Behold the Stars Read online

  His arm around her shoulder, he walked them first to Len, who was standing at the bar. “I’m taking her home. Keep on eye on him. Call me.”

  Len nodded. To the whole room, Isaac said, “Get some rest, people. The Keep at noon.” Then he turned and led Lilli back out into the new dawn.

  ~oOo~

  They were inside the house before Lilli realized that Isaac hadn’t been in it since the morning before. He hadn’t seen the aftermath of the intended attack on her. Now, she wondered if there was still a body in the shed, some fresh horror for them to have to contend with.

  Isaac clearly hadn’t forgotten. He stood in the front hall as if he were scenting the story. Focused on Show’s tragedy, they had not yet spoken at any kind of length about what had happened in their home, but he knew that she’d been attacked and had killed the man. She figured he’d gotten the story from Badger, anyway. She and Badger had cleaned all traces of that violence from the house, but she had not yet set the ransacked bedroom to rights.

  She put her hand on his back. “Isaac?”

  He turned and took her hand, pulling her forward. “Tell me, Lilli. Tell me it all.”

  Just then, they heard a tiny mewl, and Pip, alone and lonely, came into the living room from the kitchen. Crying the whole way, he came up and climbed onto Lilli’s boot, latching his claws into her jeans to begin his trek up her leg. Slipping her hand from Isaac’s grip, she bent down and gathered the tiny orphan in her arms. “Hey, guy. It’s okay.” He settled under her chin and commenced purring loudly.

  Sad as he was, Isaac grinned. “He sure loves you.”

  Lilli shrugged. She figured she wasn’t much more than a familiar port in a night of scary storms for the little guy, but she felt better holding him.

  “Come on, Sport. Let’s talk.” His hand on her elbow, he guided her into the living room and they sat together on the couch. With Pip purring on her shoulder, Lilli told him the story of her day. As she spoke, she found her eyes drifting again and again to the spot where the body had lain. She didn’t know why, exactly. She wasn’t sorry she’d killed him. She felt the death; she took responsibility for it, as her father had taught her. But she knew she’d made the right call, done the right thing. It wasn’t the first time she’d killed a man, either. Several tours in Afghanistan meant that she had taken enemy lives. And yet this death unsettled her.

  Isaac sat with his hand on her knee and listened. By the time she was finished, he was gripping her so hard his hand and her leg were shaking. It hurt, but she didn’t mind the pain.

  “I don’t know if the body’s still in the shed. The cats are buried under the big elm by the barn. Oh—I should go out and bring the horses in—they’ve been in the pasture all day!” She was suddenly worried and guilty. She wasn’t used to thinking about animals to take care of. She had no idea how bad it was not to have brought the horses in, and it was early daylight now. Dammit.

  He took her hand, bringing it to his lips. “They’re in the barn, Sport. Bart and Vic took care of the asshole in the shed, and they brought the horses in and got them set up for the night. That’s handled.”

  Lilli blew out a sigh of relief. “There was just too fucking much today.”

  “I’m so sorry, Lilli. God, I don’t know where to put this filth I feel. I let you down. Show. Holly—God, Daisy. Erik. The whole thing was a goddamn trap, and I fell right into it and took everybody down.” He laid his head on the back of the couch. “We aren’t enough. I’m not enough. We can’t win this.”

  Lilli sat and watched him as he stared at the ceiling, still gripping her knee in the vise of his big hand. She said nothing; he needed to work through his doubt on his own.

  And after a few minutes, he did. He sat up and stared into her eyes, the varied greens of his irises flashing fire. “I don’t fucking care. What he did? He doesn’t get away with that shit. I don’t know how, and I don’t care. I will end that motherfucker, or I will die trying. Maybe I’ll have to do it myself. I won’t force anyone to stand with me. But I am taking Lawrence Ellis down.”

  “You won’t have to do it alone, love. I’m with you.” She put her hand over his.

  But he shook his head. Finally releasing his grip on her knee, he turned his hand and wrapped it gently around hers. “No, Sport. Not if you’re pregnant. Absolutely not.”

  Well, they needed to talk about that, too. “Then maybe I shouldn’t be.”

