Dark Heir by Faye Pierce
Chapter Eleven
Midnight
I love you.
The three words rattle around in my head and ring true. There’s something fragile about the way that Leo says the words so softly. I don’t think they are words he’s said often before in his life, perhaps ever. There’s not a hint of a lie on his face. He looks so open, almost scared that I might reject him. As if I could ever do that.
My heart hurts for him, for the life that he lived. My childhood wasn’t the easiest either, growing up in a toxic household with a severely alcoholic father and a mother who hadn’t ever grown a spine. Yet through it all, I had Caspian. I had him for everything and anything that I ever needed. I could turn to him and there it was. I wouldn’t have made it out of there, out of that house or the miserable existence we lived, without him. I owe my brother so much, and Leo knows that. There’s no way that he spent that many years with us without forming an attachment of some kind to my brother, but he hasn’t mentioned that at all. If he thought that Caspian really was nothing more than a father murdering fiend, he would have done something more, love for me or not.
How lonely Leo’s life must have been, to have nobody to rely on but himself. How hard he had to become to simply exist. I don’t know what I would be like If I had my family ripped from me like that. I might feel the same if somebody stole Caspian from me...probably something similar to how Caspian is feeling right now as he frantically tries everything in his power to get me back where he can keep an eye on me.
After my accident, the guilt nearly crippled him as well. He took the blame, even when I told him not to. I tried to explain that I never blamed him, but he wouldn’t hear of it. It was like my accident shattered the illusion that I was some untouchable, impervious thing that nobody could harm, like a conduit of his own fragility. That with the power he gained, he did have things to lose that he wouldn’t recover from. I understand.
Just like I understand what my husband is telling me now.
Leo brushes a tear from the apple of my cheek that I didn’t know fell.
“I wish you had talked to me about all of this. I don’t like feeling like some pawn to be traded back and forth in this game of power between you and my brother.”
“I didn’t mean to make you feel like a pawn, Midnight.” Leo nods, his forehead dropping to my sternum. “For so long, my revenge has been the only thing keeping me on my feet. It’s the only reason I have to get up in the morning and not simply lay down and give up. It was my goal, my mission, my everything...”
He trails off, shifting over me and picking his head up once more. My legs bend to either side of him, that sexual pretense he started still curling inside of me, but we need to have this conversation.
“Now…” Leo swallows hard. “Now you’re my wife. You, Mrs. DePonte, are my new family, and it becomes more real with each passing second. It’s not easy to let go of that driving force that’s sustained me so long, but life isn’t the same as before.”
I soften, my hands lift to cup his face. “That means that Caspian is your family too,” I whisper. “I love him too, Leo.”
“Is that your way of telling me that you love me too?”
Of course that’s what he focuses on. If he loves me, really loves me, then this might be my chance to save my brother from Leo’s plans. It might be a shot in the dark, but maybe I can unite them and bring my family together. “This is my way of saying that outside of Caspian, I never had a family. My mother named me Midnight because that was the time I was born in the middle of our living room floor. She never bothered to give me a real name. It hurts to have a mother who doesn’t even care about you enough to think up a real name for you.” I pause; my lips press together as I try to find a way to express what I want to say clearly enough for him to understand. “I understand coming from a bad family life, Leo, I do. Caspian wanted to fold you into our family once, and he will do it again.”
Leo shakes his head, as if the idea is impossible to him.
“Don’t doubt me on this Leo, I know it seems crazy, but he would do it for me. He is going to be hurt, that’s true. I think if you love me then—” I pause, correcting myself “If you trust me then we can make this work. That’s what I want. I want my new family, whole and happy. Together.”
I don’t give him time to deliberate. I don’t want to argue. I pull his lips to mine and kiss him deeply. I allow all of the emotions swirling inside of me from the evening to filter into him. It’s been an emotional roller coaster that I don’t think I will fully process for quite some time, but it doesn’t matter. Right now, all that matters is my husband and his hands on me.
I let go of his face and push my hands between us until I push at the top of his pants, struggling with the angle to get them down over his hips. I’ve never done this before unassisted; Leo’s always done it for me. It’s graceless, but I work the fabric down his hips, and Leo waits with far more patience than I possess. He takes pity on me and rises to his knees to pull them the rest of the way off, and kicks them off the bed to the floor. The intensity in his eyes as he watches me kindles that fire in me that burns only for him.
I pull my dress from my shoulders, and he removes it from my hips, tossing it somewhere to the side of the room. We undo his shirt until I end up pulling the last few buttons free by force, and he falls back on top of me, supporting his weight with one hand. The other he twines with my own hand.
This time isn’t like the others before it. When he takes me it’s gentle, tender. It satisfies something in my heart even more than my body. The weight of emotions passed between us is heavy as they anchor us together. Whatever plan he had for himself and Caspian before didn’t involve me. Now that I’m in the middle of it, he’s going to have to course correct. He’s going to have to make new paths, because I will not allow him to leave me out, or put me in some high tower like a princess he needs to guard. Both my men know I’m not impervious to their world.
