He had a point.
“When I left, Rita ceased to exist anymore,” I told him.
He pushed my hair back over one ear. Then cupped my cheek.
“You’re Lark now. I get that.”
I nodded.
“But for the sake of this marriage being one hundred and ten percent legal, we’re going to use your real name on the marriage certificate. Okay?”
“This isn’t a good idea,” I told him. “It’s just going to make him even more angry.”
I watched as his face transformed.
“You want to see angry?”
His question was deceptively calm, but I could tell he was no longer in the mood to do any more convincing. He was in an already-been-decided mood.
“No,” I quickly backpedaled. “I don’t.”
“I have more money than I know what to do with.”
My brows furrowed. “Uhh, okay?”
I mean, I hadn’t realized that, but it was good. Right? Nobody wanted to be poor. I was happy that he would never have to worry about finances.
“I own the club.”
My brows rose at that, thoughts swirling around in my brain.
“You do?”
He nodded.
“That’s cool,” I finally said. “You don’t strike me as a club person.”
And he didn’t. Not with how much time he’d spent at home with me. I would think the type of person that liked to go to clubs—and owned one—he would actually like to spend time there.
He wouldn’t run for hours and hours at a time. And spend even longer staring at his dog that was inside someone else’s fence.
But Baylor wasn’t like other men. He was caring and smart, but he was quiet. Subdued. He didn’t like the big hubbub of nightlife.
He was like me...wasn’t he?
And that was when the doubt started to set in.
Why would a club owner, a man that had a lot of money, want to have anything to do with me?
I was a nobody. Nothing.
I had a shit ton of problems and nothing to show for it.
“After I was hit by that drunk driver, I was given hush money.” He continued, not seeing the turmoil he’d caused. “Millions. I have millions that I invested wisely and turned into more millions.”
Sal had money too. I had convinced myself that the only reason he and his family worked was because they liked having the mantle of power being a police officer afforded.
But that didn't mean that they didn't use the money they had to their advantage.
I started to hyperventilate. Had I been wrong about Baylor?
“I’d spend every fucking penny to make sure you were safe,” Baylor continued. “I’d go bankrupt. Sell my goddamn kidney if that was what was needed to keep you safe.”
“I don’t want you to sell your kidney,” I told him. “God gave you two for a reason.”
It was ridiculous to fixate on the kidney, but I couldn’t focus on the larger picture. Not and continue to stand.
He laughed. The sound vibrated his chest, which in turn could be felt throughout my entire upper half since he was plastered to me.
“I’ll make it okay,” he promised.
This time his eyes held mine, and suddenly, I believed him.
“I don’t want to marry you because you are trying to save me,” I told him. “I want to marry you because you love me. Because you can’t live without me.”
“Lark?”
My eyes returned to his. I hadn’t even realized I’d looked away.
“Yeah?”
“I can’t.”
My brows furrowed. “You can’t, what?”
“I can’t live without you.”
I would’ve laughed had I not read the sincerity in his eyes.
“You don’t even know me…not really. We’ve known each other for a very short period of time. What if we do this and you find out you don’t like me?” I looked away. “I’m a nobody. Nothing. I have a college degree. In art. I am a certified phlebotomist. I have three jobs that I work part-time. I don’t own anything. I have fat thighs, and sometimes I can’t find the energy to get out of bed. And when I’m on my period, I can be a real, raving bitch.”
His mouth twitched.
“This is not funny.”
“Are you through?”
I crossed my arms over my chest and glared. “Yes.”
He moved away from me and walked toward the door, peering out into the hallway before closing it. Then locking it.
My brows shot up.
“What are you…”
He was on me in a moment.
His mouth touched mine. His hands went around my back and pulled me in close, and then he was staring directly into my eyes.
His gaze was so intense that it was almost hard to look back at him.
“I run because I can’t sleep,” he said. “I have PTSD that flares up when fireworks go off. I always have to sit with the wall at my back. If I see a fucking plastic bag or a goddamn piece of trash on the side of the road big enough, my mind automatically goes into ‘oh, fuck’ mode.” He banded his arm behind my back and pulled me even closer so that we were now touching from chest to knee. “When it rains, everything fucking hurts. That’s also why I run. If I don’t, I get so stiff and sore that I’m impossible to be around. That happens every single time it rains. And when I’m hurt, I’m an asshole, I’ll just tell you that now.”
My lips twitched.
“My family is certifiably whacko and highly fucked up,” he continued. “Dante has a family that he’s refusing to think about. Travis has a business that he’s running and wants me to go in with him, but I don’t want to because I can’t stand the thought of doing what he does. Reed has a crush on his ex-girlfriend and has since he was a teenager and old enough to get a hard-on.”
