He grinned, clapping me on the shoulder. “Impressive. I would’ve put money on it taking you at least another week.”
Hansen smiled too. “We needed something to celebrate. The bad comes whether we want it to or not. The good we need to celebrate.”
I nodded, thinking of my woman in that hospital bed. The woman who would be my wife.
I tried to focus on that instead of the man who tried to kill her still walking this earth.
He wouldn’t be for long.
ChapterTwenty-Eight
THREE WEEKS LATER
VIOLET
Momand I were out shopping.
We were not alone.
Colby was with us.
Not because he wanted to be shopping for dresses that didn’t scream ‘shotgun wedding,’ but because I did not go anywhere alone anymore.
Elden was with me as often as possible, which was almost constantly—this was the first time he’d let me out of his sight for a prolonged period of time since I’d gotten out of the hospital.
He’d been … intense, to say the least. But I’d needed that. As much as I liked to consider myself strong and capable, I had PTSD from seeing a mutilated dead body then fighting for my life afterward.
There were nightmares. Flashbacks. Panic attacks.
But Elden was there for every single one. He was my calming, strong presence. My port in the storm. He chased off the most severe effects. And I had become somewhat insatiable since we got out of hospital, desperate to feel alive again.
The most enjoyable way to feel alive was to be fucked by him.
Fucked.
I didn’t need gentle. Which I’d communicated to him as he undressed me in our bedroom.
“Please,” I murmured, his lips against mine.
His hand at my breast stalled. “I don’t want to hurt you, Violet,” he sighed. My shoulder was healed, the nasty bruise at my side remained, though it barely hurt anymore.
“I need you to hurt me,” I implored, desperate. “I need you to mark my body. To give me something else to focus on. I need you.”
His eyes warred, fighting against his instincts. He wanted to protect me, make sure no further harm came to me. But I knew his baser instincts needed this too. That he was just as hungry for this as I was.
For a second, I was transported back to the roof of the clubhouse, watching him decide whether he was going to kiss me or not, whether he was going to bring us right here, to this moment.
Then, he thrust me firmly back into the present, flipping me so my hands landed on our bed, my ass in the air.
My hands fisted the sheets, my body ripe with anticipation as Elden’s hand had trailed down my spine, hooking into the lace of my underwear and tearing them off.
“You’re my bad little girl still, aren’t you?” he rasped in my ear, spreading my legs with his feet.
“Always,” I promised. “Always yours.”
He grasped a handful of my hair, yanking me back so my neck was exposed to him, and my scalp burned with delicious agony.
Our eyes met. His blazed as the control he’d been clutching to lately slipped out of his grasp.