Make You Mine by K.T. Quinn

Epilogue

Charlotte

As the sun went down and the police continued working, the rest of us split up. Momma went to the motel to book a room (“The boy at the front desk was so nice!”) while Jayce took me back to his place. Well, more accurately, I picked up my car from the motel and drove myself to his barn. It was strange driving right up to it without trying to hide or conceal myself. It was different without all the secrecy.

But it was a lot more comforting.

“When are you going to tell me this big secret?” I asked.

“Later,” was all he said.

We were exhausted, but wired from the events of the day, so Jayce decided to take a shower. I gave him a generous three minutes by himself before I stripped my clothes and joined him. His nude body shimmered beautifully in the water, although marred by the bandages covering his shoulder wound. It only improved how courageous he looked. How he would take a bullet to protect me, if needed.

“Occupied,” he said as I stepped into the shower.

“You’ve had enough time alone,” I said, wrapping my arms around his slippery body from behind. “I’m here to make sure you don’t get water on your wound.”

“The bandage is waterproof,” he said.

I slid my hands over his hips and along his pelvis until I found his cock. It pulsed at my touch and rapidly grew hard.

“You seem to like that I’ve joined you,” I whispered into his ear as I tightened my fingers around his shaft.

He twisted his head around. “The sight of a beautiful woman will do that to a man.”

Jayce lowered his lips to mine in a wet, watery kiss. I stroked him harder while rubbing the tip of his manhood against my slit, teasing both of us in the process. He stole my moans with his kisses and rolled his tongue against mine as the scalding water ran over our bodies, washing away the dirt and sweat and danger of the day.

When he couldn’t stand it anymore, he spun me around and planted a palm between my shoulder blades, bending me over. Despite his wounded shoulder, he grabbed my hips with both hands and filled me in one long thrust, like he belonged inside me.

I looked back at him while he took me from behind, the muscles in his arms bulging as he gripped my hips, taking me as his. Making me his. The look he gave me said that I belonged only to him. That I would never have another man.

The way he made love to me, I knew that it was true.

As our cries grew louder he wrapped a hand around my waist and found my clit with his fingers. He rubbed me raw while bottoming out inside of me, my blood rushing through my body to pool between my legs with fiery heat, and when we screamed, our cries of pleasure echoed off the tile walls.

We ransacked his fridge for food now that we were starving. There wasn’t much to choose from, so we shared a plain cheese sandwich, taking turns letting each other have a bite. It tasted better than any filet minion. When you were happy and in love, you didn’t need much else.

Dad called my cell phone around four in the morning. Jayce and I had been dozing in each other’s arms, and I had to scramble to reach the buzzing phone on the bedside table. They had finally finished up booking all of the bikers, and vans had come to pick them up and take them to a nearby county with a larger jail. Dad was going back to the motel to catch a few hours of sleep before they left in the morning.

“Sorry for waking you,” I told Jayce when I hung up. “Dad said they finally finished up at the station. Eastland is officially free of cops.”

“Good,” Jayce said, throwing himself out of bed. His naked butt was tight and sexy. “That means I can show you.”

“Show me what!” I said while dressing quickly. I’d forgotten all about his secret.

Once he was dressed, he grabbed a backpack from his workshop and handed it to me. I followed him outside.

“What’s in this?” I asked. The contents were heavy and shifted around inside.

“Stuff we need.” Jayce bent down and ran his hand on the underside of his bike.

“Think there’s another grenade under there?”

“No,” he said with a chuckle. “But I’ll go to my grave checking for one every time I get on.”

I swung a leg over the bike behind him. “Better safe than sorry.”

His rumbling laughter was replaced with the rumble of the engine as we drove away.

There was something about being on the bike with Jayce that made me feel more free than any other point in my life. The cool morning wind in our hair, the endless road rising up to meet the wheel of the bike. I could feel Jayce’s muscles rippling underneath his shirt as he steered us down the deserted Georgia road. It was just the two of us out here. Like we owned this small slice of the world and nobody else was allowed in.

I pressed my cheek to his back and savored the feeling, wishing it would last forever.

We drove south for a while. Jayce had mounted his phone between the handlebars, and after almost half an hour he turned it on and opened up an app with numbers on it:

32.04, -82.35

The right number remained stationary, but the left number was slowly ticking down. 31.03, 31.02, 31.01…

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Something we need.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

“Does it annoy you when I ask so many questions?”

“It does.” He reached down to pat my thigh. “It’s a good thing you’re hot as fuck.”

We drove and drove until we came to a bridge raised twenty feet above a marshy area. Jayce slowed down gradually, until finally pulling across the other lane of traffic and parking on the left shoulder. A cement divider was all that separated us from the ground below. Up ahead was a sign that said Altamaha River.

I looked at Jayce expectantly. “Well?”

Wordlessly, he pulled his phone off the mount and handed it to me. I stared at the numbers.

31.94, -82.35

“Is this supposed to mean something to me?”

Jayce stared at me with a knowing smile. He crossed his muscular arms over his chest, which made the tattoos bulge out.