I laughed softly under my breath. “Then there’s Tobias and Finley, who live so far away from us that my mother can’t stand it. She never misses an opportunity to remind us that we were the ones who pushed them so far away—which we really didn’t. It was one fucking argument about how he was always up my mother’s ass, paired with some other shit that is a long fucking story, so Tobias decided to send a big f-u to us and went to live where Finley was. Finley has a daughter that my mother never gets to see, and while we’re on that subject, my mother will never miss an opportunity to tell you that she wants more grandkids. Now.”
I was shaking with silent laughter at that point. “My father is the only sane one of us all, but he’s a little sad because he misses his girls. He loves us, but he loved them more.”
At that, I sobered.
The thought of Baylor losing his sisters like he had was obviously still a fresh wound, even though it’d happened a while ago.
I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him tightly.
“The thought of you being a bitch to me kind of turns me on because then I can turn that frown upside down.”
At that I really did laugh.
“Your thighs are not fat. They’re fucking perfect, and when I go down on you, and you squeeze my head with them, my dick gets so hard that I want to fuck the ever-loving-hell out of you.”
I blushed.
“As for that degree in art? I don’t have one at all.” He paused, making certain that I saw that he didn’t care. “Does that make me less of a person?”
I immediately shook my head. “No.”
“You can be anything you want to be,” he told me. “You can go to school and become a goddamn clown for all I care, as long as you’re with me.”
My lip quivered, and my arms around his neck tightened.
“The three jobs, though?” he murmured. “Those are going to have to go.”
My mouth dropped open in surprise. That hadn’t been what I expected to hear.
“Hear me out,” he squeezed me lightly. “Pick one that you like…keep doing it. The other two? They’re not necessary.”
“You won’t have to have one if you move in with me…which you will be doing.”
I looked away.
“We’re going to get married. You’re going to have my name. We’re going to walk into the fucking sunset hand in hand, and if that little testicle tickler decides to rain on our parade, I’ll show him why he’s mistaken.”
“Testicle tickler?” I started to laugh. “And okay.”
“Okay?”
I shivered. “Okay.”
We were married twenty minutes later, and a five-minute drive back to the club after that, I was at a party that was solely for me and Baylor…and I didn’t freak out.
In fact, I’d go as far as to say that I’d had a good time.
Within reason, of course.
Chapter 21
I want to be a nice person, but everyone is just so stupid!
-Coffee Cup
Baylor
I stood in a corner and watched as my brother, Reed, spoke with my wife across the room.
We were at the club once again, but this was our official reception dinner.
Lark had officially been my wife for sixty-three hours.
I grinned at the encounter, happy that my family got along with Lark and didn’t condemn me for knowing her for such a short period of time before I married her.
My brothers knew just as well as I did that life could change in a heartbeat. They knew that nothing in life was guaranteed. I just wished that Dante was there. Then it would be complete.
“I found him.”
I turned to find Tobias at my side.
When had he gotten there?
“Found who?”
There could be two ‘hims’ to speak of, but I knew that only one of them was on my brother’s mind at that moment.
He glared at me. “You know fucking who.”
I grinned. “Where is he?”
“He’s back at his house now.”
“The one here?”
Dante and his wife had multiple houses. One in town. One on the lake an hour’s ride north, and one in fucking Utah of all places.
“The lake.”
The lake had been their newest acquisition. They’d bought the lake house about a week before the accident that had taken everything from him.
“Did you go say anything? About the baby?”
He shook his head. “Tried to go up there the other day but then you got married. Haven’t had time to do it since. And I’m leaving tomorrow so that's gonna fall on y’all’s shoulders. I don’t have much leave built up yet with the department, and it’s not going to get any better anytime soon due to short staffing.”
My brother was a state highway patrol officer stationed in Mooresville, Alabama. Lord knew why he wanted to be a police officer and deal with more bullshit after getting out of the military, but what the fuck ever.
“Why would we bother?”
I grimaced.
Dante was closest with Tobias. Always had been. Which was weird since they were the youngest and the oldest.
It was odd seeing their roles reversed, though.
Normally it was Dante taking care of Tobias. Now it was Tobias trying—and I say trying sparingly—to take care of Dante. Dante wouldn’t let him, though. He’d holed himself up wherever he’d holed himself up, and we hadn’t seen him for a damn long time.
Going on a year.
At least for me, anyway.
He’d shown up when Travis had gotten shot, but I hadn’t been one of the fortunate ones who’d witnessed that miracle.
“I’ll go out there tomorrow.” I sighed. “Any new updates on the baby?”
I asked Tobias, but my eyes were still trained on my new wife. She was laughing at something Reed was showing her on his phone. She pointed, clapped her hands, and then threw her head back and giggled.
It made me hard instantly.
The smile that lit my face was nothing short of cheesy, but I had to admit, I was fucking happy.
That smile slipped when I watched my other brother, Finley, approach them from behind.
He wasn’t sneaking or anything, but the moment he let his presence be known by touching Lark on the back, she flinched and crouched like she was preparing for a blow that was never going to come. Definitely not by my brother’s hand, anyway.
