I watch the camera feed with my jaw slack, heart frozen in my fucking throat, and electrical currents zapping through my bloodstream as Snake engulfs Oak in an air locked tight embrace.
I watch as they hold onto one another, brothers who had thought they might never have had the chance to so again.
And when they let go I watch Nora fly into his arms next. The only man she’ll ever touch willingly without hesitation or fear. She cries into his chest, tears staining his shirt. And Oak, his eyes fight to keep his own tears back.
He whispers something in her ear that only makes her cry harder, but when she lets him go she wears the brightest most magnificent smile on her face.
Connor barrels into him next. And for the first time Oak isn’t pretending to be taken aback by him. His feet stumble as he staggers backwards with his arms around the little guy. There’s a complexity of emotions on his normally stoic face. And God, it pulls on every single one of my heartstrings.
A gentle hand on my arm pulls me out of my stupor. Rosa’s eyes meet mine with such warmth. “He’s really here, honey. He won’t disappear if you move.”
Before I can even blink my feet are carrying me as fast as they can. My lungs burn with the intensity of how fast I’m running. My hair whips behind me as my feet slap hard against the floorboards.
As soon as I open the doors I come to a standstill.
Oak’s eyes meet mine from across the lot. The air magnetizes and I feel the pull. Tingles race up and down my spine as my blood sings for him.
“Grace,” he says my name in a breath. As if seeing me in the flesh, so close yet so far, has suckered punched him.
And then we are both closing the distance to one another. Both of us moving at alarming speed until we crash against one another. I leap off the ground and he bends at the knees to swoop me in his arms as my legs wrap around his waist and my arms loop around his neck.
He cradles my face so tenderly in his large, roughened hands. “Grace,” he says my name again but this time it sounds like a prayer. It sounds like an answer. It sounds like he’s finally home.
Big ridiculously fat tears well in my eyes. And they descend when he begins peppering kisses on every inch of my face.
Finally his lips meet mine, and they devour me whole. His tongue plunges in my mouth with no mercy. I kiss him back with as much ferocity, losing myself in him, finding myself in him.
As our lips finally part, both of ours swollen and red, our foreheads come to rest against one another’s as we breathe each other in.
How can I ever go in my life without him?
He presses another soft kiss to my swollen lips, sending tingles throughout my body.
Tilting my head back I find him already gazing lovingly at me. His icy blue eyes have never looked so free.
“You’re here,” I breathe.
A kiss to the tip of my nose. “I’m here.”
Relief washes over me. All the worry I had seeping from my body. And it causes me to do something that made him fall so hard in love with me in the first place. I try to untangle myself from him but he won’t allow it. So, instead, I slap his chest hard.
“What was that for?” Shock colors his tone as his eyes widen.
“You have no idea how worried I was!” I cry out. And then I go on a tangent of emotions. “The very least thing you could’ve done was call me, big guy. It’s not that hard you know. All you had to do was unlock that phone of yours and press my name to. Call. Me.” He’s smiling. This beautiful yet infuriating man is smiling. “Why are you smiling? I was beside myself all weekend. I couldn’t even-” He silences me with a hard kiss that leaves me breathless. Somehow, I pull away from him. Not deterred in the slightest I continue, “And you said you had manners. Where were they then?” He shuts me up again with another bruisingkiss, this time his tongue delving deep in my mouth. I tangle my fingers in the ends of his hair and pull. He smiles against my mouth.
With his lips pressed against mine he says, “You’re right I could’ve called you. And I should have. But the only thing I had on my mind, baby, was getting to you as fast as I could. To hold you in my fucking arms again. To taste to you. To be fucking consumed by you. So, I’m sorry I didn’t call, but know that every thought I had when I was released and free of charge was to come home to you.”
I smile through the tears. “You really are a charmer, aren’t you?”
“I don’t care what I am, Grace, as long as I’m yours.”
Gracie Mae
“You’re nervous,” Oak says to me, his voice a soft caress to my ears as he comes up behind me. He places his hands on my hips, pulling me flush against his front.
I stare at the reflection of us in the mirror with awe and pure carnal satisfaction.
I see how his hands swallow my hips with a possessive yet tender hold. How despite our massive height difference it’s as if I fit him perfectly.
