Endurance: A Salvation Society Novel

by Alexandra Silva

  Without a single word, Garrett deftly sweeps me up into his arms, carrying me up to my bedroom where he puts me back on my feet. He holds me as he peppers kisses into my dripping hair.

  “You are not a whore,” he grits into my hair. “And I don’t ever want to hear you say that word in reference to yourself ever again. You understand?”

  I nod, holding on to him as tight as I can, given I am debilitated from how cold I am and all the emotions running rampant inside me.

  “Good.”

  Rubbing my back with one hand, he guides me into the en suite, flipping on the walk-in shower so that it’s pelting down as hard as the rain outside. Except the steam is so hot that it starts to thaw me.

  “He said he was going to kill me,” I murmur while I watch him hang a fresh towel over the heater. “And now he has a gun.”

  Raw panic assaults me. It’s as though I’m a breath away from the surface of the water, but I just can’t break it.

  “Sweetheart.” He tips my chin up with his hands cradling my face. “He’s not going to hurt you ever again. I told you that already, and I meant it. Nobody hurts you ever again. I promise.”

  The promise is sweet, and I wish that it was as easy as it sounds from his lips, but the reality is that it’s not something he can keep.

  “I’m not going anywhere, Avery, and I’m always going to jump in front of anyone or anything that comes for you and Iris.”

  I nod, choosing to ignore the voices that tell me it’s impossible for it to be true. That he can’t protect me without bringing harm to himself.

  “I know you want to save me, Doc, but I can’t be the reason you are hurt…or worse.”

  The words are enough to suffocate me, and at the thought, tears flood my eyes.

  “I’ve made worse choices,” he tells me. “In fact, it’ll be the best one I’ve ever made.”

  Unable to reply, I wrap my arms around his neck and pull myself up onto my tiptoes to press my lips to his. I’m not sure how you can love someone when you’re broken, but I love Garrett Dixon with every last shattered piece of me.

  There is no part of him I don’t want, even the ones that have the ability to decimate me. I want every cell of his being as badly as I want him to possess mine.

  “Garrett.” I murmur his name over his lips as his hands meander down to my hips. With his stare holding mine, I breathe him in. “I want you to make me yours.”

  “You are mine,” he rasps as my back finds the shower wall and the warm spray rains down on us, hotter and hotter with the attack of his mouth on mine. Low and deep groans vibrate through me, making me shudder with the stroke of his hands down to the hem of my dress and back up my thighs.

  Fingertips trace over my soaked underwear. Over and over, lightly at first, until a wayward whimper pushes past my lips.

  “You’re so fucking wet,” he grits out with a hand cupping my ass to tilt me to him as he sucks and nips down my neck. “I want to taste you, every precious inch of you. I want to eat your pussy until you beg me to stop,” he continues, fingertip pressing at my entrance.

  I wish he would delve beneath my panties. Touch my skin. That he would fill me with his fingers. Peering down the length of our bodies, I grasp the skirt of my dress and drag it up with one hand so that I can watch him. The sight makes me shiver as I twist my other hand in his shirt.

  Garrett strokes over the flat between my hips with his thumb while his fingers continue tracing over my underwear. A light tease again.

  “Do you like watching me touch you?” he asks, studying me as he continues stroking over my underwear.

  “Yes.”

  “Does it turn you on?”

  “Mhmm…” My moan quivers when his thumbnail scratches over my clit at the same time as his finger slips beneath my panties.

  “Does it make you crave me like I crave you?”

  “God, yes, Doc.” I screw my eyes shut as my muscles tense and my toes curl. “I want you so much. So bad. I want you to fuck me.”

  “Avery…” The pained groan escapes him as I turn my attention to his shirt, fumbling with every button until his shirt hangs half-open and half-slick to his incredible body. “Don’t start something I won’t be able to stop.”

  There’s always a warning with him. He never takes more than I’m truly willing to give him, and yet, giving me that sliver of control in turn gives him power over my every want, wish, and need.