My stomach sank.
“What the fuck?”
I started walking, ignoring my brother’s question, and hurried to where Lark was standing.
Tobias had missed the whole story and I hadn’t had a chance to fill him in completely yet. He’d know by the end of the night, though. He’d figure it out, and he’d try to fix it.
He was our fixer. The rest of us were the shit stirrers.
The closer I got, the more I realized that Finley and Reed were looking rather ill. Both of my brothers had backed away, and Finley looked like he was going to vomit at any moment.
“Lark.”
Lark’s eyes snapped open and she stared at me with relief in her eyes. I watched as her back straightened, and she came out of her protective stance. I’d never seen this reaction from her. The one that told me for sure that she had been abused.
But she never reacted like that. I’d never seen her freak out before. It was baffling.
Why now?
But, if I were a betting man, I would say that this had a lot to do with the fact that her ex now knew exactly where she was, and I wasn’t letting her run like she wanted.
She didn’t feel safe.
And again, that really pissed me off. I wanted her to always feel safe with me, and damn her ex for doing this to her.
She came to me, burying her face into my chest as she said, “I’m sorry.”
She had nothing to be sorry for. Nothing.
I made eye contact with Reed and Finley, and they both took off, leaving us alone in the corner.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated again.
I ran my palm down the length of her hair, stopping once I reached her back.
“Why don’t you flinch any time I touch you?”
Why had I just asked that?
She seemed to slump in my arms, and I felt even worse for blurting out my inner thoughts.
“Trust.”
“What?”
“Trust,” she repeated. “I knew I could trust you.”
“How?”
“The day that you repossessed my car, I’d seen you earlier. At the gas station.” She cleared her throat. “You were trying to feed a stray dog. He was so skittish, and you were so patient with him.”
“What about when I come up to you from behind?”
She shrugged. “I feel you.”
“You feel me?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I feel you. You’re like a reassuring heat at my back. I can always feel when your eyes are on me. Like a warm hand is running down the length of my arm, telling me it’ll be all right.” She blew out a shaky breath. “I was looking at Reed’s phone, laughing about a meme he showed me, and I wasn’t prepared for someone to come up behind me. I thought there was a wall at my back.”
“There was,” I confirmed, continuing to run my hand down her hair. “He came out from the partition. There’s a hidden wall there that leads up to my office.”
She blew out a breath. “Of course, there is.”
I grinned. “Gotta have some secrets, darlin’.”
She pinched my side and pushed away from me. I let her go, but not far.
The moment she was standing up straight, I wrapped my arm around her and led her back to where Finley and Reed were talking with Tobias now.
“I’m sorry,” Lark said immediately. “I didn’t mean to react that way.”
Finley shrugged. “My ex-wife used to do that…before me,” he hastily added.
Lark just shook her head. “I’ve seen you with Leida. I know that you’re not like that.”
He’d given it a good go with his ex. Though she’d had a lot to overcome when it came to their relationship, she had so many ghosts in her past that their relationship was doomed from the start.
Finley got a good deal out of it in the end…his daughter.
A daughter who was currently leader of the pack as she squealed and played on the dance floor with the other kids.
“When are y’all going to start popping out some babies?”
That had come from Evander, who came up behind us.
I winced when his hand came down hard on my shoulder, making not just me, but Lark jolt, too.
“Sorry.” Evander looked regretful. “I didn’t see you there. He hides you well.”
Lark giggled. “He does, doesn’t he?”
I hadn’t realized I’d even done it, but the moment we’d walked up to my brothers, I’d maneuvered her so that she was in the shadows of the club, and my entire body was covering hers.
“And to answer your question, asshole,” I said to Evander. “I’m going to have babies…just not right now.”
The idea of having babies right now literally gave me hives.
“You don’t want babies now?”
“Uh-oh,” Finley said. “I can see that I came at the wrong time.”
Evander snorted and walked away just as fast as he’d come, leaving me alone with my brothers, who didn’t look the least bit willing to walk away like my friend did.
“I want babies,” I confirmed. “But thinking about having them right now makes me want to vomit.”
She stared at me. “If you didn’t want babies, why are we doing things…you know…like we’re doing them? That’s kind of inevitable.”
Tobias snorted, taking a sip of his beer, and clearly enjoying the show.
“No condoms?” Finley asked. “Have you forgotten everything I taught you?”
I flipped him off.
Finley had a pregnancy scare when he was young with his girlfriend at the time. Kind of. She’d been his almost girlfriend.
Later, as he’d matured, he’d told everyone that they needed to learn from his mistakes.
“You’re on birth control,” I felt the need to point out.
“Yes, but that fails.”
The thought of her birth control failing was something that sent me into a cold sweat.
What the Hail (The Hail Raisers Book 4) Page 14