And then it hit me.

The first tattoo on his arm was 3194.

The tattoo below it was 8233.

His app was a compass.

These were coordinates.

“Holy shit!”

“Damn, Peaches,” Jayce said as he took the phone from me. “Watch your mouth.”

I followed him to a service ladder and we climbed down to the ground. Jayce went slowly since he couldn’t put too much weight on his right arm. I expected the ground to be muddy, but it was more like a dry forest floor. Jayce took the backpack from me, pulled out two flashlights, and then shouldered the bag.

We walked along a thin trail that ran directly away from the road. Our two flashlight cones scanned the path ahead and to either side, sending ghastly shadows swinging through the trees. It would have been terrifying if I was alone, but with Jayce leading me, I was fearless.

He held his phone out as we walked. Even though the second coordinate number was just two digits off, it took a long time for -82.35 to change to -82.34. By the time it finally hit -82.33, we had been walking at least 15 minutes.

Jayce stopped and scanned the area with the flashlight. Within moments he stopped on a tree to the left. It looked like any other to my eyes, but as we approached I realized there was something carved into the bark:

T A H

“TAH,” I read out loud. “Theresa Alexandra Hawkins.”

Jayce pulled a shovel from the backpack. “Yep.”

Digging took just as much time as walking out here had, since Jayce had to mostly use his left arm. He worked tirelessly, pausing to take off his shirt when he got too sweaty. I kept the flashlight on his glistening body and made no effort to conceal my admiring stares.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked, throwing a shovel-full of dirt to the side.

“Mmm hmm.”

“You could help.”

“And deny myself the show?”

He laughed, stuck the shovel in the ground, and planted a boot on the blade to drive it into the ground.

It hit something wooden.

It took several more minutes before he’d dug out the top. It was a crate like the one buried outside his barn, but larger. At least two feet to a side.

“How did you get this all the way out here?” I asked.

“Dad was a doomsday prepper,” he explained. “He buried this out here decades ago, for storing cans of beans and shit. It’s good for hiding other stuff, though. I got the tattoos to remind me where it was.”

“Hiding the coordinates in plain sight,” I said. “Wow.”

Jayce retrieved a crowbar from the backpack, holding it up to the flashlight. After a second I recognized it as Sid’s.

“Seems poetic to use his own weapon for something like this,” he said, then wedged it between the crate lid and heaved. Wood creaked as he worked it into the gap, then stepped on it for leverage. When enough of it came away he used his hands to pull it all the way off.

I shined the flashlight into the hole.

Inside were gallon-sized Ziploc bags identical to the one Jayce had turned over to the police. There were dozens of them, maybe even a hundred. And just like the other bag, these were filled with rolls of money.

“Holy fuck,” I breathed.

“There’s that mouth again.”

“I save my curses for the right moment. And this is definitely the right moment!” I grabbed a bag and opened it, feeling the money between my fingers. “Jayce! There must be a million dollars here!”

“Just shy, Peaches,” he said sadly. “It’s only about nine hundred grand.”

“Only,” I gasped. I was struggling to accept what I was seeing. “Only.”

“I guess technically it’s Eight hundred and eighty grand, since I gave one bag to the cops.”

“Stop saying really big numbers! You’re breaking my brain!”

Jayce lifted one of the bags and held it up to me. “Do you know what we can do with this?”

“What?”

“Whatever we want, Peaches.” A smile spread across his gorgeous face. “Whatever the hell we want.”

I kissed him, and not just because the ruggedly handsome man I’d fallen in love with was also suddenly rich.

Okay, maybe a little bit because of that. Money solved a lot of life’s little problems.

“So, yeah,” he said, still holding me in his arms. “That road trip I want us to take? Money’s not gonna be a problem.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Us?”

“You’re damn right, us,” he said. “I’m not done with you yet, Peaches, and you’d better not be done with me. Hell, I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you. And that’s not easy for a guy like me to admit.”

He’s in love with me, I thought, heart soaring. He really is.

I grinned up at him. “I’m in love with you too, Jayce Simone Hawkins.”

“You just had to slip that in, didn’t you?”

“Darn right I did.”

He smiled. It was the smile of someone who wasn’t able to not smile while looking at the woman he loved.

“Where will we go?” I asked.

“North,” he said. “Or south. Wherever the hell we want.” He cupped my chin. “Wherever we go, I want you there. You make this shitty world a whole lot better, Peaches.”

As he stared into my eyes, into my soul, it was impossible not to kiss him. Our bodies melted together and for a few seconds it felt like I was weightless.

We took two bags of cash, covered the crate of money, and made the walk back to his bike. We climbed on, I wrapped my arms around him, and he twisted to look back at me.

“But first, let’s go back to Eastland,” he said. “I want to have breakfast with your parents before we go on our road trip.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah. I think your mom has the hots for me.”

I smacked him on the arm, his good arm, and he roared with laughter. Then he gunned the motor, and we shot away north with reckless, exhilarating speed. I clung to his body as the Georgia sunrise spread across the sky.

As long I had Jayce, I would always feel safe.