Revive Me: Part Three (New Haven #2)

by J.L. Seegars

All I am is hers, and the only way I can convey that is with my free hand on her ass, grabbing a handful of flesh, forcing her hips to meet mine, so she can feel just how much I need her.

That kiss has me half-heartedly running through the jungle, hoping he isn’t far behind because I’m more than ready to get caught and be fucked.

For the first time since I took off running, I glance behind me, squinting into the darkness and losing my breath when I see a slow-moving, familiar figure stepping out from behind a tree on the path's edge, prowling toward me. Broad, relaxed shoulders I’d know anywhere shift subtly as he slows his steps to a stop, pausing underneath a pocket of moonlight that kisses his midnight curls.

There’s something disconcerting about this moment, about being suspended in his honey bourbon gaze, about being still when we’re both supposed to be in motion. I’m not quite sure what he’s doing, or why he isn’t moving, so I take a halted step back, and only then does he take one forward. I take another one, stepping to the right a little to use a long, leafy branch to obscure his view of my body. And he advances, shifting his body to the left to see past it.

His lips ghost down my neck. “Everyone’s getting fucked but you, princess.” Jesus. The combination of his dark tone and his obscene words makes my thighs clench. Chris chuckles, his hands going to my waist and slipping down to graze the hem of my skirt where the cuff of my ass cheeks are exposed. “Do you want me to fuck you?”

“Then be a good girl and run for me,” he commands. “And when you find a spot you like, I want you to stop and remove all your clothes. Then, I want you to play with your pussy until I find you.”

“But don’t come without me,” he says, ignoring my attempt at protest. “I want to be there to lick up every drop of your orgasm.”

!!!!!!!!!!

And just as Chris instructed me to, I shed my clothes, using them as a makeshift blanket when I sit down with my back to the tree and my legs spread. My fingers shake as I finally give my engorged clit some much-needed friction, and I cry out, already on the edge of release.

Pushing out a breath, I look up at the mix of moonlight and twinkling stars breaking through the greenery above me and try to calm myself down, to concentrate on anything that isn’t how good my touch feels.

Helpless, I slip two fingers inside and moan my satisfaction into the silence of the path before me, thinking about how Chris is probably somewhere close. How he could be right on the edge of the trail, hiding in the shadow of a tree, watching me fight off an orgasm just because he told me to.

“Oh, God. Oh, God. Chris, please hurry.” As if I’ve summoned him, he appears from the shadows, his features wild with lust and love for me as he watches from a distance. Our gazes lock, and I expect him to come over, to join me, to touch me and share in my pleasure, but instead, he stays where he is, inclining his head to encourage me to keep going.

He walks over, gazing down at my prone form with pride and adoration in his eyes before he lowers himself to the ground. Before I know it, he’s on his stomach with my thighs on his shoulders and his face buried in my sex. He inhales a greedy lungful of my scent before he dives in, eating me with an ardent mouth and worshipful tongue until I come again, shouting my satisfaction into the dark sky above us.

“Good, because I feel the strong urge to mark you after that stunt you pulled tonight.” I want to tell him that he’s already marked me. That the first time we kissed, he left his fingerprints on my soul. That the first time we made love, he ruined me for everyone else.

We both cry out when I slide down on him, taking him to the hilt in a solid motion that’s only possible because of the two orgasms I just had. Even then, it’s still a snug fit. Snug, but perfect.

I open my mouth to tell him that I’m not trying to be quiet, it’s just happening that way, but the only thing that comes out is a contented sigh when he wraps his arms around me, holding me so tight I can’t move. All I can do is feel him. The security of his embrace. The warmth of his mouth when he buries his face in the crook of my neck and starts blessing me with licking, biting kisses that I know will leave me with hickeys tomorrow.

I could never have this with anyone else. I have never had this with anyone else, and as Chris recovers from his orgasm, murmuring my name and showering my face with kisses, I know he hasn’t either. Giselle may have gotten his empty vows and tarnished last name, but I have always had his heart.

PERIOD!

“You should ask me to be your wife one day, Dr. Johnson.” His eyes stretch wide, surprise etching itself into the lines in his forehead. He leans in and kisses me, slow and soft, before pulling back to say, “Maybe I will.”

I relish in the weight and warmth of her body next to mine, my eyes occasionally wandering to her elegant fingers, picturing what her ring finger will look like when I finally make good on my promise to ask her to be my wife.

I’ve always envied the ease with which Mallory existed with Eric and Nic. Of course, they’ve had their disagreements and irritating bouts of shit-talking that sometimes end with someone’s feelings being hurt, but they’ve always had a strong parental figure in their lives to guide them back to each other. Me and my siblings don’t have that.

