Niall (Vigilance 2)

Then he brought his messy fingers to my mouth, and I sucked them clean once again. Impossibly, my cock twitched. It was insanely hot having him this possessive, this desperate to make me his.

I gave his fingers a final lick, then turned to kiss him thoroughly, letting him taste himself on me.

When he pulled back, I said, “I am yours, but you know what?”

He raised a brow. “What?”

“You’re mine too.”

He grinned. “I’m okay with that.”

We cleaned up, then he finished making dinner. Everything was delicious. The steak was better than many I’d had at famous restaurants. After we ate, we sat on his sofa drinking wine.

He set his glass on the coffee table and shifted so he was facing me. “I want you to stay.”

“The night?”

“The night. The week. As long as you want. Forever.”

I choked on a sip of wine. “Are you… are you serious?”

He shrugged. “You aren’t going to let me bring Cheddar to your house, are you?”

“Fuck. Is that why you asked if I could deal with having her around?”

“Maybe.”

I glanced around the small apartment. Could we really combine our lives into this space? Did I have that much that represented a real life? Maybe not, but I wanted to build one.

Marco lifted a brow. “I fed you my cum as it leaked out of your ass, but this is too much?”

I stared at him. Dammit, he had a point. “I want this. All of it. You. Every day. Every night. Fuck, I’ll even take Cheddar if it means I get you, but I… I can’t quite let myself believe it’s real.”

Marco cupped my face in his big hands. “This is real. I love you. I’ve never said that to anyone who wasn’t family, and I only said it rarely to any of them.”

His words made my breath catch. “I love you so much. I never expected to feel all this so fast, so fully, but I do. I missed you every second of the last few days.”

“Me too. I didn’t like being apart, and I especially didn’t like being in bed at night without you there.”

“How did we get so used to that so fast?”

“You ask too many fucking questions. Are you going to stay?”

“I’ll stay tonight, then we’ll take it day by day.”

“And every day I’ll prove to you that you need me.”

I smiled, certain he would, because I did need him, and it no longer terrified me. “You need me too.”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“Then I’ll be here as long as you need me.” The words came straight from my heart. Fear couldn’t stop me anymore. I kissed him then, and I didn’t feel constrained by the idea of a life with him. I felt freer than I ever had.

27

Epilogue

4 months later

Niall

I’d thrown out the suggestion that X buy Arlington’s island as a joke, but X loved the idea. He’d contacted Arlington’s heirs, and they’d come to an agreement. For them, the island had too many negative associations, and they were happy to get rid of it. For X, it was now a place of victory, and for me and Marco, it was the place where we’d fallen in love. Fortunately, X had no qualms about any of us using it during our rare moments of down time.

X had hired all new staff for the house and set his alter ego’s business manager to finding ways to make the island profitable when he wasn’t using it, like offering boat tours to the nearest reef and educational hikes in the rain forest, but there would be no public accommodations on the island. It was only accessible to tourists as a day trip.

It took me a while to arrange it, but I managed to book a week on the island where Marco and I would be the only guests at the house. I kept it a secret from him until the last minute, which meant arranging staff for the shop and a cat sitter for Cheddar. The latter was easy enough since Frankie had moved into the apartment above the shop when Marco and I had moved into a larger place. Cheddar would be happy to be back in her old home. I just might have become more than tolerant of her, and I didn’t want her to be sad while we were away.

By the time I woke Marco on the day of our departure, I’d already been on a run and procured coffee and breakfast sandwiches from a food cart down the street. Marco continued to be appalled by my ability to force myself to exercise first thing in the morning.

I set the cups and the bag of food on the table and slipped into our bedroom. I lowered myself to the bed and eased the covers back. “Marco, it’s time to wake up.”

He grumbled, pushed away my hand, and tried to turn over.