  Knotting his hand in the length of my hair, he takes a step back once I’ve unbuckled his belt, and before I know it, I’m pressed to the glass wall. My hands are splayed either side of my face as he unzips my dress and strips me of it without a single snag.

  Peppering kisses down my back, he slips my underwear down my thighs, lowering to his knees behind me while nipping over the curve of my ass.

  Oh my God. Oh. My. God.

  “Open your legs,” he commands. His voice is so gravelly that my insides twist at the sound. They twist tighter as he cups my pussy, encouraging me to follow his order swiftly while he wraps an arm around my waist, pulling me to his face.

  With his tongue lashing at my pussy in time with his fingers, he grinds his palm over my clit relentlessly. I’m choking on my moans as he draws his fingers through my folds and licks into my entrance, tongue fucking me until I’m incapable of holding myself up by my own volition. My knees cave as he brackets me with the V of his hand, thumb pushing inside me and curling to my broken cry.

  “You taste so damn good.” He bites down on my ass before he spins me to face him. “Too fucking good, sweetheart.”

  Groaning, he licks up the seam of my pussy, eyes intent on mine as he stands in front of me buck naked. Gloriously so with his lightly tanned skin, smattered with sun freckles and lightest trail of golden hair trailing down from his navel…

  Garrett’s so beautiful that for a moment I’m flustered at being naked in front of him with my stretch marks and caesarian scar. But then he kisses me, and it’s not any kiss. It tastes of me and him—of us—and it’s coated in his desperate need and my unquenchable desire. The longer our tongues duel, the better it tastes and the more I want him to take all there is of me.

  “I want you to fill me.” The words tumble from my lips into his gaping mouth. “I want you—I want you so much. So much—” Garrett silences me with a bite of my pout, dragging it between his teeth to an inaudible pop. “It hurts to want you like this,” I sputter as he prisons my body to the glass with his, hands tracing up my sides with the lightest brush of his thumbs to my breasts.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, beautiful, but if I do, it will always be like this. Never because I don’t want you or don’t—don’t treasure you.”

  A tear escapes me, followed by another and another. It’s cathartic and freeing. The hunger inside me scratches and yells and rattles as I watch him watching me, so much more than hunger in his eyes. Something that reaches deep into me winds around my heart, tugging and tugging until it feels as though he might physically take it.

  “Doc…”

  “Beautiful, precious sunshine…” he utters with reverence as he presses a kiss to my lips, chaste and soft and filled with yearning. His lips work over mine, sucking and rolling between the bottom and top one. And when he cups my face with both hands, I can smell myself on his skin—sweet, salty, and musky with that undertone of citrus. Something like bergamot and bitter orange.

  With his cock pressed to my stomach, he thrusts over my slick skin in time with our kiss. Our breathless pants get louder and louder as he devours a scorching path over my jaw to my neck, his hands falling to my thighs before he hoists me up his body and takes my nipple into his mouth.

  Holy fuck!

  My entire body slackens as he rolls my turgid nub between his teeth. My head falls back, and I can barely hold on to his shoulders as frissons of heat course through me, pulling and pushing at my insides as my pulse pounds hard and fast through my veins.

  “Legs,” he grits into my chest, hands sweepin
g from my thighs to my ass as I wrap my legs around his hips. “Good girl.” He tongues across my collarbone as he flips the water off and walks us into the bedroom.

  Garrett deposits me on the bed, opening my legs before he crawls over my body, tracing over my stomach with his tongue and kissing over my ribs. He lingers over my breasts, focusing on each in turn. I really could be pure fucking sunshine when he braces himself over me with heaving breaths and that soft smile that makes everything else disappear.

  “I’m going to do all those things you asked for. I promise.” The tip of his nose strokes up my cheek to my temple. “I’m going to fuck you until you beg me to stop,” he rasps into my ear. “I’m going to fill you until you are bursting at the seams.”

  Fisting his cock between us, he flicks my clit again and again. It’s maddening and incredible all at once.

  “Please,” I beg as he slowly situates himself at my entrance.

