Redemption Hills: The Complete Collection

21. Salem

TWENTY-ONE

SALEM

I have you. I have you. I have you.

Jud’s promise rained over me as he curled his arms tighter, and he carried me through the swarm of people that undulated around us.

The band continued to play from the stage where half the crowd still seethed below it. Jud stormed right through, carving a path and dipping us into a narrow, dusky hall.

In an instant, it was only the two of us.

His heavy boots thudded on the floor as he peered down at me with that unrelenting obsidian gaze.

A gaze that speared me to the core.

Tears streamed and my shoulders hiccupped with the sobs that wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t seem to halt the terror that wracked through my body. The panic that had hit me when a stranger had come at us from out of nowhere.

Jud dipped down and pressed the gentlest kiss to my right eye, then the other. “I have you,” he rumbled.

My chest squeezed.

Ruined.

I had to close my eyes against the force of it.

His care.

This giant of a man who’d come completely unhinged. Fury and darkness and brutality.

Because of me.

Because of me.

He didn’t stop until he was pushing out the massive metal door at the end of the hall. In an instant, the cool air of the summer night surrounded us. The heavens were spun in stars, while fat clouds laden with moisture gathered at the base of the moon.

Jud edged down three steps that dropped us into the employee lot where Eden had parked earlier, and his boots crunched on the loose pavement as he carried me to his bike that was parked in a row of five other motorcycles.

Tumult echoed from within, rippled through the walls and rumbled the ground.

It stirred the dense air into chaos.

I struggled to breathe.

“I have you. What do you need?” he asked, his voice close to cracking.

“Take me away from here.” It was the only thing I could manage, but Jud understood.

I wasn’t exactly dressed for a motorcycle ride, but right then, it didn’t matter. Nothing did except for escaping.

Running.

The way I always did.

Only this time, I wanted to run with him.

For once, I didn’t want to stand on my own.

Didn’t want to fight this fight that only cost my daughter and me more and more.

One that forever cast us into loneliness.

Jud swung his leg over his bike, and he slipped me around to the back in one smooth movement.

We never lost contact.

As if he knew it was exactly what I needed.

That for once, I needed someone to hold me.

Someone to support me through the fear.

Through the panic.

Through the dread that promised one day, one day, Carlo would find us.

Jud pressed the button that started his bike, and the loud engine growled to life. Power vibrated through the metal, or maybe it was just the power of the man that vibrated through me.

Tremors rushed over my skin and seeped into my bloodstream.

He curled my arms tighter around his waist. “I have you.”

My legs were cinched up close to his hips, my chest smashed to his back. Our hearts raced at warp speed.

In sync.

Out of order.

In a perfect, chaotic rhythm.

Anarchy.

This man who had crossed into vengeance for me.

The slit of my dress rode up as I hugged him, and I trembled and shook and clung to him with all my might. A big palm spread out over my bare thigh. “Hold onto me, Salem, and don’t fuckin’ let go.”

Frantically, I nodded against his back, understanding the command for what it was. And I wanted to. For once in my life, I wanted to rely on someone else.

Not to be afraid.

To trust.

But trust was such a precious, precarious thing.

His bike faced out, and he kicked the stand and slowly eased through the lot. He took to the street that ran the front of the club, his movements fluid and confident, as if the man and the bike were one, this massive, fierce, grumbling force that blazed through the night.

I didn’t care where he was taking me, just as long as it was away from there.

He made a few turns then he slowed and eased his bike onto the path hidden under the cover of trees just on the outside of town.

My heart sped faster when I realized where we were going.

The bike bounced down the familiar bumpy trail, and I squeezed him tighter as he guided his motorcycle out into the meadow where he’d taken me before. When I’d seen a part of Jud that I didn’t want to see.

But tonight, I wanted him to show me everything.

How could I even allow myself to think it? Consider it? But I couldn’t seem to keep from slipping into him.

Coming to a stop, Jud stretched out his boots to keep us upright.

Remnants of the panic sent me scrambling off the back and stumbling into the meadow. My heels sank into the soft earth as I took two steps back like I could protect myself from the direction I could feel myself tumbling.

He killed the engine.

In an instant, silence whispered and swam.

The beauty shouted back.

The branches of the high, towering trees swished with the short gusts of wind that blustered through while the babble of the creek murmured its peace.

