Farrah was holding nail scissors to my neck.
“Drop it,” Dad barked at her, gun raised and trained unwaveringly on her.
She turned to face him and sneered, “No, you won’t do a fuckin’ thing to me while I’m holding your precious kid. You’re gonna let us go.”
Dad stared at me, his eyes filled with something I’d seen thousands of times and never once disobeyed even in my deepest days of rebellion. Trust.
Slowly, he lowered the gun.
Farrah laughed and did a little dance that punctured my skin with the scissors. Blood beaded and rolled into my hair as she leaned forward to whisper, “Come on, baby, let’s blow this place. You and me’ll go to Colombia. All I need is my girl.”
I let her walk me to the partially opened door, leaned forward to open it for us and immediately obeyed Dad when he barked, “Drop.”
I fell to the ground as the door crashed open.
Bang!
So loud, right over top of me.
“Huh?” my mother gasped then gurgled behind me.
I rolled to my back to see her clutching her throat, a hole right through the center of it, as she fell to the ground.
“Rosie.”
My eyes closed automatically against the burn of tears there.
“No,” I whispered, afraid I was stress hallucinating, or I’d inhaled too many nail polish fumes.
But no.
Rough tipped hands gently reached under my armpits to pull me up then planted on my shoulders to spin me around.
And he was there.
The green-eyed teenager playing guitar in a record store.
The rookie cop letting me get away with shoplifting.
The undercover biker who gave up his cover to save me.
My fierce, loyal, handsome Lion standing before me, holding me, looking at me like I was the lost treasure of Atlantis and he’d never need for anything again.
“Lion,” I whispered, the word all hope. “I did something bad.”
“Nothing to forgive, nothing to forget. I love you, rebel Rose. You hurt me to save me. You broke your own heart a million fucking times to keep me alive and I love you so fucking much for that.” He grasped my face in his hand and spoke against my lips. “My lion-hearted girl.”
And then he kissed me.
The sheet shifted slowly over the sleep-warmed skin of my back, bearing my ass to the cool air. Fingers followed, skirted the slopes of my muscles and the hollow of my spine, the two depressions at the base of my torso like a sculptor molding precious clay. Another hand moved the thick curtain of hair obscuring my face off to the side of my head on the pillow and warm lips teased my ear.
“Good morning my thorny Rose,” Danner whispered there, planting the words like a secret.
My heart surged with gratitude so warm, it sent a flush through my whole body.
Lion was back.
Back in my life, in my bed, in my arms.
My protector, my best friend, and my lover.
I finally had everything from him I’d ever needed.
I could still feel the echo of Hero in my heart, the loss of his head beside me in our bed, but I knew this is what he’d died for. To keep not just me alive, but this dream, his family together in bed again.
My mother was gone, dead by Danner’s unwavering hand. He didn’t seem to feel remorse and neither did I. But, we didn’t call the cops until Dad had taken Farrah’s body away to be laid to not-so-peaceful rest with the pigs at Angelwood farm. I didn’t want to get Danner in trouble for saving me.
And Dad didn’t want to be there when the men in blue showed up.
There was an ache in my thumb from the bullet graze and I knew Danner’s scar was still bright pink on his chest, fresh but healing.
We had scars.
We’d had battles.
But that was finally done, and I had to believe the horrors we’d been through only made us stronger, as individuals and a pair.
I started to flip over so I could see his face but the hand on my back flattened and pressed me into the mattress.
“Got a craving to suck your sweet pussy from behind until you melt all over my tongue,” he said, then sucked my earlobe into his mouth, releasing it with a sharp nip of his teeth. “Be a good girl and stay still for your Dom.”
God, I’d missed that.
Almost a month without that strong voice in my ear, those firm words summoning the submissive from the depths of my soul. I was wet from his first word.
“Yes, Lion,” I breathed more than spoke as he shifted over top of me, one of his strong arms visible and clenched deliciously as he slowly lowered his weight and then slid down my body to lay himself between my parted legs.
He swatted my ass sharply and ordered, “Hands and knees. Tilt those hips and show me that gorgeous cunt.”