Best of 2017

“I’m here, Violet,” he murmurs, his lips pressing kisses all over me. He covers me with a blanket and hugs me tight. “I’m always here.”

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“I-I was b-brave,” I chatter out.

“I know you were. I never had a doubt.”

THE PAST WEEK has been a whirlwind. Cops. FBI. Dealing with my mother moving to the city. I’ve been walking around in a fog. If it weren’t for Gray, I’d have let all the stress swallow me up.

But Gray is more than the storm.

He’s also the calm within it.

With the patience of a saint and the smooth tongue of a sinner, he’s woven a tale they believe. His private investigator Dusty had all sorts of information on Vaughn. After Gray shot the men, Bull took the gun and casings with him. There wasn’t any evidence for the police to find. Not that they were truly worried about Vaughn and his goons. Once they discovered it was someone on the FBI’s wanted list, their efforts switched from wanting to find the killer to finding the missing women that were believed to be hidden away by Vaughn somewhere. I was able to tell them what I knew about his old stomping grounds and past residences. And with the intel they had from Dusty, they were able to piece together some locations. The same day Vaughn was murdered, the FBI found the warehouse where seventeen girls and women between the ages of fifteen and thirty were found. Most were drugged out of their mind. Many were raped beyond reason. All were rescued and returned to their families.

“Happy anniversary,” Gray murmurs, his palm cupping my breast as he begins kissing my neck. “You still leaving, little quitter?”

I roll onto my back on his bed and regard his handsome face. Once Vaughn was truly gone, I shed about ten pounds worth of stress. My life began to drip with color again. My favorite is gray.

“I guess my two weeks’ notice is up, huh?”

He slides his erection against my thigh. “You could always ask for an extension.”

I start giggling so loud that I have to cover my mouth so nobody hears. My mother has come to stay with Gray and me at his house. Gwen has been so good to both of us. I’ve missed Momma so much and getting to see her every day has been the icing on the cake.

“I’m happy,” I blurt out, hot tears quickly filling my eyes. “I’m happy because of you.”

A growl rumbles low in his throat and he attacks my mouth. Our kisses are needy and fervent. It doesn’t take much shifting before he’s driving deep inside me. He devours my lips to stifle my moans, so we don’t wake up the whole house.

As he fucks me, he lifts up to regard me. His icy blue eyes are sharp and focused on me. It’s my favorite thing about him. The way he watches me like a hawk. As if I’m the only thing he sees.

But he’s not like Vaughn.

Gray is good to me.

He loves me.

And I love him too.

SIX MONTHS LATER…

“Here?” Gwen asks, her nose scrunched in question.

I frown and shake my head. “Over just a bit.” My back aches from all the work we’ve been doing. My sister-in-law made good on her vow to deal with her hoarding problems. With intense therapy and help from not only Gray and I, but my mother as well, she’s been able to clear out all her rooms. The church near her mom’s house has been helping us with the donations. It’s been a lot of work, but I’m happy to see Gwen working through her issues.

“You think he’ll notice?” she questions once the picture is hung.

I laugh. “He notices everything.”

We both admire the painting she’s been working on for weeks. It matches the décor of the room perfectly.

“I love it,” I tell her with a sigh. “What’s next on our list?”

She shakes her head. “Not so fast, missy. You need to rest. I promised Gray I wouldn’t work you to death. You know how he worries.”

“He worries way too much,” I say with a faux pout. Truth is, though, his worrying makes me feel safe. If it weren’t for him obsessing over my well-being, we wouldn’t be here today. I’d probably be drugged out of my mind in some warehouse once again under Vaughn’s thumb.

“I have two to worry about now,” a deep voice rumbles from behind me just as his strong arms wrap around my middle. I lean back against his solid chest. He palms my swollen stomach and kisses the side of my neck.

“How’d painting go?” I question.

“Bull can’t paint for shit,” he gripes. Our son rolls in my belly. “Oops, I think I woke little man up.”

I laugh and Gwen lets out a huff. “Umm, hello? Notice anything?”

“What? Did you cut your hair?” Gray teases her. I know he sees the painting on the wall but he likes to razz her.

“You’re an ass,” she gripes and points in exaggeration to the hawk painting.

“Looks good,” he tells her in an absent tone. “I’ll come inspect it more later once I’ve seen to it that my wife is taken care of.”

Gwen pretends to gag. “Gross. Go away. Bye.”

I’m scooped into Gray’s strong arms and finally get a good look at his face. White paint speckles cover his forehead and cheeks. There are even flecks all in his hair. He looks downright adorable.