It’s like we’ve been engaged in a battle of wills. Me willing her to stay the hell away from our monster of a father, and her, willing me to give her the space to get to know him on her own terms. It went against my better instincts, but I took a step back, giving her what she needed, hoping it didn’t blow up in her face. Dealing with the stress of not knowing for sure whether it had or not.

One day soon, Mallory Kent is going to be my wife, and I am so fucking happy about that.

Stunned, I look over at her, taking in her sun-kissed skin and the ridiculous but faint tan lines on her shoulders and chest from the bathing suit she wore our first day at the beach. Combined with the hickeys on her neck from our night in the jungle, she looks like a well-loved, well fucked woman.

“Chris.” Mal turns to me, brows knit together. “Who is that?” Something about the way she’s looking at me suggests that she thinks I might know more about this woman than I actually do. I wish I did. I wish I knew more than just her face and random facts about her son. I wish I knew her name or her reason for being here, at our home, looking like she’s come to drop a bomb right in the middle of our happy ending.

Ahhh the old lady who.kept popping up at the beginning of the book

I’d considered it briefly when we ran into each other at Cerros the night of Nic and Sloane’s engagement party, thinking that maybe she was nursing some kind of obsession with Sebastian and the Adler family, but dismissed it quickly. I never considered that she might be stalking me, and now it feels obvious that she was. Just the thought sets my teeth on edge and makes my hackles rise, but what she says next really makes me want to lose it.

“Celeste Walker,” she says my mother’s name like it doesn’t belong in her mouth. Like the syllables are foreign and unwelcome. Like she hasn’t said them in years and has just decided, while she’s standing in front of me, to test out their flavor.

Mal freezes, her head turning slowly towards me, scanning my features, lingering a moment too long on my eyes, and then doing the same to the woman still holding her hand. I can see shock and consideration taking over her expression as she notes what she views as similarities between the woman’s chestnut eyes and mine. But I shake my head, knowing there’s no possible way that this person in front of me is my mother. She doesn’t look anything like the few pictures I’ve seen of her, and, most importantly, she’s not dead.

Wth???

“I’m not in the mood for jokes.” My voice is cold, stiff. “Celeste Walker was my mother, and my mother is—” I struggle against the lump of emotion in my throat, choking the word out. “Dead. My mother is dead.”

“I know that’s what your father wants you to believe, sweetheart.” She reaches for me, and I step back, which makes her look even more heartbroken. I’ve never given her such a cool reception, not even when we were strangers. “He did a damn good job trying to erase me from this world, but despite his best efforts, I am very much alive.”

Wow

Stupidly, I look back, too, taking in the woman’s helpless expression and, even more stupidly, pausing at the end of the walkway that leads up to our front door. With a comfortable distance now between her and Mal, I’m able to think, to try and piece together her true motive for being here.

“It’s okay, Mallory.” The woman says, stepping a bit closer. Mal turns, taking a small step back so that my view of the other woman is clear. “Chris has every right to be upset with me. I’ve had multiple opportunities to tell him the truth about who I am, but I lost my nerve every time. Broaching a topic like this isn’t exactly easy.”

Resentment flares in her eyes at the mention of his name. “I’m not working for your father, Christopher. I haven’t seen or spoken to him since 2012 when he left me to rot in a house outside of Catalina, Arizona with no one to keep me company except a team of orderlies that kept me drugged and imprisoned to protect whatever secrets your father had on them.” Her mouth closes with a snap, but I don’t miss the tremble in her bottom lip. And I can’t ignore the sharp pain seeing it sends through my chest. “I’m in New Haven for you, Chris. Only you.”

“Because he also helped me escape. In May of 2017, he came to me with a plan to help me get out. I almost didn’t believe it was real, the change of heart he had out of the blue.” She presses her lips together, her eyes taking on a faraway look as she recalls the memory. “I thought maybe Reese was using him to trick me, but later I discovered that two things happened that led to my freedom.”

Celeste smiles, glancing at her for a moment before looking back at me. “In April, Tyson was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer, and in May he got a call from Chris.” Tears well in her eyes, and I bite the inside of my cheek to stop the onslaught of emotion trying to consume me. “You saved me, Christopher, and you didn’t even know it. Your phone call gave Tyson the strength he needed to do something brave before he died.”

“Yep, took a page right out of Reese’s book, and it worked like a charm. Tyson helped me start a new life. He paid for me to get plastic surgery to change my appearance, and, through some channels, I never asked about, he secured me a new identity. Officially, my name is Isabelle Sommers, but I didn’t want to use that name with you. I wanted to be me. I wanted to be your mother.”

