She didn’t ask him why he didn’t just stay away, why he was making this harder on both of them. She’d regret the words instantly and they’d change nothing.
All she could do was offer herself to him, drag him back to her reality, one kiss at a time. And then, he began shedding his clothes, and she watched intently. She’d seen Gunner strip down when they were prepping for the battle against his father.
But having him in bed, where she could take time to explore his ink was a whole different matter. She noted that he was only partially tattooed on his chest, but his back didn’t seem to have any skin untouched. He’d also started a piece on his right hip that wrapped around his thigh. Intricate symbols in grayscale.
She wanted to ask the hows and whys behind each tattoo. Instead, she planned on making it her mission to touch or kiss all of them when he freed her hands.
I’m going to make you remember me forever.
He rolled on the condom quickly. Her thighs remained spread and they were already trembling, but she wanted this, wanted him so badly she didn’t care. Wanted to make him come as hard as she had, and would again if the tightening in her womb was any indication.
His cock was big, pierced with a bar that went through the head of it. “How’s that going to feel?” she asked.
“You tell me.” His fingers and tongue had already made her slick and open for him. He eased himself inside her, his girth making her gasp. But although he went slow, he never stopped sliding forward, filling her. Making her squirm against him.
“You like that?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He moved his hips and she felt his cock bury deep inside her. He pulled back, let the piercing tease her folds, the metal hot and hard against her. When he plunged inside her again, she wrapped her legs around him and held him there, contracting around him.
The angle he used hit her in all the right places, and her body simply blossomed for him. There was no other way to say it. “Please, don’t stop,” she told him.
“No . . . intention . . .” he grunted as she held on for the ride.
Her legs wrapped around his waist, locking around his back. This pushed him farther inside her, filling her womb, making her quiver with pleasure. He rocked them both with a rhythm that drove her crazy. She wanted faster and harder, and he seemed intent on making her work for it.
He released her arms from their bindings but then pinned her hands over her head on the mattress instead, held them there with one hand by her wrists and didn’t break eye contact with her. That was maybe the sexiest thing ever, because he didn’t hide the enjoyment on his face.
His body was slick with sweat. She smelled like him, didn’t want to ever wash that off. She held him tightly, her toes curling, her sex contracting so hard she wasn’t sure when the orgasm would stop.
“Gunner!” she cried out as she came, climaxing hard enough for her to see stars, her body shuddering through both their orgasms. Because he came when she did, his body stiffening as he growled out a groan and stilled, the two of them locked together in pleasure.
Gunner’s stomach growled. Avery was half dozing and he didn’t bother asking her what she wanted, just ordered one of everything from the nearest place that delivered and was waiting by the buzzer to head down and grab it from the delivery guy half an hour later.
But then he didn’t want to wake her. He figured if the smell of the food wafting over her didn’t do it, nothing would. So he ate and alternated between watching her and the street below the hotel. The French Quarter hadn’t changed much— damage from the hurricane hadn’t touched here, leaving it eerily a “before” to most of the city’s “after.”
He hadn’t been sure what he’d find left of the bayou when he’d returned; he’d been overseas when Katrina hit. He remembered watching helplessly with the rest of his team as the levees broke and the devastation that followed. He’d always consider Louisiana to be his home, since he’d first found peace here.
He’d left that peace behind each and every time he left the state. This time had been no exception.
“Hey, are you eating without me?” Avery asked in a sleepy voice. She looked tousled and flushed in that way only good sex could make you look. And it was a good look on her.
“I saved you some. You looked too comfortable to wake.”
She looked like she wanted to say something, but she didn’t. He handed her some of the plates of the late-night snack food so she didn’t need to get out of bed and she ate happily.
And still, she hadn’t asked him a single question about where he’d been, why he’d left. Unlike the Avery he knew, and that sat uneasily in his gut.
After several minutes of silence, he felt her hand on his arm. She was tracing some of his tattoos. “You told me once that tattoos can be like a résumé.”
“Should be,” he corrected. “A lot of them are just people doing it for the wrong reasons.”
“So what are the right reasons?”
“They’re supposed to be a map of your life. Where you’ve been, where you’re going,” he explained.
“So all of yours are personal?”
“Yeah. Very.” He waited for the interrogation to begin, but instead, she simply continued to trace down his arm with her finger and then, after a long moment of staring at them like she was trying to memorize them, she turned back to her food.
Avery was still drunk—partially on Gunner—and everything was all jumbled in her mind. All the questions she wanted to ask mixed with the fact that she wanted him to stay, needed him to stay.
She stared at him while he watched the city out the window.
Had he come home to his wife dead? Was he accused of murdering her? Who set him up? And why?
Billie knew none of the answers and she’d admitted that she’d never had the courage to bring it up to Gunner. She’d wanted to make him feel safe, which meant not bringing up the past, and Avery understood that.
It made Avery think about her mother, who’d also loved a dangerous man. Darius had brought nothing but pain and eventually grave danger to both her mom and Avery herself.
But if she regretted it, she never actually came out and said that. She’d smile, probably without realizing she did so, whenever someone mentioned that New Orleans made people do crazy things.
It certainly had made Avery do crazy things, and looking back over the past several months, she could honestly say she had no regrets, especially none trying to find Gunner.
“You’ve been okay?” he asked. That certainly made more sense than her questions about his tattoos. At least he must’ve thought so, and she steeled herself from saying anything stupid like “not without you” and instead forced out “Keeping busy.”
He nodded, a small frown furrowing between his brows. She didn’t mention the sale or the fact that she’d packed his clothes and put them in storage. Didn’t ask where he’d been or what he’d been doing.
Because she’d been the one to practically order everyone to take their time off and make a decision. You couldn’t pull off a team like S8 half-assed. And she was going to honor Darius and Adele if it killed her.
Grace agreed. Avery knew she’d have the support of the woman who she was sure would be her sister-in-law at any moment. Grace credited Darius and Adele with saving her life. But Avery knew what the men in the group had been through, especially Dare and Key.
She knew Jem would be the first one back. This was his kind of gig.
Is it yours? She never even had to ask herself twice, but she’d taken the time off anyway. She’d kept up on what was happening around the globe, pleased with herself at being able to pick out things she’d have skimmed over without a second glance a year ago. She was in tune with the mercenary culture, could pick up subtle clues. She even found a publication that advertised the need for highly skilled bodyguards.