“You’re a mess,” I tease as he carries me to our bedroom.

He smirks and kicks the door shut. “And you’re beautiful.”

When he sets me on the bed, he doesn’t waste any time stripping me out of my clothes. Once I’m naked, he steps back and lets out a groan.

“Goddamn you’re hot when your belly is rounded with my kid,” he observes, flashing me a smoldering grin.

I lie back so he can enjoy the view. He was right about everything. Being his wife fills one of those holes I had deep inside me. Carrying his child fills another hole. This life he forged for us is one I don’t ever want to lose.

“So beautiful,” he praises as he kneels on the floor and starts kissing my thighs. Gray is so thorough. He hardly misses a day where he isn’t worshipping every part of my body. His breath tickles along my flesh as he makes his way to the part of me that throbs for him. Once he reaches his destination, he kisses my clit. Softly at first. Then, he begins sucking and tonguing me until I’m writhing in pleasure.

I barely have time to recover before he’s pulling my hips to the end of the bed. He enters me gently at first but then thrusts into me raggedly as if he’ll die if he doesn’t get enough of me.

Don’t worry, honey, I’ll give you everything.

It isn’t until he comes with a loud groan and falls on his side beside me that my gaze falls on the chest across the room. My question is always the same. His answer is always the same.

“What’s in the chest?”

His palm finds my cheek and he turns my head to look at him. His mouth hovers over mine. “It doesn’t matter.”

And honestly, it doesn’t matter.

What matters is the man who’s now kissing me and the boy rolling around in my belly.

What matters is us. They are what I notice.

Everything else is out of focus.

EPILOGUE

GRAYSON

Fifteen years later…

Thomas is different than most kids his age. Brooding and introspective. He harbors dark thoughts but never acts on them. I don’t miss the storm that brews in his icy blue eyes that match mine exactly. A storm he needs to gain control of.

His three younger sisters are all loud, playful, and funny.

It’s as if he stands out like a sore thumb in his own family with his frowns and sulking.

I know it bothers Violet, but she doesn’t understand him. I’m the only one who gets what goes on in that mind of his. And it’s long past time for me to help him gain control.

“Daddy! Daddy!” my youngest daughter Emily screeches as she comes barreling down the hallway. I scoop up my four-year-old and squeeze her tight.

“Where’s your brother?” I question with a smile.

Her lip pouts out. “Hiding in his room. He told me to go away.”

I kiss her forehead. “Thomas is getting to be a big boy now. He likes to do grown up things. Why don’t you go play with your sisters? Later we’ll walk down to

the creek behind the house.”

“Yay!” she squeals. “I want to catch a lightning bug.”

I set her to her feet and ruffle her hair. “Maybe Thomas can help you catch one.”

Her nose scrunches as if she doesn’t believe me. Then she changes subjects on a dime like she’s notorious for doing. “When can we go to the beach again? I want to build a sand castle.”

The kids love the resort. We spend at least three weeks there during the summer. It’s a place where my family can laugh and play without a worry in the world. The mother is involved and the father is kind. It’s what I always wanted.

“We’ll go soon,” I promise.

She bounds off through the house to look for her sisters. I turn and stride in the opposite direction toward Thomas’s room. When I twist the knob and walk in, a familiar pang settles in my chest. His room is immaculate. It reminds me so much of mine growing up. He sits in his desk chair hunched over looking in a shoebox in his lap.

“What’re you doing, kiddo?”

He looks up from the box and shrugs. “I found this.”

I stride over to him and drop to one knee to look in the box. When I see an old squirrel skull, I smile at him. “Did you find it in the woods?”

“Yeah. Can I keep it?”

“Of course.” I meet his sharp stare. “How do you think he died?”

Something flickers in his eyes. Curiosity. The fact that anything flickers in him surprises me. He walks around so emotionless all the time. “I don’t know. Got eaten by a puma maybe?”

I smirk. “Maybe he ate a bad nut or starved to death.”

“What if a dog bit his tail off and he bled to death?” he asks as he picks up the tiny skull.

He hands it to me and I turn it over in my palm. “You know, Thomas, you’re a lot like me.”

His shoulders stiffen. “I guess.”

“I get obsessed with things. People. Stuff. Ideas. Does that ever happen to you?”

Our eyes meet, and for a moment, he looks so vulnerable and lost. It crushes me.

“Maybe sometimes.”

“It can be kind of scary. Thinking about something to the point of exhaustion, huh?” I ask.