“I knew I loved you then.I guess my brain was still trying to tell my heart how to feel.”
“And how does your heart feel?”he asked, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear.
“Like it can’t beat without you.”
His eyes darkened.“It’ll never have to.”
He kissed me again, pushing me down onto the bed and crawling on top of me.His hands were gentle, reverent, the opposite of the man who’d ripped me from Victor’s world.He took his time undressing me, his fingers lingering on every inch of skin he uncovered, as though he were revealing a priceless treasure.
And that was exactly how he made me feel.Like I was treasured.Like I was adored.
Like I was loved.
And I was.
He didn’t bind my wrists.Didn’t keep me pinned with his weight.Didn’t bare his teeth against my skin or drive into me with the same devastating force I’d grown to crave.
This was different.
He moved slowly, his hips rolling against mine in lazy circles, his fingers laced with mine, our breaths mingling in the quiet between us.
Henry didn’t just fuck me.
He made love to me.
He made me feel his love with every caress, every kiss, every soft sound he gave me when he pressed deeper.I’d never experienced anything like it.Not even close.
This was what I used to imagine love would feel like when I was a little girl dreaming of fairy tales.The kind where the girl wasn’t just saved.She was cherished.
Sure, maybe my version of a fairy tale was more likeBeauty and the BeastthanCinderella, but that didn’t matter.
It was my story.My life.
And I was ready to finally live my life, regardless of what the future may bring.
ChapterThirty-Five
Henry
The highway had long since given way to the back roads, narrow two-lane strips of cracked asphalt threading through endless forests and stagnant, moon-lit marsh.Central Florida at night had a way of swallowing sound, of making the world feel hollow and forgotten.The kind of place where bad things could happen quietly, without anyone ever knowing.
I kept one hand on the wheel and the other loose on my thigh, resisting the urge to check my phone for the tenth time.Ariana was safe and secure at my farm property.The perimeter sensors were on.The alarms.The locks.Everything.
Better yet, she had Cato.If all else failed, he wouldn’t.He was loyal to a fault.
I hated leaving her.
But I found a small slice of comfort in the knowledge that Victor was nowhere near Georgia.And Blake’s surveillance on this cabin had held steady for over twelve hours.Victor hadn’t left once.The only activity was an electrician stopping by this afternoon to fix a breaker problem, as Blake confirmed with the electrical company.
Itdidseem too easy, like Ariana cautioned.But likeIassured her, Victor had probably gotten lazy.
His laziness was about to cost him everything.
The road narrowed as we approached the turnoff.Spanish moss hung from the trees like skeletal fingers, brushing the roof of the SUV as we eased forward.I flipped the headlights off and let the residual glow from the moon guide us the last quarter mile.
“It’s around the curve,” Blake murmured beside me, studying the feed on his tablet.“We should park here.”
I nodded, rolling to a stop well before the gravel driveway.The night hit me the second I opened my door — dense, warm, buzzing faintly with mosquitoes.I checked my pistol and followed Blake toward the tree line, the two of us moving like shadows through the darkness.