  Isaac reacted immediately and harshly. He dropped her hand and wrapped his fists around her upper arms. Pip stirred and jumped out of Lilli’s hold. “Don’t take it back, Lilli. Jesus Christ, don’t take it back.”

  He was much calmer than he had been in the hospital, but he was not calm. The day and night—the week, the past few months, all the time they’d known each other—had been too fraught with death and danger for him to be calm. But she’d let him come inside her, and unless she wanted to make the decision herself, they needed to discuss it, calmly, soon. Now. So she pulled free from his hold and took his hands in hers. She spoke evenly. “Isaac. I’m not taking it back. But it’s not a decision we should have made in that moment. We need to talk about it sanely, not desperately. Tell me why it’s so important to you that I get pregnant now, with everything going on.”

  He stared down at their hands, and for a very long time, he said nothing. Lilli had expected a long spiel. She knew he’d been thinking about this, and wanting it, before today. When he looked up, his eye were calm. Sad, but calm.

  “I love you, Lilli. Like I didn’t know I could love. Fuck, I feel spun by it. When you were in the hospital and I didn’t know if you were gonna wake up, I saw the life I wanted. I sat there at the side of your bed, waiting for you to wake up, and I saw it all. I saw the man I wanted to be, the life I wanted to have. All of it was you. I saw you pregnant. I saw you holding our baby, me holding our baby. I saw a family. Seeing all that, it gave me hope. It made me know you would be okay. Because what I saw was so clear, it had to be real.

  “I’m not an idiot, Sport. I know this seems like a crazy-ass time to be talking about making a baby. I know. But to me, it’s not. It’s the right time because it’s so bad out there. I don’t want to live my life with you like I’m afraid I’m gonna lose it all. I want to live for a future with you. A future where all this shit is behind us. It’s hope, Lilli. It’s hope. And damn, you’re gonna be an amazing mother.”

  Lilli was moved by his words. She was persuaded, even. She understood. Except for the last thing he’d said, which struck at the core of her own fear. “We don’t know that, Isaac. I’ve never even thought about being a mother. I’ve hardly been around any mothers. My own mother was insane. Literally. And I’m not a nurturer. I’m a fucking soldier, Isaac. I wouldn’t have any idea what I’d be doing, and I don’t want to fuck anybody up.”

  Isaac laughed. “You really don’t see it, do you? Baby, you got a nurturing streak a mile wide.”

  He was talking about the cats. He always brought up the fact that she liked the cats, like that somehow meant she’d be a good mom. As if baby felines and baby humans were analogous. She huffed her frustration. “Dammit, Isaac. Because I wanted to bring the kittens in from the cold does not mean I know how to teach a tiny person to be a grownup person.”

  “No. I’m not talking about the cats, or the horses, but yeah, Sport. That’s you taking care of others, and it counts. I’m talking about the way you are with people. You read them, read their moods, what they need, and you take care. The way you were tonight with Show—and Holly. The way you knew to take the girls away from the trauma at the hospital. The way you were with me.”

  “I left Daisy bleeding on the floor of that kitchen, because she flinched away from me when I packed a cloth against…where she was bleeding. I left her there and went into the other room and yelled at Holly to take care of her.”

  Isaac’s eyes had closed at Lilli’s mention of Daisy. He opened them and looked at her. “Well, I wasn’t there. But it sounds like maybe this is an
other way to think of it: a badly hurt and traumatized girl was afraid of you, a near stranger, so you sent her mother to help her.”

  Lilli could feel her resistance ebbing. All that was left was the real core of her fear. “Isaac. My mother was crazy. Bipolar, I’m sure. She killed herself and left me to find her body. Bipolar is genetic.”

  He pulled her close, and she let him, feeling suddenly exhausted and vulnerable. “Oh, baby. Don’t let that be the thing that stops us. You’re fine. I’m fine. Who knows what kind of genetic jumble of us our kids will get. But if there’s a problem, we’ll deal. If your mom was bipolar, she didn’t have help, right? That wouldn’t be the case for our kids. Lilli, this is all about fear. But you’re brave as fuck. You don’t let fear get in your way. Don’t let it get in ours. If you don’t want a family, that’s a different conversation. But if you’re afraid, fuck fear. Let’s take what we want.”