Wildflowers had sprung up through the soft bed of grasses, the purples and pinks subdued in the murky rays of moonlight that glowed through the clouds that built.

A low roll of thunder quavered in the distance, and the coolness of the approaching storm raced across my heated flesh.

“I’m sorry.” The apology fumbled out. The truth that no matter how far I tried to stay away from him, I still dragged him into my disaster.

Into my mess.

Guilt and grief clutched.

Was I putting him in danger?

Overcome, I blinked into the forest.

He rumbled a disbelieving sound. “What the hell are you apologizing for?”

My tongue darted out to wet my dried lips. “I warned you my life has been a mess for a long time. I think tonight is proof that I’m barely holding it together. I should go. Pack my things and leave before something happens that I can’t take back.”

Jud swung off his bike and rose to his full, towering height.

“No.” It was the grumble of a command.

Dull moonlight fell over him, casting his stunning face in shadows. In hard, devastating lines that whispered of goodness.

Of darkness.

Of horror and light.

He took one step in my direction.

The ground shook beneath my feet.

“No,” he said again.

“Jud, I have no idea what I’m doing here. My life?—”

“You’re worried about your life, Salem? About what you’re bringing to the table?” He lifted his arms out to his sides. “Did you see me tonight? That’s just a glimpse at who I really am. Told you, I’ve done horrible, horrible things, and I have no fuckin’ clue how to contain it when I’m with you. I want to break every rule I’ve ever made for myself for you.”

Visions of his face blinked through my mind.

It was pure savagery.

I gulped for air, trying to find my footing. But I’d stumbled onto dangerous, treacherous ground. Where nothing was solid and the world was slipping away.

Quicksand.

“We’re a mess.”

Jud chuckled a rough sound. “A beautiful fuckin’ mess.”

He kept edging forward. Aggression rippled beneath the surface of his flesh, but it’d shifted and found new focus.

A tremor rocked through me when he reached out and set his massive hand on my face. His thumb traced along the scar on my jaw. “Who is he?”

“Jud…” It was a whimper.

“Tell me, Salem. Trust me with this.”

“He was my husband. He did this the first time I tried to leave.” The admission floated on the breeze.

Every muscle in Jud’s body tensed.

“And he forced you to go back to him? Did this to you as a warning?” They weren’t really questions. They were vicious razors cutting from his mouth.

My nod was spastic, and another rush of tears bled free. “He said he was letting me off easy. That next time…”

My throat locked. The words held in the torment.

“Salem…baby?” Jud’s words were shards, hinged, sure he didn’t want my answer.

I blinked through the agony. “But I did it, I got the courage to leave again, but he found us, Jud…he found us and he…”

I couldn’t say it. Couldn’t let the atrocity free. Still, Jud held my face, like he saw the pain written there. Like he could hold the vacancy that throbbed even when he didn’t fully see the details.

“Somehow, Juni and I got away,” I continued, “and we’ve been running ever since. Never truly living. Never truly free. Under the radar, pretending we don’t exist.”

Rage boiled in the air. A strike of violence. A blister of rage.

His other hand cinched down on my side, and he jerked me toward him.

A gasp ripped up my throat as heat burned through my veins. This man was too much. So much that I was sure he was going to wreck me, though that would fall on Carlo, too, wouldn’t it?

The one who would never let me live because I’d survived.

“You exist, Salem. I see you. I feel you. You’re alive in my heart and in my eyes. And I won’t let him take you from me.”

“Jud…”

“Stay with me, Salem. Let me take care of you. Protect you.”

My being rocked.

Overcome.

My spirit wanted to cling to his promise while logic reminded me of my truth.

“I have to take care of myself.”

Because I would leave. I would leave because this fear promised I could never stay.

Tonight was a horrible reminder of that.

I’d made myself vulnerable.

Exposed.

And still, I was right here, wanting to let him hold that broken part of myself.

Jud brushed away the tears on my face. “It seems to me we’re taking care of each other.”

My head shook, unable to form a response.

“Magic, sweet enchantress. What you’re doing to me. The way you’re wrecking me, heart and mind.”

His arm curled around my waist. “I have you.”

He repeated the promise again as he lifted me from my feet. He held me gently as he sank to his knees on the damp ground. He laid me out on the grass.

The man wavered there, his hands on my shaking knees.

