Stolen Love (Beauty in the Stolen 3)

It’s our first time after a year. I’m not going to take her against the wall. It takes willpower to grab her wrists and pull her hands away from me. She lets me, trusting me even when I put space between us. I take another moment, this time to visually reacquaint myself with her body. She’s wearing a matching set of purple underwear. The purple color matches the color on her lips. Plum has always looked good on her. I drink her in from her head to her toes, missing nothing, especially not the small, round scar on her side. The sight of that scar burns into my brain like a branding iron. It hurts me more than a bullet ever can.

“Hey,” she says, reaching for me. “I’m here.”

I lift my gaze from the scar to her face, emotions playing havoc in my gut. She told me only once she loved me, and it was right before I’d gotten her shot.

“Cas.”

Knowing what I need, she wraps her arms around my waist and burrows her head under my chin. I fold my arms around her, holding on for life. Holding on for forever. I can’t lose her again.

Kissing me gently, she walks me backward to the bedroom. When the back of my legs hit the bed, I lift her into my arms. She wraps her legs around me without breaking our kiss, keeping that point of contact I need, giving me the reassurance she’s not going anywhere. Never again.

I sit, holding her in my lap. We’re wearing too many clothes. I want to press every inch of her naked skin against mine. She eases up a little, tearing her mouth from mine to take a breath. I let her breathe for a couple of seconds before chasing after her lips like a kite lifting to a breeze. When I finally catch her mouth again, I unclasp the bra at her back and brush the straps from her shoulders, taking special care with her injured side. The cups fall free, baring her perfect tits. I pull the straps from her arms and go for my prize, kissing each nipple and tasting them with my tongue. Fuck, I missed kissing her tits. They were made for my mouth and my hands.

We grind our groins together, initiating a mating dance as old as time itself. It comes naturally for us, this dance of give and take. It’s not about procreating or simple lust. It’s more than fucking or having sex. Not even making love is enough to describe it. It goes even deeper than that. It goes soul-deep. She’s the girl I want to wake up with for the rest of my life. She’s the partner I want by my side, but she’s so much more than that. She’s the missing link in the chain that holds me together.

There was a time, in this very bed, when the roles were reversed and I was the one who bore the stitches. We both have scars, but they heal when we’re together. When we’re in each other’s arms, they become just that—flesh bearing evidence of suffering, but it’s just flesh. The feelings in our hearts haven’t changed. We belong together, like Adam and Eve.

Yet I’ve never told her that. I’ve never told her she means more than every word I’ve inked on my skin.

Cupping her face, I turn us over. I look into her eyes as I pin her body underneath mine. “I love you, Cas. Only you. Always.”

A smile flirts with her lips. “It took you long enough.”

That’s where she’s wrong. “I’ve always loved you, from the very first moment.”

Threading her fingers through my hair, she pulls me down for another kiss. I deliver gladly. For the first time in my life, I feel pride. Real pride, not the shallow kind of satisfaction you get from winning a bet or fixing a stubborn generator, but the kind you feel as a man when the most beautiful, strongest woman ever created loves you.

I kiss my way down her body, grazing my lips around the gauze on her shoulder and over the hole that has mended in her side. She’s been extremely lucky. Maybe God had mercy because he made her with a weak heart and decided to save her not once but twice. Whatever the case, I’d rather take a bullet in the heart than let anyone shoot at her ever again.

“Ian,” she says, moving under me, dragging me back from my dark thoughts to the moment.

I trace the scar Ruben’s bullet had left one last time with a thumb, imprinting its embossed feel and shape into my heart before I kiss her stomach and hook my fingers into the elastic of her thong. I drag the scrap of lace over her hips slowly, unwrapping her like she’s my belated Christmas gift. She still waxes, leaving only a landing strip. I pull the thong down her pale thighs and free her legs before spreading them. It’s been too long since I tasted her.