  “I’m going to make you mine,” Garrett growls, pushing deep in one hard thrust that completely chokes my cry. “If it’s the last thing I ever do,” he tells me while pulling out. “Over”—he shallows in and back out—“and over.” He slams home with a grunt, sparking pain, pleasure, and unrelenting desire.

  Thrust after thrust, stroke after stroke, he owns my body as though it’s natural law, intrinsic to my very existence. Finding my hands above my head, he laces his fingers with mine.

  “My perfect sunshine,” he whispers into my ear, quickening his pace. “My beautiful sweetheart.”

  “Doc, don’t stop,” I plead as he slows, pulling back to edge back inside me, teasing all the pleasure from my core to my extremities, stealing every piece of my soul with his wildfire eyes and hungry kisses. “Please don’t stop.”

  “Never.” Bucking deeper into me, Garrett releases one of my hands to grasp my thigh, hooking it over his hip as my body begins to slacken with my murmuring orgasm.

  “Ever,” he repeats over my muted cry.

  Curse after curse spill from my lips the harder he drives into me, faster until I come apart for him. My pleasure ravages through me relentlessly as he chases his own release through mine. Over and over, he doesn’t stop, not even as he fills me with his hot cum. Spurt after spurt, he keeps fucking me until I can’t take it anymore and I have to beg him to stop.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  GARRETT

  The morning comes too soon with the sun glowing red and the birds chirping glory. With the curtains wide open, the room is bathed in golden light, shimmering over Avery’s soft skin. She looks peaceful as I brace my head on my hand and peer down on her.

  With her back to my front, we’re sandwiched together, and every time I’ve tried to move my arm from around her waist, she stirs with a grumbly whine that makes my heart squeeze tight. I’m beginning to understand how Charlie can mean so much to Mark. Why Jo is so desperate to join Duke. It’s all down to her and her little girl. I would do anything for them, and that includes asking a favor from the last person I ever would want to bring back into my life.

  Last night can’t happen again. Carl can’t keep coming here and screwing her around. He’s done enough, and it’s time he disappears out of her life. For good.

  With a soft sigh, Avery shuffles closer, her bare ass rubbing over my morning wood.

  “Good morning, Doc.” She smiles.

  “Morning, sweetheart.”

  “I like it when you call me that.” Her smile broadens, and she wriggles her ass.

  “Don’t start something you can’t finish,” I tease her with a buck of my hips that has her ass tensing. “I’ve given you fair warning, Avery.”

  “You always give me fair warning.” She finally opens her eyes to mine when I slip my hand down her belly, grazing the top of her pussy with my fingertips.

  How can someone be so damn beautiful?

  Her chestnut hair is a tangled, thoroughly fucked mess on the pillow, and her lips are a little ruddy and chaffed from last night while her eyes are smudged from the makeup she wore on our date. Still, she’s a sight for sore eyes.

  “I give you warning because with you, I have no control.” Pressing my middle finger to her clit, I circle once, relishing the way her body squirms for more. “See? No control.”

  “None?” Gnawing on her lip, she focuses on my mine while her hand comes to rest on my thigh.

  “Nada.”

  When I stroke through her wet flesh, a soft groan escapes her.

  “Well,” she breathes, tracing her hand to my ass, “I like it when you lose control with me, Doc.”

  “Me too,” I tell her, adjusting her so that her pussy lines up with my throbbing dick.

  A sharp hiss pushes out of her as I press inside her tight cunt. She’s so goddamn tight that it feels as though I’m going to tear her apart, and maybe it’s sick or twisted, but I like the thought that she’ll feel me inside her even when we leave this bed.

  Avery’s leg hooks over mine, pulling me deeper.

  “Oh God,” she sighs tremulously as I round my groin, my arm wrapping around her chest before I cup her face.

  I hold her to me as close and flush as we can get.

  I can’t get enough of her—of the way she feels in my hands and how my heart craves her. It yearns to be her home in a way that it has never needed anything else.

  “It feels so good,” she cries softly, a hand squeezing my wrist as the other holds on tight to my ass. Like she’s trying to keep me buried inside her. “This feels so good.”

