last lick before I scooped her up into my arms, kissing her while I muttered, “We’re going to give poor Gigi a complex.”
I carried her into my room and shut the door to keep Gigi out, and I tossed Tessa to my bed.
She bounced on the mattress. Giggles rippled free, and this woman was grinning up at me like the shroud had been ripped from her spirit.
Joy.
It streaked between us.
Filling the room.
Banging against the walls.
“Take your shirt off, baby. Want to see you.”
She didn’t hesitate. She tore the tank off and tossed it to the floor.
And there was my perfection—my completion—laid out on my bed.
Naked.
Bare.
Trusting me.
“I never thought I would find someone like you,” she said.
I kicked off my shoes and ticked through the buttons of my jeans. I shoved them down and kicked them off my ankles.
She trembled.
Slowly, I crawled onto the bed. Hovering an inch over her, I cradled her face in my hands. “And you are exactly what I was waiting for. I knew you were out there—somewhere. I refused to give up faith believing in you. And here you are…right where you belong. Not goin’ to let you go, Tessa. As long as you’ll have me, I will be right here, protecting you like the treasure you are.”
Those eyes roved over my face. Searching. Pleading. “You hardly even know me.”
I splayed my hand over the battering at her chest. “And this tells me everything I need to know.”
She turned and did the same to me, her delicate hand laid across the beating of my heart. “You feel me the same way as I feel you?”
“Yeah. I think I knew it the second I got you into my arms in that fire. It was something different than I’d ever experienced. Like something came alive in me in that moment.”
“Are we fools to believe in it?”
“I think we’d be fools not to.”
She smiled. Smiled this smile that cut through the middle of me and found the spot that had always been meant for her.
I leaned down and kissed her. Kissed her slow. With devotion. With a promise.
I grabbed a condom from the nightstand and I had it rolled on in a flash. I tucked her closer, my hand set on the small of her back and the other behind her neck.
“Do you want me, Tessa?”
“I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.”
So I gave myself to her.
Drove deep, a grunt pulling up my throat as I seated myself in the tight clutch of her body.
Perfection.
I heaved out a breath. “Fuck. You are the best thing I’ve ever felt.”
She gazed up at me. “You are everything.”
I gathered her up, drove into her again and again.
Deep.
Possessive.
Her pants rose into the air, this girl letting herself go.
Getting lost.
Taking me with her.
I murmured every truth that I had.
“I won’t let you go.”
“I will cherish you.”
“I promise I will never let anyone hurt you.”
Got the feeling this was the purpose I’d always been called to.
Never letting go of her gaze, I edged back a fraction so I could touch her, this girl’s body wound so tight I knew she was getting ready to blow.
I swirled my fingers over her clit.
She lit.
Going off.
She screamed my name, and her walls clutched my dick, and I was following her into bliss.
Flames consuming.
A heat unlike I’d ever known.
Obliterating.
A fire set to the sky.
Nothing left but the two of us.
I clutched her as I came.
Swore to God, every question I’d ever had became clear in that moment.
Both of us searching for breath, I rolled onto my side and took her with me.
Tessa sighed and set her cheek on my chest. I kissed the top of her head.
I didn’t think I’d ever been happier than in that second.
“We’ll find him, Tessa. I promise you that. You aren’t going anywhere.”
I’d die before I let that happen.
She exhaled. So deep. The sound of it nothing but trust. “Okay.”
FIVE
Derrick
I JOLTED AWAKE to the shrieking of the alarm, the high-pitched beep, beep, beep, deafening.
I’d been woken enough to the sound of an alarm when I was sleeping at the station that my guts were already in tune to an emergency. Though this time, it was different.
Darkness penetrated.
Disorienting.
Smoke filled the air and burned my lungs.
Tessa bolted upright beside me.
A scream tore up her throat.
Terror radiating from her body and ricocheting from the walls.
Adrenaline surged through my veins, shooting me into action. She was in my arms in a second flat.