate through his veins.
Palpable.
Volatile.
“Don’t want you to be afraid of me.” Grief struck through his features.
“I’m not.”
He kept coming closer, encroaching, forcing me back with each towering step he took.
“When Kennedy left me, I locked it all down, Salem. Swore I’d never hurt another. Swore I’d never bear the weight of new blood on my hands. Swore I would never kill again. Thought I could be good enough, and one day she would come back to me and see me as someone else, and I was going to be ready for when she did.”
He inhaled a shaky breath. “So, I stuffed the demon down deep. Chained him. I kept him hidden from everyone except for my brothers who’ve always known. But he’s right here, and I’ve let him loose. For you, Salem. For you and your daughter. He’s going to fight for you. I just need a name and this ends.”
I should be terrified of his admission.
Grim.
But I was only terrified of what it might mean for him. Of what he was asking. Of the direction I could feel him aching to go.
From where I stood at the edge of his bed, my hands curled into his plain white tee. I clung to the fabric like it would forever tie him to us. “No. Not like this, Jud. He’s already stolen too much from me. I won’t let him take you, too. You can’t just go rushing in there.”
I knew if I gave Jud a name, he’d disappear into the night. Right then. No hesitation.
Lines of hatred dented Jud’s face. “I can’t stand to see you in fear any longer.”
My throat constricted, sorrow racing the length. “I know, Jud, I know. But we have to be smart about this. He’s…” I blinked, tried to suppress the memories, the things Carlo had done. The hole he’d carved out in the middle of me. The vacancy that would always wail.
Excruciating.
I set my hand on Jud’s face, my thumb brushing the defined cut of his cheek, this beautiful man who had no idea of just how good he was. What I saw when I looked into his eyes. When he let me see way down deep into his kind, giving soul.
“I know you want to put yourself on the same level as him, that you somehow think you’re wicked. You’re not. You’re not. I see you, Jud, like you’ve seen me, and the two of us are so much greater than our circumstances. So much greater than the wickedness that those who should have loved us and protected us shaped us to be.”
It was a wickedness I’d run from. The kind of wickedness to which Jud had believed he’d succumbed.
My hand tightened in emphasis on his face. “He’s the demon, Jud. Cruel and callus. Without thought and without care. He is nothing like you, and you are nothing like him. And he will destroy anyone who gets in his way.”
Anyone.
And despite Darius’ reassurances, I knew Carlo still believed that job was incomplete.
Jud pulled me closer. Torment radiated off him in waves.
His face was pressed to my neck as he breathed me in. As if I had become his rock. His anchor. Juni and I the reason for this life. “I need you to tell me, baby.”
My arms wound tight around his neck, my head rocking back as he began to kiss a desirous path down my throat. “And right now? Tonight? I need you to love me. Because I’ve never truly been.”
“Salem.” It was a grunt. A plea. A confession.
“Jud,” I murmured back. “Love me. Love me the way I love you. In a way that can’t be broken.”
“Forever,” he said. He kissed my eyes. My cheeks. My soggy lips. “I love you, darlin’。 Love you with every piece of me. Every hole and every scar and every hope. Everything belongs to you. To you and Juni. Do you understand what that means?”
His tongue stroked over my lips.
A moan echoed in my throat.
Edging back an inch, he watched me while those big hands peeled my shirt over my head. Then he knelt to drag my sleep pants and underwear down my legs.
Cool air brushed my flesh. Need spread out to touch every cell in my body.
Jud straightened to his full, massive height, and the man stood before me as he wound himself out of his clothes.
Nothing was said.
The room was silent except for the heated whisper of our breaths and the thunder of our hearts.
He lifted me onto the mattress and came to hover over me. He gazed down at me through the lapping shadows, one arm rested above my head, the other on my face.
“Do you understand what that means?” he reiterated, his voice low and deep.
His thumb traced my scar. Energy crashed as he rumbled the words, “It means I have you, darlin’。 I have you.”
His promise rained down.
It seeped through my skin and became one with my blood.
He pushed himself inside me.
Stealing my breath. My body.
But my heart?
It was already long gone.
For a moment, we just stayed there. Joined as one.
Then I nudged him and urged him to roll to his back.
He took me with him, and I straddled this man who’d changed everything. The man who’d taken a broken, shattered life, the pieces strewn all over this country, and held the rest in the palms of his beautiful hands.
I stared down at my wicked savior as I moved over him.
As our bodies connected so perfectly.
As he touched me.
My stomach. My hips. My breasts.
Our breaths synced. Our spirits joined.
And for the first time in my life, I felt a part of someone.
Physically.
Spiritually.
Like I was not just tied with his soul, but I was a part of his existence.
“Salem.” His big hands circled my waist as he guided me in a slow, desperate rhythm.
I splayed my hands over his wide chest. “Jud.”
He rolled us again, until I was pinned, those massive arms around me. The longer pieces of his black hair fell across his face, his eyes feral, gleaming and bright, his beautiful body thrusting into mine.
“It’s you and Juni now. You’re mine. I’ll fight for you, live for you, die for you, whatever it takes.” The words grunted from his mouth. “Do you understand?”
And I lost myself to it.
To this surrender.
To his belief.
His love.
His life.
“I love you, Jud. I love you.” And I gave him the one thing that was the hardest part. “I trust you with it all.”
THIRTY-TWO
SALEM
TWENTY-ONE YEARS OLD
The lights were dimmed, and the tiny room was quiet. The only sound was the steady whooshing that pulsed at a quickened beat as the technician held the probe to Salem’s swollen belly.
Salem was sure her heart was just as big as her protruding stomach, pressing at the confines of her ribs as love overwhelmed.
As it overcame.
As her purpose became clear.
With that clarity came the devastating fear she’d waded through for the last year. A dark, ugly current that lapped at her ankles. Rose higher and higher. She knew if she didn’t learn to swim, she would drown.