My pulse raced the way it did when my car was flying over a hundred miles per hour down the back roads, the blood rushing through my body.
I brushed my thumb across her cheek.“Say it again.”
A small giggle left her mouth, her lips curling into a smile.“I love you, Rush.”She leaned into my hand.“I fucking love you.”
Without thinking, I leaned in and kissed her on the mouth.Soft.
Nothing like the first time.
When I was with her, I used to berestrained, but now?Now I wanted to devour her.Every inch of her body, her mouth, her mind.My lips moved against hers slowly at first as she dragged her fingertips gently down my arms.I adjusted the seat back just enough, my hands settling on her hips again.
She undid the button on my jeans and reached inside to grab my throbbing cock.With her lips still pressed against mine, she wiggled out of her pants and settled down on me, slowly, letting me slide into her, inch by inch by fucking inch.
Those hours without her when she had been gone had felt like days, weeks, even years.And now?I finally had her back, and I would savor every second with her.
CHAPTERNINETY-FIVE
ASTRID
The secondI stepped into Calix’s house, the heavy tension hit me like a wall.My arm was wrapped around Rush’s, and I tucked some hair behind my ear.
“Why’s everyone stressed?”I asked, slowly letting go of Rush.
Cairo sat on the couch, knee bouncing.Frasier had his lips pressed together without one of his usual comments.Calix leaned against the doorframe, running a hand through his hair.And Arch sat, pissed the fuck off, like usual.
“We were waiting for you,” Cairo said, standing.
“All this stress for me?”I asked as a joke.
“Yes,” they said, almost in complete unison.
My lips parted slightly, and while I remembered very little about what had happened the past couple of days, it seemed like they might have a bit of PTSD from it.They all looked stressed beyond belief, and I had been with Rush this entire time.
Calix looked especially nervous when the wind knocked a branch into the window outside the house, his eyes flickering to it, then toward the door, as if he was waiting for someone to arrive.
“Diya?”I asked.
“Don’t say her name,” Arch hissed.
“Can someone please explain more about what happened?”I asked.“Where is she?”
“Shehelpedthem.She lied to us.She cried and played the fucking victim while you almost died in a fucking warehouse,” he continued.“That’s what happened.”
My stomach twisted.“That doesn’t sound like her.”
“Well, it is,” Frasier said.
“She was pissed, but she wouldn’t do that,” I said.“I’ve known her for years.She has never betrayed me.”
“She’s hormonal because that fucker knocked her up,” Calix said.“She’s not thinking straight.And …” He paused for a moment and looked down, shaking his head.“And she said it herself.”
“She said what?”
“That she didn’t think they would take it this far,” Cairo said.“She had to have told the guys who took you that you were here.That’s why she wanted you to come over when nobody else was home.”
My stomach twisted, and my eyes started to burn.I didn’t believe it.I couldn’t.This wasn’t the Diya I knew, no matter how many times they told me what she had done.
Suddenly, the front door slammed open, and Calix’s stepfather stood there, out of breath, his cheeks flushed.“Have any of you seen Diya?I’ve looked everywhere.Her room.The guesthouse.The beach path.Her phone’s on her nightstand, her car abandoned at the school.”
