“I should spank your ass,” I growl as I squeeze her despite my pain.

“Okay,” she says, nodding her head against my chest. “You can spank me, fuck me, do whatever the fuck you want to do to me. I don’t care.”

“Yeah?” I close my eyes and just inhale the sweet feminine scent of her. “Then marry me.”

“What?” She pushes back and looks up at me, her brows pinched down.

“You said do whatever the fuck I want to do,” I remind her. “So, this is it, I’m staking my fucking claim, Haley.”

She blinks at me as if comprehending words are far beyond her capabilities right now, and looking at her—her bleeding arm, the burn across her hip where a bullet grazed her—it wouldn’t surprise me. I blow out a breath and just pull her back against me.

“We can talk about it later,” I promise. Maybe I was rushing things.

“No.” Her voice is quiet and she doesn’t push me away again. Instead, she curls closer, locking her arms around my waist, burying her head against my chest. “No, we don’t need to talk about it.”

“I’m not letting you walk away,” I warn her. “We will talk about it later.”

She just shakes her head. “We don’t need to.” Her head tilts up and she looks at me. I reach up and thumb away a thin strand of brown hair clinging to her sweaty cheek before cupping it in my hand.

“Why don’t we need to?”

“Because I already know my answer,” she replies, “and it’s yes.”

EPILOGUE

HALEY

6 months later…

I’m nervous.I hate being nervous. I pace from one side of the room to the other, feeling a skittering up my spine. “Baby, calm down,” Viks says from where he sits on one of the green room’s couches. His words don’t have any effect on me. I continue walking, biting my nails. Alyssa’s fucking late and there’s no telling how many people are waiting in the art gallery downstairs.

On my next pass, he grabs me around the waist and pulls me onto his lap. “What are you freaking out about?”

“Everything?”

He grabs my hand and pulls it away from my mouth, replacing it with his lips. I sink into the kiss with no remorse. His tongue invades and moves over mine, stroking into me.

“I bet I know what will take your mind off things,” he says. I bet he does too, and when his hand goes beneath my shirt, I don’t stop him.

“Will you?” I ask. I don’t care if I’m practically begging.

He opens his eyes and pulls back, a hand arching up to cup against my face. His fingers skim down my jawline. “You want me to distract you?”

I nod, reaching up and clutching onto him as I turn and settle my legs on either side of his hips. The thickness of his cock brushes against my cunt and I lower myself down on it, rubbing insistently through the fabric of our clothes.

“Please?” I pant against him. “I need it.”

His lips twitch in both amusement and arousal—I can finally understand that about him. He smiles when he’s horny. He smiles when he’s in love. And around me, he’s constantly smiling.

“Your wish is my command, Haley girl.” He divests me of my clothes in record time, pulling my shirt up and off of me, dropping it to the floor. My bra goes with it. My skirt, however, is shoved up around my waist as he reaches underneath and shakes his head in mock disappointment. “What have I told you about wearing panties?” he asks.

“That you enjoy ripping and cutting them off of me?” I supply.

He chuckles darkly and reaches back, pulling free a slender pocket knife and flicking out until the blade flashes—the sunlight pouring in from the window glinting across the steel. “Yeah, I fucking do.”

I don’t hesitate to lift up, giving him more room to work with as he slips the sharp edge beneath the sides of my underwear and cuts them away, leaving me wet and bare for him. “I think you like this,” he says, sliding the cold knife up my chest, between my breasts. “Are you a kinky little slut?”

My pussy tightens. He knows what it does to me when he talks to me like that. It’s so fucking filthy, it makes me lose all sense of myself and I’m okay with it because I know no matter how far I float away, he’ll always bring me back. I rock against him, whimpers catching in my throat.