  He kissed her head. “Besides, maybe I already knocked you up.”

  If that was true, it wasn’t too late to do something about it. But the thought that she might have the tiniest start to Isaac’s baby already inside her didn’t scare her the way it should. In fact, it made a warm, calm place in the center of this cold, bleak day. He was right. It was crazy, but it was right. It was hope.

  She turned and brought her leg over his lap, straddling him. “Okay. Let’s make a baby, then.”

  He smiled, and for a moment, the pain of the day was gone from his face. He was simply happy, and his love for her was palpable. She felt his hands grip her ass and hold her firmly to him, and then he stood, his eyes locked on hers. She wrapped her legs around him and held on as he walked her out of the living room, down the hall, and into their bedroom.

  He stopped inside the door. The room was a disaster—drawers pulled out and upended; the closet emptied, its contents on the floor; their bed stripped, the linens scattered.

  “Jesus. This is our fucking bedroom. I want to kill the motherfucker who did this.”

  Lilli kissed his cheek. “Already taken care of, love. He’s dead. And this is just mess. He didn’t ruin anything. He didn’t take anything. There wasn’t anything in here to take, and we were here before he could do more. It’s just mess. Don’t worry about it now. We’ll lie on the mattress tonight. Won’t be the first time we fucked on a bare mattress.” Their very first time had been on a bare mattress in Lilli’s little rental house.

  Isaac walked to the bed and laid down with her, propping himself over her on his hands. She released her legs from around his hips but kept her hands linked on the back of his neck. His braid lay over her fingers. “How are you so damn calm, Sport?”

  She knew exactly why she was calm. She’d had time he hadn’t yet had. “What happened here today is old news to me. I had my breakdown earlier. Burying the kittens and Havi, when I thought that was the worst of it, and it was over? That’s when I lost it. I hate that somebody was in our house, and I hate what he did, but he’s dead now. And we’re together. Today—or, yesterday—was horrific, and there’s more bad shit coming. But right now, I’m with you, and we’re okay, and that makes me calm.” She unlaced her fingers and looped one hand around his braid, sliding down to the band that held it together. She pulled that free. Isaac’s hair was long, thick, and dark, and she loved it loose, especially when they were intimate. The feel of his hair and hers like silk against her skin made her shiver.

  When it was loose, draping around them and brushing her face, she began to unbutton his black shirt. His bare chest, covered with just the right amount of dark hair, his Mjölnir pendant swinging from its leather strap near his throat, was another favorite feature. In fact, everything was a favorite feature. She could not have conjured a more perfect man for her. She was throbbing and wet. “If we’re making a baby, then I want to feel you naked inside me. I want to really feel it, not like at the hospital. I want to savor you.”

  He pushed away from her and knelt between her legs, shrugging his shirt off his shoulders and tossing it to the floor. Then he shoved his hands into the waistband of her jeans and yanked open her button fly, his movements so forceful her hips came off the bed a little. Lilli moaned, her underwear fully soaked now. She loved it like this, when he used his power to move her body. As he pulled her jeans and underwear off her hips and down her legs, she pulled her t-shirt over her head and then undid her bra. She was still wearing her boots; he stood at the side of the bed and pulled them off, then rid her of her pants.

  He rid himself of his own boots and jeans, his eyes never leaving her naked body. She felt his gaze like a caress, and she arched up toward him.

  “Jesus fuck, baby. You’re perfect. God, you’re perfect.” The low rumble of his deep voice rolled over her like his eyes had, a nearly physical sensation. But she needed the touch of his body. As she raised her arms to beckon him, the thought crept into her head that Show was grieving in a dorm room right now, that it was disrespectful to be wanting Isaac the way she was. As Isaac got back onto the bare mattress, on their bed surrounded by the chaos the intruder had left behind as a legacy, Lilli set that thought aside. Somehow, what had happened made their love more important, made their coupling necessary.

  This was what Isaac had meant. Hope. What they had was new. Their life together was still the future. Together, they were hope.

