Her worry turned to laughter as she covered my face with kisses.
EPILOGUE
Ruth
“So we just did that,” I giggled, throwing my arms around my husband’s neck as he backed me into our Vegas hotel room two and a half months later.
“You bet your ass we just did, Mrs. Walker,” Jeremiah said as he shoved me up against the wall, kicking the door shut with his foot and bracing his hands on the wall on either side of my head. “And now I intend to consummate the vows we just made before Elvis so you know I damn well mean it.”
He plucked the cheap little tiara with attached veil out of my hair and then dug his fingers in, dragging my head back. He followed with his mouth, missing my lips and latching onto my throat instead.
Oh God, yes.
The past two months had been incredible. Maybe that was mean to say, because the physical therapy and rehab Jer had gone through hadn’t always been easy. It was only last week he’d been able to get on a horse again and walk more than a couple blocks without getting winded.
It hadn’t mattered, or maybe it had allowed us to connect on an even deeper level intimacy wise.
He’d finally let me in. He told me things he’d never told anyone else, not even Reece. He told me about what happened to him when he was desperate on the streets, how he was essentially kidnapped and held captive by that evil bitch, how he barely escaped. How when kids like him disappeared, no one ever went looking.
No wonder he had a hard time letting anyone close, or ever letting down his walls. At first he was monotone as he told it all to me, but by the end, he’d broken down weeping, burying his face in my breasts. Like a child in need of comfort from the mother who had never been there for him.
And I’d held him so close and whispered to him that I had him, that I loved him, and that I’d never let anything bad happen to him ever again. A foolish promise to make but one I was still determined to bring true. This precious man was everything to me. He’d been so strong for so long and I wanted him to know that now he could put down that heavy burden. He could lay it down now and rest in my arms.
But Jeremiah never was one to rest for long, or to allow himself to be out of control. And I understood better than ever after he gave me his deepest secrets.
So I gave myself to him with a trust I’d never been able to give to anyone before. Because Buck’s revelations about my father had freed me from the man’s legacy. I wouldn’t allow that man or his opinions of me to torture me any longer. He no longer had any control over me.
Look what his mind games had done to his other child.
Buck was in prison now and would be for a long time. The Winston’s lawyers would see to that. They hadn’t taken kindly to being kidnapped and extorted. Plus the attempted murder charge for Jeremiah. No, he wouldn’t see the light of day for a long, long time. Good fucking riddance. He might be my half-brother but he’d effectively squashed any sisterly sentiment I might have ever felt. In the end all he’d ever proved was that yes, he was his father’s son.
And now Jeremiah and I were free.
I kissed him back just as vigorously as his leg slid between mine. He angled himself in such a way that I could feel his hard cock through his slacks, right at my center. I groaned, already so turned on from seeing his love-filled eyes during the cheesy ceremony down-stairs. It hadn’t mattered that I was holding plastic flowers or that the chapel smelled like hairspray and cheap perfume.
It was perfect. I was finally uniting with the man of my dreams. The man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Ours would never be a conventional life. We fell in love during someone else’s wedding celebrations, cemented our affair while stranded in a storm, to this day had sex more often out of bed than in it—being married by an Elvis impersonator felt just about right.
“I want you wet,” Jeremiah growled to me as he reached up underneath my simple skirt, shoved my panties aside, and palmed my pussy.
I shuddered against his hand, my forehead falling against his chest as I began to shudder. I was so ready for him. So beyond ready for him—
“I’m wet,” I whispered, unnecessarily, since he could feel just how wet I was.
But he shook his head, still strumming a spot that had me almost sputtering, it was so goddamn good.