I’m still sore deep inside, and my legs are tired, but none of it matters as Leo finds my entrance, pushing inside of me slowly, his green eyes trained on me as if he wants to see me savor each delicious inch of him that sinks inside of me. “Tell me,” he whispers, and I smile.
“I’m yours, Leo.” It’s claiming of a different type. It’s not to convince me this time; it’s not my mental and physical surrender, but affirmation. He needs to hear me say that I belong to him, now and forever. “I’m your wife, and you’re my husband,” Leo’s hips start to move, a low groan of pleasure as he nods. “I belong to you, Leo. I love you.”
“Only to me,” he adds, speaking more to himself than me as he sets into a rhythm that I work to meet.
“Yes. I belong only to you.”
Leo fits inside me like he was made for only me. We move together without any further words. He claims me thoroughly, his hands intertwined with my own as we roll, and he positions me on top of him. I’m not sure what to do at first as I let his hips move in impulse and relish the way his eyes roll back into his head.
“I think you belong to me, too.” I lean over him, flattening my breasts against his chest as I kiss him, and he plants his feet on the mattress and drives into me, the angle so deep I swear I can see stars.
Leo sits upright, wrapping our joined hands behind my back. I don’t know how he moves like this, how he has the strength, but I’ll be damned if it doesn't feel incredible. I can’t take my eyes away from him. “You might be correct,” he admits, and goosebumps prickle my skin.
Leo’s teeth close over my neck, and I can’t breathe. My climax is slow and indulgent as it unfurls from my center, with warm fingers that yawn and stretch through my limbs until the tension finally crests. The muscles in my legs lock, my hands tighten around Leo’s fingers, and I fall forward against him, my head buried in his shoulder as I shudder. It seems never to end, each pulse of Leo’s hips upward into me hitting some sweet spot that drags out my pleasure.
When my legs stop quivering, Leo rolls us once more, my hands trapped behind and under me as he uses his thighs to spread my legs wide, his pace increasing. Colors explode that only I can see as I’m pushed higher, and I can feel him fill me, hear Leo’s groan, so singularly erotic I want to commit it to memory.
I want to feel like this forever.
Stretched by Leo and filled by him.
That ache in my limbs and the new high I now know my body is capable of is all I want. I’m sure it would drive me insane to feel this high all the time. Might be worth it though.
Leo kisses me. I try to respond with the same fervor he offers, but my mind is a contented hum of static. I giggle as he nips my cheek for not responding properly. He shifts to lay beside me, curling me into his arms as the last vestiges of my orgasm fades.
We get to do this forever.
We will have to pick a bedroom, likely find another one that we can make our own. I get to fall asleep in his arms, and that’s what matters. The rest of it, we will figure out. Somehow.
“Let me talk to him.” I mutter, knowing that he’s going to say no.
“No.”
I sigh. “I’m not running, Leo. I know that he’s done many terrible things to climb the ladder, and I’ve turned a blind eye to the whole situation for far too long now. I just think that if he knew your story, really gave you a chance to explain, that he would understand. You might have been pretending to be like a brother to him in many ways, but he wasn’t.”
Even if he doesn’t want to see it from my perspective, I can see that he’s considering it. Leo scrubs a hand over his face and nods reluctantly. He rolls onto his side, propping his head up on his elbow. “Mine is a road that has no return, Midnight.”
I refuse to see those unspoken words. I refuse the idea that there is a possibility that will leave me without one of my men. Not now. Not when I finally feel like there’s a bridge that I can bring them to. They will not do that to me. They might want to kill one another, but as stupid as I know it is, I will throw myself between them if I have to. “You literally shot me in the back, Leo, and now I’m your wife. You’re saying that there is only one destined outcome? It’s a one-way street, and that’s it? Just hate on and on for forever?”
Leo sighs. “I cannot promise you that it will work, but for my part, I will make an effort to be civil.”
“That’s not good enough.”
He laughs. “Baby steps here...this is a life of hate you’re wanting to unravel.”
I roll to face him. “But you’ll meet with him?” If he can do that, at least that, then perhaps they can start on that path of healing. I know it’s a large ask. It’s an almost impossible seeming task, and I know that Caspian is going to attempt to murder Leo on sight for more than one reason. For lying to him, betraying him, kidnapping me, fucking me repeatedly, and then marrying me. Those are just the crimes that I know of that Caspian’s going to hold against him.
“Yes.” Leo drops back to the bed. He knows all of the transgressions, I don’t need to remind him. He certainly has transgressions of Caspian’s to throw into the mix as well. Neither of them are going to explain the full list to me, and their business is their own. “I will arrange a meeting with him in the morning, but I’m going to be armed. Come what may.”
He doesn’t offer any more information, so I have to be content with what I already know. I snuggle into Leo’s chest, his arms wrapping around me once more and keeping me close possessively. I try to sleep, but I can’t. Not knowing that I will say goodbye to Leo in the morning...and he might not come back.