Alex came and came, pressing his forehead between my breasts as he moaned and panted.
It was incredible and amazing, and then he started chuckling.
The biggest fucking smile took over my whole face as his hands snuck under my armpits and he pulled me up on him until I was sprawled totally over him and that incredible body. My cheek was half on his pectoral and half on his shoulder, and I could feel his cum and mine slip out of me and onto him.
“That was so fucking hot.”
“So. Fucking. Hot,” he agreed, almost sounding dreamy.
I pressed my mouth to his skin and shivered.
He wrapped an arm around my lower back, his chin dropping just into my line of view. “I think I tweaked something in my back, I came so hard.”
I snorted. “You’re going to be okay doing that with me from now on? For a long time?”
Lips touched my forehead, and Alex hugged me even closer. “A long, long time, Cookie.” He nuzzled me. “A very long time.”
“Speaking of a long time. Are you going to live fifty years longer than me and get together with someone half my age after I’m gone?”
His laugh was the loudest one yet. “Are you going to haunt me if I do?”
I scowled, thinking about how I would do more than that if he did.
Alex pressed his mouth to my forehead one more time. “I don’t think my grandmother would be cruel enough to find us a partner and have us lose them so soon. My healing will help us age together. You’ll live as long as I do. We can haunt whoever you want after that.”
I didn’t think anything had ever sounded better. Not even close.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR
I tapped my fingers against Alex’s skin, soaking up just how amazing he smelled.
How was it possible to feel this good? This hopeful? Which reminded me…
There was something I had to do. Some things I had to do. It wasn’t like I hadn’t planned on it. I’d thought about it, but there hadn’t been the right moment, and I’d chickened out. I had to tell him though. I couldn’t put it off any longer.
“Alex?” I asked, sounding almost meek.
That big palm went from my back down to my butt, where he cupped it. “Hmm?” he asked, sounding… sounding so happy.
I didn’t want to ruin it. I didn’t want to tell him. But I had to. He wouldn’t get mad. He probably wouldn’t even be surprised. But I didn’t want to carry this shit on my chest or my heart any longer. “I need to tell you something. Two things.”
No part of his body tensed; he was languid, and I could feel his joy coming from his skin. “Okay,” he said like it was nothing.
“I’ve been thinking about it, and… you promise you’ll never let anyone hurt me no matter what I do?”
He patted my butt, and I swore I felt him laugh. “I promise, but what the hell are you planning on doing?”
I think it said everything that I wasn’t scared. “I think… I think I want to reach out to someone in the FBI or something. Someone who can put at least a few people in the cartel behind bars. I don’t know how we should do it, if I should use myself as bait and have them kidnap me, and then you come in and save me, but we can prosecute them because kidnapping is a felony… but I’ve been thinking about it. Even if only a few people get arrested, it’s still something. I don’t want them to do to someone else what they did to us. It doesn’t have to be kidnapping, but it was just an idea.”
I bit my lip. “I know it’s not very brave of me to only want to do it if you’re there, but I don’t want to risk this. I don’t want to risk what I have now. At the same time, I swore to myself I was going to make them pay for what they did. Since we can’t blow up their buildings or give them all hemorrhoids, I figured this might be the next best thing.” I paused. “What do you think?”
His chest rose and fell, and the hand on my butt moved down for him to cup my hamstring. His rich voice though was still lazy and almost sweet as he said, “If you want to do that, I’ll be there, but only do it if you want to.”
“I do.”
“Then you tell me when you’re ready, and we’ll find the right person.”
I nodded, feeling pretty at peace with that plan for now. I knew we’d have to talk about it, think about it a lot more, but whatever had to be done, I would do it. But there was still something else. I poked his arm. “Alex?”
His grunt was low, and it made me smile.
“You remember that time you said you loved me but snuck it in real quick like I wasn’t going to notice?”
Oh, that chest puffed in another silent laugh. “What I remember is that time I said it and you pretended like you didn’t hear it because you didn’t tell me you were in love with me back, even though I know you are.”
I lifted my head to look at him for a second, finding those eyes sparkling, his mouth forming into that smirk that was as familiar to me as my own hand was. “I do. I didn’t want to either, but I do.”
His smirk disappeared for a second, melting into a tender, tender expression before it was back. “I knew you would. It was only a matter of time before you realized it.”
“How’d you know?”
“When you told me you trusted me,” he said. “When you said that if you could trust anybody, it would be me, I knew we were getting there.” His fingers brushed my jaw. “You jumped off that goddamn balcony and let me drop you in air.”
He was fucking right. I pressed my lips together before I stroked that nearly unbreakable cheek.
That jaw straight from another galaxy.
Skin that made my own tingle.
Alex wasn’t just anybody. He wasn’t just The Defender.
He was mine.
And I had to tell him this last part.
I gave him a smile that probably looked like a grimace. “So, I need to tell you something else.”
His eyes went wide but not in fear or wariness. “You can tell me anything.”
He had no idea how much that touched me, and that was exactly why I had to tell him. Because I trusted him. I trusted him so much. “It’s the last secret I have to tell you before I can retire Sorceress of Secrets.”
Alex’s mouth curved. “You don’t need to retire her with everyone else. Just me. We’re forming an alliance,” he told me, making my fucking heart swell and swell.
“For the record, if I could lie to you, I probably would.”
That made him fucking laugh.
“I’m kidding.”
That big hand stroked from my hip and up my rib cage as he smirked. “I’m ready when you are, Cookie. What’s on your mind?”
I hoped he was. I whispered, feeling the weight lift off my chest with every syllable that came out of my mouth next. I said it in Korean too because I might trust him, but I didn’t trust anyone else. “I think I know where the money is,” I told him. “I have this letter my mom sent in my safe deposit box and…”
He laughed. Oh, he laughed. He laughed even as he hugged me. Naked on naked.
I didn’t know then that was going to be the story of our lives… but it was.
That’s what happens when you find your best friend.