Page 34 of Jack's Devotion

"Um…I just think it would be better."

"Hell no." He curves his hand around my jaw, tipping my head back until my eyes meet his. "You aren't leaving me, Madison."

"What if…" I lick my lips. "What if I don't have a choice, Jack? Something could happen. It could go wrong. We should stop this now. Before anyone gets hurt."

He stares at me for a long silent moment, his expression inscrutable. "You think it wouldn't already rip my fucking heart out of my chest to lose you?"

"I…" I know it would. That's the problem, isn't it? I love him, and the thought of him suffering because of me is killing me.

"I love you, Madison," he says quietly. "I think I've been half in love with you for longer than I should have been. Maybe that's not right. Maybe I'm going to hell for it. I don't fucking know. But I know that I spent seven years haunted by you. I'm not letting you go again now."

"You aren't supposed to love me," I whisper.

"Too goddamn bad. I do."

"I love you too." I swallow hard, tears burning at the backs of my eyelids. "I'm so damn scared we're going to lose, and you'll end up all alone, Jack."

"Fuck that noise, baby." He boosts me up into his arms, wrapping my legs around his waist. We slide together, slick and wet. "You aren't going anywhere. We're facing that prick at thepress conference in a few days, telling him that you're alive, and then you'll be free. You'll be all mine."

"I'm already all yours."

"Yeah? Is that why you're trying to move out on me?" He quirks a brow at me, his expression still a little pissed.

I dip my head, pressing it up against his throat. "No. Yes. I don't know. I just don't want you to get hurt. This feels like heaven to me. I don't want to be something you end up regretting when you've been the best part of my life for the last seven years. He took everything, but he was never able to take you." I lick a drop of water from his skin. "I'm terrified he'll find a way to take you."

"Never gonna happen," Jack growls, nipping my jaw. "You see him as a monster because of what he did. But he's just a man, Madison. And men aren't all-powerful. They aren't infallible. And he's just one man, baby. We've got a whole goddamn army of them standing behind us." His lips land against my ear, tugging the shell between them. "Besides, my whole fucking soul is yours. How's he going to take that, huh? He damn sure doesn't have that kind of power."

"Jack," I groan.

"I'm serious. It's yours. Every inch of me. Every thought. I'm yours, Madison." He reaches for my hand, tangling our fingers together before dragging it up over my head. His lips land against mine, his kiss consuming.

I cry out as he slips inside me.

"You think I could regret this?" he groans against my throat, thrusting all the way into me before slowly pulling back and then doing it again. "You think I could regret you?"

I sob his name, clenching around him.

"Not fucking ever, Madison." His teeth sink into the side of my throat, his bite sharp and sustaining. "This is everything.Youare everything."

He fucks me exactly like he means it, whispering his devotion into my skin as he shatters me again and then again, each sinful glide of his cock hitting that perfect spot inside—the one he discovered and claimed as his own. When I'm on the edge a third time, little more than a babbling ball of ecstasy, he presses me deeper against the wall, yanking my legs up higher around his hips.

I scream the damn roof down around us as he fucks me ruthlessly, his body surging into mine as if he intends to imprint himself inside my skin, leave behind a reminder that I belong to him in every single way possible.

"That's it," he growls. "Scream for your man, baby. Let me hear that pretty voice break while I'm fucking my kid into you."

I scream myself hoarse, willingly, eagerly. And I crumble in his arms, coming all over his cock in powerful waves. He groans when he feels it, burying his face against my throat, his teeth in my skin.

"I love you, I love you," he chants, spilling deep inside me.

We cling to each other as the waves recede, breathing hard, trembling.

"You aren't moving back to the pool house," he murmurs. "You aren't going anywhere."

"Okay," I whisper back, pliant and spent in his arms.

"We're getting married today."

I pull back enough to look at him.

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