Stone maneuvered Mae into his arms, and held back thewince as his muscles pulled and strained while he stood off the ground with her.
“L-let Seb?—”
“Absolutely not. I’m carrying you out of this nightmare.”
“I love you,” she whispered as she laid her head against his shoulder.
“I love you too.”
“I’m t-tired, Stone. I did m-my best. I tried my… hardest to… get back… t-to you.”
“You did so good, Michaela. So, so good.”
“Don’t let me go…” she whimpered, the crack in her voice shattering his heart.
“Never again, Mae. Never, ever again.”
Twenty-Seven
“You should have stayed at the hospital.” Stone growled as he lowered Mae into the bath. She’d fought against every single concerned point he’d brought up, but she wanted to make the trip back to Silver Springs to sleep in their bed. And he couldn’t deny her that.
Christopher had been a chatty fuck, and Max had been more than happy to relay the vindictive motivation behind everything. The prick hadn’t just been doing drugs during his time in the SEALs. He was siphoning information about missions, teams compositions, equipment locations, the list went on and on… and selling it to the highest bidder. Chris faked his own death in order to be able to get an in with the cartel, and he’d been running trafficked women and drugs ever since. But once he got wind of the guys being in Texas, he just couldn’t let things go. Christopher blamed Stone for getting him kicked out. For ruining the good thing he had going. And he thought he’d get the last laugh.
He could laugh every day for the rest of his life for all Stone cared, because it was going to be spent in the deepest, darkest, loneliest corner of some shitty maximum securityprison, where he would rot away until he died… for a second, and actually permanent time.
Mae slept for most of the drive back. Thankfully, Sebastian had arranged for a small fleet of SUVs to drive them all back together. Laurel agreed to stay in Oklahoma City to help the FBI with their investigation, but that still left the entire team to get home, plus Mae and Jessie.
Hawk had been with her the entire time, and they took a whole car for themselves on the way back. Stone and Mae had done the same, and she laid on his lap, dosing on and off until they arrived back in Texas.
“Is the water okay?” he asked, brushing her hair back over her shoulder as she sank into the tub.
“It’s not hot enough.”
“Mae, it’s already fogged up the mirror. I don’t want it to burn you. Your body is still recovering from the cold.”
“It won’t. I need to get clean. Where’s the soap? Can you grab your body wash from the shower? I don’t… I don’t want to smell like me right now.”
Stone stood up, walking to the shower. He grabbed his body wash and the weird poof sponge thing she used in the shower.
“Here you go.”
She didn’t reach for it. “Could you?”
He stood staring at her while she took the soap out of his hands.
“You want me to wash you?”
“Yes, but not with that.” She scrunched up her nose at the sponge. “With your hands.”
“It won’t bother you to have me touch you?”
“I need you, Stone. Please. Touch me again. I don’t want… I don’t want his touch on me any more. I can’t… This bath… I’m still dirty. I still feel so cold. And so dirty. Like I won’t be able to feel warm or clean unless you help me take away their touch.”
“Mae. You are so brave.”
“I’m not. I just didn’t want to be under them. I didn’t want them to touch me. You were the last person to touch me, and if I was going to die, I didn’t want it to be with their marks all over me.”
“You’re not going to die. Their touch is long gone,” he whispered.