  Undulating on me, Avery trembles in my arms. My cock hardens further with a painful and unrelenting need to feel her come undone for me.

  “You feel good, sunshine.” Lowering the hand on her belly to her pussy, I swipe my thumb from her clit to her entrance, where my dick slowly pulses into her clenching cunt. “Fuck, I can’t get enough of you…your sweet pussy…Jesus, fuck…”

  The hand around my wrist tightens as my hold on her face closes a little more. Her other digs deeper into my glutes, nails biting the skin.

  Avery’s shaking as she turns her head to the side, like she wants to see me, and murmurs my name. “Garrett…?”

  “Yeah, sweetheart?” I nudge the tip of her nose with mine, running it up and down.

  When I open my eyes to her earthy ones, the hand on my wrist cups my face, lowering it down to hers so that our foreheads touch. The hypnotic swirl of green, amber, and blue in her eyes ripples with all the things she wants to say. Bright. Deeper than still waters. Hotter than a blazing inferno.

  Her lips meet mine, and the hungry bite of her teeth and lap of her tongue says all the words she’s scared to.

  I love you.

  I love you too, I tell her as I thrust deeper and harder, my strokes bottoming out and pushing the breath from her and right into me.

  No one’s ever made me feel this way. No one has ever made me feel like my world begins and ends with them.

  I would do anything for Avery. She has a power over me unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It’s transcending of every right or wrong. Of past and present or future…

  God, I love her more than I ever thought possible.

  Her soft whimpers vibrate between us with my increasing pace. Her body shakes, and her pussy clenches tight around me.

  “Look at me, Avery. Let me see you, sunshine.” Her eyes open with my kiss on the tip of her nose. “I want you to see what you do to me.”

  Her hips work with mine, driving us both to our climax, and with every thrash of her head, her eyes widen, her pussy fists tighter…

  “That’s it, let go…give me everything…” I grit out as my cock swells, the feel of her walls clamping around me too good to hold back.

  Neither of us looks away, even as curses flurry from our lips and heat our skin. We don’t look away as her body racks with the pleasure I’m giving her, and I pour everything into her.

  We give and take.

  Avery holds me, and I hold her. And I can’t imagine ever not having this. I can’t fat
hom letting her go ever again.

  She’s mine. She was born to be mine. Just as I was born to be hers. And my search is over. I’ve found her…my heart. My soul. The reason for my existence. And I’m going to keep her no matter what.

  “Coffee! Gimme, please!” Avery makes grabby hands at the cup in my hand while peering out to the front of the house from her vantage point on the kitchen island.

  She’s been on the lookout for Charlie and the girls since we came downstairs. It’s obvious she’s desperate to have Iris back, and I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t too. The more I think about last night, the more it bothers me that Carl would show up here just to see Iris when from all accounts he’s not father of the year, and after the way he spoke to Avery last night…I’m still kicking myself for letting Ben stand in the way.

  I have a feeling no one would give a shit if the asshole went missing, never to be seen or heard from again. Still, my feelings aside, it’s Avery and Iris I’m worried about. I’m worried about losing them. I don’t want to let them go—don’t think I can either. Just thinking about it makes my chest tighten and my stomach knot painfully.

  “You shouldn’t frown,” she tells me when I part her legs, standing between her thighs with her coffee in hand. Running a finger between my knitted brows, she adds, “You’ll get lines.”

  I put her coffee down to the side and brace myself closer to her. “If you look closely, you’ll see I already have them.”

  Scrunching her nose, Avery cups my face, giggling, “Only very closely. Like this…”

  Sitting straighter, she leans toward me, closing her eyes for a moment as she inhales deeply. When her eyes open on mine again, her lips tip up to one side right before she kisses me.

  All the barriers and walls she’s had in place are gone as the tip of her tongue licks tentatively into my mouth with her stare boring into mine, gradually gaining confidence to explore with my low groans.

  Fingertips stroke from my jaw to my temples with her nails raking against my stubble with her quickening breaths and dilating pupils. Her feet hook around me, bringing me flush to her as my hands mold to the top of her ass.