“You want my fuck every day, huh?” I growl, trading our places, covering her mouth with my hand for that first pump with me on top, because yeah, it’s deeper. It’s deep as hell and she screams into my palm, the sound growing breathier as I thrust. Fast. Hard. Shaking the hospital bed around us. “You better mean that, Gracie. Because every day means every day. Means I ride this hot piece even if we’re having a little fight and you’re giving me the silent treatment. Hard days, easy ones. Even when you’re bleeding. I get it no matter what. Every day means we’re never apart.”
“That’s what I want,” she says choppily, her nails buried in my shoulders, breaking the flesh, her hips working, writhing beneath mine. “That’s what I need.”
“That’s what you’re going to get,” I grit out, dipping my mouth to her neck and sucking the flesh just below her ear. “I’ve got a five-day load, baby. Open your pretty thighs and take it for me. Look me in the eyes when I bust and tell me you love your Daddy.”
She does even better.
She clamps her little muscles around my cock—squeezing—and gives me a bratty pout. “I love you, Daddy.”
And the seed is ripped straight out of my balls. I pound her roughly, eight, nine times, the sloppy, hot seed finally spurting free into her tightness. My eyes go blind and I drop my mouth into her neck, panting, groaning, my hips straining between her thighs, trying to get the full relief, purging the pressure that’s built for the last five days.
Grace. My Gracie. She’s an addiction. I know it in that moment, with my blood rushing wildly and everything inside of me expanding, exulting, feeling wracking me like never before. I know deep in my bones that we’re co-dependent junkies and there’s no being apart. Ever. There’s no life without this. Without her. Without us. And she feels the same. I can see it now with our love-stoned gazes boring into each other, tears coursing down her temples, that this is a lifelong obsession for us both and I’m not holding back. I’m going full throttle.
I let her know it with one final, hard thrust, my mouth stamping down over hers.
My tongue ravaging her mouth. Claiming her for good.
God help anyone who tries to separate me from my Grace again.
Twelve
Grace
When I wake up in the hospital room, North’s strong, reassuring arms wrapped around me from behind, I know exactly what needs to be done. Morning light is beginning to fill the space, sunshine turning his dark arm hair to gold, and that tiniest detail is enough to make my heart ripple and squeeze with love. Love so wild and boundless, it scares me a little. Not enough to be cautious, though. Oh no, I’m running toward him without hesitation.
North Whitlock is it for me. Forever.
Until now, until I experienced real, unconditional love, I didn’t realize how much it has been lacking in my life. I’ve grown up in a sterile, affectionless environment. Not only that, but I think maybe I’ve been abused without realizing it. Locked in my room, controlled, manipulated, criticized. Over the years, I became so conditioned to please my father that I never stopped to think what I wanted.
Oh, I had a dream of teaching, but it was never realistic.
It feels realistic now. Anything does.
With this man holding me, I feel like I could fly.
Holding someone down, locking them up, forcing them into subservience isn’t love. It’s bad parenting. It’s terror. And if I let it continue, it won’t stop for my whole life. I’ll just keep running on this hamster wheel trying to make Simmons happy—and he doesn’t even have the ability to feel an emotion like happiness. It will all be for nothing.
I’m not going to an Ivy League college. Especially for finance.
Not because it will take me away from North—although that is a huge consideration, being that I can’t breathe without him—but mainly because I don’t want to. I don’t want to take that prestigious education away from someone who truly dreams of it. What I want is a lot more simple, though. I want to teach children. I want a place to belong.
I’ve found it with North.
Now I have to keep it.
And there’s only one way I can see that happening without his life being jeopardized.
Anger and protectiveness crowd into my throat. I’ve never experienced either of these emotions so deeply, so profoundly. No one—no one—is going to lay a finger on this man sharing my hospital bed. How dare my father even suggest it? I think of the way North carried me into the emergency room last night, hoarsely calling for a doctor, his arms shaking around me, and I decide it’s my turn to save him. To make the hard decision to leave my life behind the only way possible and start over. Start fresh with the love of my life.