by W Winters
There’s a moment when someone looks directly into your soul, and you feel what they feel. The loss, the insignificance, the agony of being alone. I can feel it from him as he looks up at me and I can’t stand seeing it. My hand finds his and I squeeze it with both of mine, needing him to know I’m here now. “I don’t want to leave, and I regret it. I regret ever walking out that door,” I plead with him. And he squeezes my hand back before bringing my wrist to his lips and leaving a slow, tender kiss there. A kiss that feels like goodbye.
Finally, he speaks and it’s nothing that I ever expected. “I promise I’ll be a good father. I swear to you I will.”
I can’t speak.
“Give me a chance. Just one chance,” he begs me, as if I’d ever leave his side again. “I’ll be good to you, I’ll be a good father, I promise.” He swallows thickly.
“I’m ashamed at what I did and who I was. Please, Aria, we don’t have to tell him.”
“What?” I question him as I struggle to keep up with whatever he’s thinking. I know he’s not well now, he’s still in pain and on meds. He’s only just woken up. “Tell who?” I ask him, my heart racing.
“Our baby,” he says as he looks up at me and brings his hand to my cheek, his thumb running under my eye to brush away the tears gathered there. “We don’t have to tell them what a monster I was,” he whispers the strained words and I lose all composure, covering my mouth with my hand and falling into him. I’m mindful of my weight and make sure to keep it off of him, but my God do I need him to hold me. And I need to hold him.
In this moment and forever.
“I love you, Carter,” is all I can manage when I finally look up to him.
My breath and words leave me as a heat flows over me, taking every bit of the bitter cold and banishing it from me. I crash my lips to Carter’s and he’s quick to cradle my head with his hand, pinning me to him and deepening the kiss. His tongue slips between my lips and I grant him entry. Our tongues mingle and he massages mine with swift, possessive strokes.
I don’t breathe until he breaks away.
“I would do anything for you.” He says the words as if they’re a confession. “I swear, you are the only thing that matters to me. Nothing else matters. Only you and our baby.” As he speaks, his hand slips to my waist. He gazes at my midsection as if he can already see me swollen with our child. The very vision is what caused me to run in the first place.
“I’m scared.” The wretched confession makes me feel that much weaker.
“Don’t be.” Carter’s words are simple, but impossible.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” I tell him, feeling the raw truth of fear lingering in the statement.
Carter’s eyes search mine as I climb into the small bed with him, needing to be closer to him and not giving a shit if there’s barely any room. I need my body pressed to his. I need to feel him breathing. The second he embraces me, my worries slip away, lost in the haze of knowing I’m where I’m supposed to be. Beside Carter Cross. Our present and our future tied together.
“We will rule. That’s what’s going to happen, my songbird.”
I can feel my heart twist in my chest, praying I’ll be the woman he wants me to be. Praying our lives can’t pull us apart anymore. And as my mind whirls with every possible outcome of what could be, I realize there’s not a damn thing that could tear me away from him. Not one fucking thing.
“Marry me. You belong with me, Aria.” Carter’s dark eyes pin me in place, taking my breath and refusing to give it back. “Marry me,” he repeats lowly, a barely spoken yet desperate whisper. His warm breath cradles my cheek as he lowers his lips to mine and gently kisses me before I can answer. With his forehead leaning against mine and his hand gripping my hip in place, he whispers his plea again. “Marry me.”
I cling to him, burying my head in his chest and breathing in the scent of a man I’m madly in love with as I nod my head and let the ragged whisper leave me with the desperation for all of this to be real, “Yes.” He’s alive. He’s with me. And he wants me as his partner, his wife, his love.
He lifts my head with both of his hands on my face and presses a soft kiss to my lips. It’s only then that I taste the salt of tears I hadn’t known I was shedding.
“You’re everything to me,” he whispers against my lips as he brushes away the tears with his thumb.
“Tell me everything is going to be all right,” I beg him. My words beg him. My body caves to his in the way it’s always willed me to. The moment I saw him, I knew deep in the marrow of my bones that I belonged to this man. The other half to my soul. Holding his life to mine is the worst thing I’ve ever felt in this world. Every second that passed, I was afraid to move, knowing he was bleeding out beneath me. He lost so much blood, he barely made it and I can’t help but to think that if I’d made the wrong move, if I hadn’t held him as tightly as I could for as long as I did, he wouldn’t be here anymore. I would have lost him.
“I never want you to leave me again. Never,” I whisper the last word, pushing myself closer to him; every inch of me that can be pressed against him is. And Carter does what he’s best at. He keeps me close, holding me to him as if I’ll fly away if only he loosened his grip. But I’ll never do that again. Never.
“As long as you love me, it will.” His words are whispered along my skin, sending a trail of goosebumps down my body as he plants a small kiss on my shoulder. “Because I love you.” His rough stubble grazes my shoulder, and I hope it scars me. I hope I can feel him, see him, have evidence of his love forever.
“I love you, Carter.” The truth is the easiest thing to speak in this moment. A raw confession that will save us from whatever is to come.
“I love you, songbird.” His rough voice is deep, the depths of sincerity so true, it numbs every pain inside of me. Every pain that’s ever existed.