“Look at you. Most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

My trembling fingers reached out to brush over his face. The sharp angle of his eyebrows, his nose, his full, full lips, down through the cover of his beard.

“You stole my breath when I saw you, Jud. I was terrified, but I’m not sure it had a thing to do with you being a stranger finding me in the dark. It was this.” I gathered his hand and pressed it to the wild drum of my heart.

“And this.” I barely brushed my fingertips over his eyes. “The way you saw me. The way you made me feel seen. The way I felt changed in a beat.”

A blanket of lightning flashed through the heavens. It lit him in a stroke of severity. A flare of greed in the night. The man a mountain that towered over me.

Jud groaned a pained sound, and he wedged himself between my trembling thighs. Angling forward, he set one hand on the ground beside my head and the other cupped the side of my face.

Obsidian eyes sparked. “Since the moment I found you, you’ve been the only thing I could see.”

Emotion gathered fast. Welled from the broken parts of me. It crested and overflowed. I could barely force out the words. “Don’t make me fall in love with you, Jud.”

A sad smile hitched the edge of his mouth, and he traced his thumb at the edge of mine, words tender misery. “Who said anything about love, darlin’?”

He watched down on me. A thousand questions and reservations flashed through his expression, or maybe I was only witnessing what was reflected in mine.

“What do you want, Salem?” Jud asked.

My chin trembled, though I lifted it. “I just want to feel real.”

Jud pressed up on both his hands.

Thunder rumbled.

Energy lashed.

Desire burned and blazed.

“What I want to do to this sweet little body.” It was a warning. He slipped a hand up my thigh, pressing the bunched fabric of my dress higher.

Without my permission, my hips bucked against the bulge in his jeans. “Please.”

The second I said it, Jud snapped and dove in.

Remnants of the aggression that blazed through his blood were dumped into that kiss.

This fierce, unrelenting kiss as Jud devoured my mouth.

It was possession.

A promise of protection.

All the things he couldn’t give.

But right then, it didn’t matter. Didn’t matter that neither of our hearts could stay.

His big hand wrapped around the back of my neck to draw me closer as he pressed harder against me.

Rocking.

Sliding.

Whipping my body into a frenzy of lust.

He dropped to an elbow, and his other hand spread over my shoulder. He drew the fabric of my dress down to expose my left breast.

I heaved a gasp.

The heavens rumbled and flashed.

Need streaked, and Jud kissed me deeper as he kneaded my breast. I whimpered when he pinched my hardened nipple.

Jud moaned as his tongue stroked deep into my mouth, his other hand fisted up in my hair as he demanded my kiss.

He tugged my head back, and he kissed along my jaw, my chin, my throat, right down to the hammer of my heart. Then his mouth was taking the place of his fingers, and he sucked my nipple into his hot mouth before he bit down with his teeth.

A groan bumbled in my throat, mixed with a desperate, “Yes.”

“I have you,” he grunted at the heated flesh. He eased back to blow on the sensitive skin then he edged back onto his knees and drove his hands under my dress.

It pushed the fabric the rest of the way around my waist.

He ripped my underwear down my legs.

Hot and cold clashed.

The cool of the wind that blustered through and the fire that burned my blood.

Heavy clouds enclosed and veiled the moon.

Darkness eclipsed.

Recklessness obliterated all reason.

The only thing in this moment that mattered was this man.

Jud jerked through the button and zipper on his jeans, and he shoved them around his thighs.

I gulped at the sight.

The man so big.

So massive.

So intimidating.

So right.

He climbed back over me.

I felt delirious.

Fevered.

Frantic, he drove two fingers deep inside me, murmured, “Magic.”

Dizziness barreled through, my lungs heaving to find air, but the only thing they found was the sanctuary of the man.

Citrus and spice. A warm fall night.

I lifted my hips, our movements frenzied and rushed as he situated himself between my thighs. Our bodies begged. Heaving and straining to reach the other.

He gathered me up, curled an arm under my back, and pulled my face closer to his.

He brought us nose to nose. “Tell me you want this, Salem.”

“If you don’t touch me, I’ll stab you.” I managed the choked, desperate tease.

Jud chuckled a low growl. “There’s my girl.”

My girl. My girl.

The softest smile curled my mouth as I watched him dig into his pocket then rush to cover himself with a condom.

Quick to come back to me.

