I carried that worry like a fuckin’ boulder on my shoulders as I waited for the gates to open so I could walk out into the lot and greet my family, save one beautiful, irreplaceable soul. There was nothin’ in the world more important to me than bein’ there for my family through our hardest time, yet I’d been sequestered outta reach, unable to offer the comfort and support they needed.
It fuckin’ killed me, and with that pain came shame. I was ashamed even though I’d done nothing’ wrong ’cause I hadn’t laid a hand on Riley Gibson. That was somethin’ else prison was good at doin’ to you, rapin’ your soul so all you felt was guilt and shame and wrongfulness even when it wasn’t warranted.
So, I was worried as the concrete doors parted to reveal a hoard’a people clustered in the parking lot around a dozen cars and even more Harleys.
And then, eyes sweeping, sweeping over faces so fuckin’ dear to me, my gaze settled on the pair of true-blue eyes I’d been yearnin’ for, and everything––the guilt, the shame, the sorrow, and the wrongfulness––just fell away dead at my feet.
Couldn’t even move with the force of it all moving through me. I just stood there while my Lou started forward, breakin’ into a sprint the way she had as a girl in a parking lot full’a bikers shootin’ at each other, just bookin’ it toward me like I was the only thing that could save her.
And fuck, but I knew she was the only one who could save me.
My arms opened on instinct, and I caught her easily as she hurtled through the air to wrap her entire body around mine like vines around a tree.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I braced as emotions crashed through me with the force of tsunami waves.
Relief, joy, and love so fuckin’ big in my chest I thought I would burst as I planted my face in all of Lou’s thick, fragrant silk hair and just fought to breathe through the mess of emotions raging through me.
Her hands clutched at me, moving over my hair, my neck and back, up over my cheeks until she pulled my face outta her neck and held me still to rake her wet velvet gaze all over my features. Tears streamed down her cheeks; ’er eyes so blue against the flushed cheeks they looked otherworldly.
I fisted a hand in the back’a her moonbeam hair and planted my forehead against hers just to feel ’er sweet breath against my face.
“My Lou,” I said, voice mangled and rough with tears I wouldn’t shed.
“Zeus,” she breathed, then choked on a sob that set her entire body to shaking. “Oh God, Z, my love, my monster, my man.”
I sealed my mouth over hers, unable to last a moment more without ’er taste on my tongue. She cried hard into the kiss, but her arms squeezed me as tight as she could, her breasts so soft against my chest, her tears wet and salty over my lips. I wanted every inch’a her against every inch’a me because I knew she was the only fuckin’ thing that would rid every particle of that prison cell from my skin.
“Love you so much,” she mumbled against my mouth, one hand brushin’ over my beard, then over my mouth as if she could memorize the feel of me. “Love you so much more than any words I could think to say to you.”
“You don’t gotta say anythin’,” I assured her, tucking her head against my neck so I could hug her tight. “I got you just like I always got you, and I’m not fuckin’ leavin’ ever again. You hear me?”
“I hear you,” she muttered between pressin’ kisses to my neck. “I’ve always heard you.”
“I know, little girl,” I said because I did. The kinda connection we shared wasn’t something that could be put into a box with words. It lived in us just as it had lived in us since I saved her as a kid, and it would live with us until the day we died.
“The babies,” I said to her, my eyes moving over her hair to the crowd giving us a moment a few yards away. My gaze found them quick, two bright blond heads’a hair, one held by my girl Harleigh Rose, and the other by their Aunt Bea. “Fuck me, they’re big.”
Lou laughed through her tears as she pulled herself out of my neck and smiled into my face. She’d never looked so goddamn beautiful as she did then, beamin’ into my face like I was her fuckin’ hero. “You’ll never believe how gorgeous they are, Z. Just like their Daddy.”
“If they’re beautiful, it’s all you,” I said as I started forward, eyes pinned on my kids. “Can’t wait to meet them.”