I’m shaking, standing on weak legs and leaden feet, and the only thing keeping me upright is Mal’s hand slipping into mine. She squeezes tight, pressing all of her love and strength into me as I process the words of the woman I’m starting to believe.

“He told you about me?” I’ve seen the look of a mother’s love enough times on Mama’s face to know it anywhere, and that’s exactly what I see on Celeste’s face right now as she thinks back on the times when Chris wasn’t angry and closed off with her.

I didn’t say it to Celeste when she asked, but I believe her. I believe her with everything in me, and the longer I sit here in this room, watching her watch him, agonizing over his agony, I know that believing her is the right thing to do.

A horrified silence fills the room, and we sit in it, honoring the days, weeks, and years Celeste has suffered at the hands of a man who was supposed to love, honor, and protect her.

The relief that I feel at the mention of the journals is nothing compared to Chris’. His whole body sags, a release of tension at the exact time a sob breaks free from his chest. Celeste and I move simultaneously, but I force myself to sit back down, so she can have this moment with her son.

Their embrace is the sweetest one I’ve ever seen. Chris wraps his mother up in his arms, curving his broad, shaking shoulders over her petite frame, burying his face in her hair while she sobs into his chest. Before I know it, I’m crying too, weeping into my hands because the last time I heard Chris cry like this was when Margaret died. That the tears he’s shedding now are ones of happiness and not sorrow fills me with a kind of peace I can’t explain. I sit in it with them, a part of the moment but not, and when they finally let go of each other, their eyes are red but laced with joy.

“My son.” Celeste takes Chris’ face in her hands. “My beautiful boy. I’ve waited ...

“Sweetheart, you’ve got nothing to be sorry about. What’s done is done, and there’s no amount of feeling sorry for ourselves that’s going to change our pasts. But what we can do is secure our future.” She reaches out, placing one hand in mine and the other on top of Chris’ fists. “Together.”

He kisses my neck, and I feel the smile curving his lips without seeing it. One of his hands runs up my body, pulling up the hem of my shirt, so he can touch my skin.

“I have a mom.” “You do. How does it feel?” “Like a dream. Am I dreaming, princess? I’ve got to be, right? Because there’s no way I get to have this. A life with you. A life with my mom. She’s supposed to be dead. She’s ‘died’ multiple times, and⁠—” “And yet, she’s still alive.” I turn over, facing him. “She’s a survivor, Chris. A strong, brave woman who gave birth to a strong, brave man. She might not have been able to raise you, but somehow you still have her fighting spirit, her inherent goodness.”

“Shh. You need to hear this, baby. Your whole life has been spent trying to make a woman you thought you’d lost proud, and today you got something most people don’t ever get to have: confirmation.” He shudders, short breaths skating over my face. I bring a hand to his cheek, using my thumb to wipe away the trail of moisture. “You’re every bit the man she hoped you be, Chris. I could see it in her eyes. How much she loves you, how damn proud she is of you.”

<3

My smile grows wider. Mainly because her excitement and adoration for my mother is evident, even in written form, but also because I still can’t quite believe this is all real. That my mom is alive, and Mallory and I are solid. That my world has expanded once again, the edges of my existence reaching out to reclaim one of the most fundamental parts of my being. And even more gratifying, is watching that new addition be folded into the sacred circle of unconditional love that is my found family.

Their reception of her was warm and immediate, and Nic, who lost his mom far too soon, got emotional when he heard the full story of what she’d gone through to get back to me. It was another long night full of joy and laughter, with Mom and Mama bonding over their dedication to their children, and every day since has been some variation of the same thing. For a week now, I’ve been living in a world that feels like the stuff of dreams, a bubble of euphoria I hope will never pop.

Today is different. It’s just us. No one around to act as a buffer. No one to crack jokes. No false identities or secrets to hide behind. Just me, her, and a love too strong to exist between strangers but too foreign to live between a mother and son.

“It’s not your fault, Chris. None of this is your fault.” Tears from her eyes wet the top of my head, and I cry harder. Long, gut wrenching sobs that wrack my body and make my chest ache with relief. “And ultimately, the blame for how everything turned out belongs to your father. It’s his shame. His burden to bear. His choice had nothing to do with you showing him those bags, no matter how much he might have suggested that it did. The truth is, monsters never need a reason to do horrific things, baby. It’s just their nature, and his nature is not yours.”

So many people in my life have tried to give me what I’ve just found in my mother’s arms, in the tremble of her voice as she takes the weight I’ve been carrying for so long off of my chest. Peace.