Page 61 of Assassin's Prey
This wasn’t about sex, though it certainly could be if Abby decided that’s what she wanted. This was about absorbing her into me until I couldn’t find where I ended and she began. Keeping her against me until the ragged pieces of my fucked-up soul came back together in some semblance of order. I could wait for the healing, but for now, I needed reality desperately.
Abby lifted her arms without argument. I undressed her almost as if she were a child—shirt off, shoes off, pants, underwear, everything. Her pale skin gleamed in the overhead light. The bruises, though, were black holes sucking the life out of me. “Abby.”
“Hey.” She pulled my chin up till I met her eyes. “I’m here. Bruises can heal. Exploding can’t.”
I knelt on the mat at her feet and brought my hands up to take the weight of her breasts. Not for sex, but because I needed the weight of her in my palms. I eased in close and let my lips brush hers. She opened to me, just like always.
And just like always, I slipped my tongue inside, delved deep, sucked and stroked and reveled in the feel of my woman. For the first time in forever, the raging animal of a killer inside me was silent. The thirst for blood, the addiction to the adrenaline high. What high could be better than the one I’d found with Abby? The one I’d thought I lost, only for it to be found again.
I scooped her into my arms. “I’m getting the stench of them off you, off us.” I could still taste the ashy residue of the flash bangs we’d used, smell the aftermath of Redding’s death on my clothes.
“Levi? Levi, look at me.” Abby waited for me to look up. “I’m okay. I am. I can’t imagine you thinking you’d watched me die.” Her eyes took on a haunted glaze. “It doesn’t matter how many times I have to say it, but I will until it finally sinks down deep, for good.I am okay.”
“I love you.” The words were rocky and rough, but I meant them more than any words that had ever passed my tongue. “I love you. I can’t live without you.”
“I know.” Abby dug her fingers into my hair. “I’ve got you. Don’t worry.” She brought our foreheads together. “I love you, Levi.”
When I closed the shower door behind us, I closed out all the chaos—no more evil men, no brothers, no pasts, no danger and sorrow and agony too deep to be borne. In that small, warm, wet space, it was only Abby and me, and in the quiet beneath the water, I explored every inch of her, imprinting the feel of her on my mind and mouth and hands all over again, drowning myself in the joy of having her back. I showed her everything I knew about making her feel safe, and much later, when I finally lay beside her in the bed, spooned around her body, I knew I couldn’t ask for more than to spend the rest of my life just like this.
With Abby. For fucking always.
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Epilogue
One Month Later
Surreal. That was the only word to describe this moment. Standing at the double vanity in the bathroom that had once belonged to my parents, marble and chrome features gleaming. Abby brushing her teeth in her underwear. Me shaving the stubble off my face.
Surreal.
Abby rinsed her mouth, placed her toothbrush in the little caddy right next to mine—surreal—and turned to face me. “You’re telling me you want a bat cave?”
A what? “You mean a man cave? No. I—”
“A bat cave. Like Batman. With his underground cavern of gadgets and deadly stealth car and all that.”
The glint in her eye told me she was teasing. I rolled mine. “I’m no superhero, little bird.”
She eased close, careful not to bump my arm as I scraped the razor over my cheek. “You are to me.”
My chest got tight.
“Plus, you want a bat cave.”
I rinsed the razor, then bent to cup water in my hands and splash it over my face just to cover the stupid grin I could feel trying to break free. I guess technically what I’d asked for as my thirtieth birthday present was pretty damn close—a “headquarters” in the basement of the mansion where my brothers and I could work. Maybe we’d cover the walls in rock and order our own version of Batman’s armored suit. In Kevlar, of course.
When I straightened, I snitched the towel from Abby’s hand and dried my cheeks. Abby ran a thumb down the side of my jaw. “Missed a spot.”
I had to kiss her then; she gave me no choice. Our lips met, parted, our tongues tangled, and heat surged through me, coalescing in my groin. The bite of my zipper as my cock hardened against it brought me back to reality far faster than I wanted it to.
I savored the taste of fresh mint and Abby on my tongue. “There,” I whispered against her lips. “Did I get it that time?”
“You get it every time,” she whispered back.
I rinsed the sink, and when I turned back to her, the mischief had left her eyes.
“You know, you don’t have to work anymore,” she said.
