Page 39 of Seal My Fate

“A scratch?!” My voice roars, deafening in the late-night hush.

Wren looks back and forth between us. “OK!” she says brightly. “I’m beat. All that desperate fleeing can really take it out of you. Where’s the guest room?” she asks me.

I nod down the hall.

“Great! So I’m going to go take a sleeping pill, and put my noise-canceling headphones on, and go to bed while you two… Do whatever!”

Wren makes herself scarce, leaving Tessa and me alone. “You need to go to the hospital, to get checked out properly,” I order her.

“What I need is a hot shower and a good night’s sleep. Why don’t you put the kettle on, and make us some tea?” she adds, before moving past me, and heading upstairs.

Tea.Tea?!

I try to keep it together. I know she’s been through a lot tonight, but the casual way she’s brushing it off makes my blood boil. Doesn’t she understand the danger she was in? When I think of the two them, alone and frightened in those woods, with some psycho stalking them…

A psycho with a gun.

Ashford isn’t fucking around.

I charge upstairs after her. “Do you realize what just happened tonight?” I demand, finding her in the bathroom.

“I’m fine,” she insists again, and I just about blow my last remaining fuse.

“Stop saying that!” I yell. “Nothing about this is fine! When I heard those gunshots on the phone, and then you were gone… I thought you were dead! I could have lost you!””

“But you didn’t.” In an instant, Tessa has her arms wrapped tightly around me. Soothing me with the warm press of her body, and her soft, urgent smile. “I’m right here.”

“I can’t lose you, baby,” I hold on like a drowning man, panic and relief and sheer desperation pounding in my bloodstream. “Fuck, I can’t let you go.”

“You don’t have to,” Tessa reassures me. She tilts her face up to me, eyes shining brightly, filled with tears. “You know, I was scared tonight too. I was so, so terrified. But the one thing that kept me sane, was knowing you would come for me. I knew you’d come, Saint. And that belief, it got me through.”

I exhale a ragged breath. “Tessa… My love…”

“I’m not going anywhere, I promise. I’m staying right here, with you.”

Tessa comes up on her tiptoes, searching for a kiss. And fuck, I could never deny her. My mouth crashes down on hers, all the stress and fear of the night giving way to a desperate hunger.

I need her.

Always.

“Saint…” Tessa whimpers against me, as I claim her lush mouth, tongue plunging deep. I try to be gentle, knowing she must be shaken after everything she’s been through, but Tessa’s kiss is hungry and wild. She grips at my shoulders, arching her body against me, demanding more.

Fuck. I give it to her.

I’ll always give her everything. Until the day that I’m empty and broken, and even then, I’ll give her my last breath.

Because this woman… This woman is everything to me. I knew it in my bones already, but coming so close to losing her tonight has made it crystal clear.

Nothing is ever going to part us again.

After a long, heated moment, Tessa pulls back, breathless. “I’m a mess,” she says ruefully. “I’ve got half the forest in my hair, and the other half…” she looks down at her mud-smeared clothes and winces.

“You’re beautiful.” I swear.

Tessa turns on the shower, quickly filling the bathroom with steam. “Will you help me…?” she asks, gesturing at her clothing.

As if I ever needed any excuse to strip her naked.

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