  Isaac settled on top of her and drew her breast into his mouth. She gasped at the electric rush of sensation. Her eyes closed, she focused on what she felt. His hair lying over her chest and arm. His beard on her breast. His mouth around her nipple, drawing pleasure through her in a steady beat. His big, rough hands, gripping her hip and shoulder. The coarse brush of the hair of his legs, chest, and arms against her smooth skin. The hot silk of his breath. The hard, heavy weight of his strong body. The rigid length of his cock on her leg.

  Her need for him was absolute. Sliding her fingers into his hair, she pulled his head up. His green eyes sparked at her. “Fuck me, Isaac. I need to feel you fucking me. I need it hard.”

  He said nothing; his rapt expression did not change. He simply shifted upward, the hand that had gripped her hip moving between them, and then he shoved inside her, his eyes still intent on hers. She cried out at the hot, thick, deep feel of his beautiful, bare cock inside her. God, she never wanted to use a condom again. This felt like being part of him, like he was alive inside her. He shifted again, drawing her legs up in his arms, bringing them to her chest, opening her wide. Then he drove into her, heavy and hard, every grunting thrust on the slender edge of pain. Right where she liked it. Oh, God, it was good. The position had her pinned, though, and she needed to touch him. She could only reach his arms, so she grabbed hold of his forearms, above the leather cuffs he still wore, and closed her eyes, releasing herself to the pleasure.

  “Oh, fuck, Isaac. Oh, yes. Yesyesyes. Oh, God. Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop.” It had to be the exhaustion and emotional overload of the day, because she didn’t think she’d ever gotten to orgasm so quickly. But it was there, and it was excruciating in its intensity. Before she had a chance to come down from it, before she had even completed, he pulled rapidly out of her and flipped her to her stomach, then dragged her up to her knees. Then he was inside her again, his hands clawing into her hips, yanking her back on him as he surged into her, and she went right back up, screaming every time his body slammed into hers. She was going to have an aneurysm or something; she’d been coming forever, spinning at her peak. Their sex was often rough; they both preferred it that way. But there was a desperate, fiery blade to this fuck that was new.

  Isaac was still grunting ferociously with every thrust, and she could feel his sweat at every point their bodies touched. It dripped down onto her from the ends of his hair and beard. And yet he had not come. Bare as he was inside her, as hard as he was making her come, he had not. Then, as she thought she’d need to stop him, just so she could catch a breath, he growled, “Fuck, baby!,” and pushed her flat to the bed, lying on her, still thrusting, deep a
nd steady, his head on hers. He let go of her hips then and slid a hand between her and the mattress, pressing it to her belly, spreading his fingers wide. The pressure of his hand there, his weight on her, as he thrust his big cock into her, brought her over again.

  “Jesus, Isaac. Fuck!” She gritted the words out; she couldn’t take much more. Three orgasms, one right on the next, each one more intense than the last. Her head was killing her and her pussy ached.

  Finally, with a heartrending roar, he slammed even harder into her and then froze, his body locked into place. She could feel his release, the hot wet of it filling her, his cock throbbing and swelling. He collapsed all at once on top of her.

  Their bodies were so wet that he actually slid off her. He laughed a little at that, the breath of it tickling her ear, and then he pulled out and turned to his side, turning her to face him as he did. He smiled sadly, his breathing, like hers, still loud and heavy. “That was somethin’ else, Sport. You okay?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I think so. You?”

  He answered in the way he had every time she’d asked over the past couple of days. “No. But I will be. I’ve got you.” He brushed his hand over her belly. “I’ve got us.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Isaac woke with a kitten sleeping on his shoulder, curled into a tight, black ball. Lilli was sleeping on her back, tucked snugly to his chest. His hand rested on her belly. God, he wanted his baby in there. He wanted them to have made their child in that damn hospital closet. In the middle of all the horror. He didn’t even know why, but the want was like a physical pain.

  He was still rocked by the way that loving Lilli had changed him. The need to make a family with her rode him hard, a constant presence in his head. Before he’d loved her, he’d had no thought to have even a woman, much less a family. He’d made the decision young to fly solo, and he’d never felt the slightest tremor in that choice in all those years. Not until Lilli entered his life and shook it to dust.