While I wished this was more than a fantasy. More than a dream.

I could already feel my heart being crushed, knowing it couldn’t last.

I also knew the pain would be worth it to live here for a little while.

He smiled back.

So tender.

So sweet.

Then I whimpered when I felt the blunt head of him pushing at my center. As the man burned between my thighs, as he slowly, slowly, nudged himself deeper.

Thunder cracked.

The sky opened up and began to pour.

Tears filled my eyes again.

Pleasure and pain.

Pleasure and pain.

The man so big I felt him in a way I’d never felt another in my entire life.

As if I were whole. Real. This man a true part of me.

My legs dropped open wide to make room for him, and the air raked from my lungs as he filled me full.

Jud’s jaw clenched, and he dropped his forehead to mine and muttered, “Darlin’.”

He mumbled it like praise.

“Take me.” I demanded it.

He angled back and greed flashed in those dark, dark eyes.

He pulled out then slammed back home.

A rasp rocked from my lungs, and my shoulders bowed from the earth, every part of me arching to join with him.

“Fuck, baby…my sweet enchantress, what have you done to me?”

One hand fisted in my hair as the other fisted at my hip. He picked up a rough, jagged rhythm.

Deep.

Obliteration.

Jud fucked me hard.

In the way I knew that he would. As if he would own every cell. Every piece. Overtake the places I couldn’t let him go.

Too big. Too much.

Never enough.

My hips began to meet him thrust for thrust, and my hands slipped under his shirt, clawing at the muscles of his back, desperate to find a way in, too.

Where his secrets lived and mine wept.

Where there wasn’t a day in our pasts that mattered except for the ones we could live together.

Whimpers fell from my mouth, “I need you.”

“You have me,” he grunted through the pouring rain, through the drive of his body, as he wound us into a frenzy that I was sure neither of us would survive.

Flames.

Friction.

It burned and lapped.

He thrust his big body into mine.

Faster. Harder. Deeper. More.

Pleasure gathered from the ends of the earth, poured down with the rain, sprung up from the ground below, gathered in that broken place.

Then it split.

Broke apart in a thousand glittering lights.

Bliss streaked.

The brittle pieces where I’d held myself together fractured and fell.

Light and darkness blinded my eyes while the man seeped deeper.

Body and spirit and soul.

He rocked and grunted and thrust, met me where I fell apart, a roar coming from his mouth when he came.

Every muscle in his body flexed and bowed and danced with mine, and he clutched me desperately when he burrowed his face in the crook of my neck as our orgasms throbbed through our bodies.

He never let go until we were nothing but a slow buzz of satisfaction.

He edged back and sent me a lopsided grin. “You are something, darlin’.”

It was sweet, sweet affection.

A minute passed before I whispered, “Jud.”

He pushed back onto his hands and gazed down at me with that tender smile twitching all over his face. I didn’t know if he saw the fear written in mine, if he felt it, if he could hold it, but he was brushing back over my scar.

“I will burn the world down for you.”

Everything trembled.

The heavens, the earth, and my heart.

“I don’t…” I couldn’t form the words.

He caressed away the fear, let a slow grin take hold of his mouth, though the words were heavy. “Don’t worry, baby. Friends.”

A frown curled my brow. He eased in and kissed it before he sat all the way back and resituated my dress.

Then he hopped to his feet and managed to pull his drenched jeans back up his thick thighs.

I tried not to ogle the man, but his cock was still hard. I had no doubt if I asked him, he’d be happy to climb right back over me and make me forget my name.

A tremble rocked me as I lie on the ground and stared up at him.

So gorgeous, my insides burned with the heat of a flashfire.

His hair, face, and beard were soaked.

Shirt stuck to his wide, wide chest.

A force that covered me in the storm.

He stretched out his hand to help me to stand.

I accepted it, arching a brow at him as he eased me to my feet. “Is that what we are, Jud? Friends?”

Dark laughter rumbled out and he pressed his face to the thrumming pulse that raged at my neck. He mumbled at the sensitive flesh, a balm to my soul, “Good, good friends.”

Then he curled his arms around me and whisked me back into his hold and carried me to his bike. I looked up at him through the raging storm. “What now?”

“Tonight? I take you back to my place, get you a hot shower to warm you up, then I’m going to fuck you right. Tomorrow? That’s up to you.”