Days have passed since we came home.
It’s odd to think of this place as home, but that’s all it is to me now. It’s more of a home to me than my father’s place ever was. Simply because of the people in it.
“You need to take it easy.” I try to keep my voice from sounding like I’m nagging Carter, but every time he leans to his side on the bed to grab something from the bedside table, I see him grimace. “You’re still healing.”
I’m quick to reach over, careful not to put my weight on him and grab his phone for him. The vibrating of notifications is a constant, but even still, the moment I hand it to him, he silences it.
Jase and Sebastian have taken the lead while Carter’s been on bedrest at home. It’ll take time for the wounds to heal, even if my beast still thinks he’s untouchable.
I still can’t breathe around him. The fear of losing him won’t leave me.
“You keep saying that,” he remarks with the same evenness I give him, but the smile on his lips, the genuine happiness in his eyes, haven’t left him since I told him about the baby. Every time I look into his eyes, I see it and it’s so raw, so much so, that I can barely stand to hold his gaze.
“I’m serious, Carter,” I reprimand him although my actions are anything but. Moving to straddle him on the bed, the sheet slips around me, puddling behind us as I settle gently in his lap and take his stubbled jaw in my hands. “I need you,” I whisper.
The corners of his lips kick up, and his large hands wrap around my waist, gentle and comforting. I rest my forehead on his with my lips so close to his as he tells me, “I need you too.”
He gives me a quick kiss. And then another.
“Did you take another test?” he asks me and I can hear the playfulness in his voice. He thinks I’m odd for taking a pregnancy test every day, but I have my reasons. The line is supposed to stay strong and dark, because then it means the baby is still there and until the six-week mark is here, I need the tests for my sanity.
“Yes,” I tell him. I almost mention how Addison’s the one who told me. She said the line gets weaker if you lose the baby. She’s wai
ting like I am.
Instead, I’m distracted by a kiss on my neck. A languid one that makes my nipples pebble. His rough stubble runs along my skin, instantly making me wanton.
“You need to heal.” I practically hiss the words with longing as his lips move to the dip just below my collar and his right hand reaches up to my breast. Plucking my nipple between his fingers, he finally raises his gaze to my eyes and tells me, “All I need is you.”
He’s wrong though. There’s so much more he needs. Much more than I could ever give him.
He’s a wounded man, with scars so deep he can’t help but to be weighed down by them.
I’m still waiting on edge for something to come between us, but Carter seems hellbent on keeping us together. And so am I. I won’t allow for love not to be enough.
Carter’s fingertips glide easily up my neck, leaving goosebumps in their wake until he wraps his hands around my throat. His thumb runs down the underside of my chin and then lower, down to the center of my throat. His lips are parted just slightly, his breathing ragged as he hardens under me, his thick length pressing against me.
“I will do anything for you.” He utters the words with such an intensity before slowly raising his gaze to meet mine.
My damn heart belongs to him. It only starts beating when he looks at me like that. I swear it’s true. Whatever else it does when he’s not around isn’t what it’s doing now.
“You’re so intense,” I whisper, not knowing what else to say, but my words are lost in the haze of lust that lingers between us.
I don’t know if it’s the fact that I’m obviously hot for him or some other reason, but Carter gives me a lazy smirk before moving the back of his fingers up my silk shirt and gently pinching my nipple.
My natural instinct is to playfully smack him away, but he’s too quick, grabbing my wrist and pinning it behind me.
Even while I straddle him, he commands me.
“You make me this way,” he tells me with a deep voice and leans forward to kiss me at the same time as he pinches my hardened peak. I have to gasp as he does, breaking the kiss and arching my neck. He takes the moment to lightly run his teeth along my sensitized skin, and I know I’m done for. Any authority I had over him is gone.
Carter is an untamable beast. But I’ll be damned if I’d have him any other way.
“It all feels better when I’m with you,” he murmurs against my skin and his tone sounds raw and hints at the pain that will forever scar who we are. With both hands on his jaw, I stare deep into his eyes, bright with sincerity. “All of it,” he tells me.
“It’s going to be okay.” I offer him words I pray are true. I’d do anything for this man and without anything between us, nothing will keep us apart.
“Better than okay,” he says before kissing me sweetly, only breaking away to add, “I promise.”
Chapter 100
Jase
It was supposed to be me.
The car moves over a speed bump a little too fast, and my hard body sways in the sedan. My grip tightens on the wheel, and I try to swallow the hard lump that’s been suffocating me since I learned the truth about Tyler’s death.
It was a hit… on me. A fucking hoodie is the reason he’s ten feet in the ground and I’m still here, taking every day for granted.
Slowing at the stop sign, I let a deep breath calm the anxiety running through me. With a war raging and an unknown enemy taking pieces of us as he pleases, I don’t have time to get lost in the unfortunate past. No matter how much I long to go back. If only we could go back.
The hum of the engine as I roll over another speed bump keeps me in the present.
I shouldn’t have come out right now. Spending the afternoon in the burbs isn’t exactly on my normal to-do list.
But I had to get out of the house and away from my brothers. The regret and guilt and mourning that lingers in their eyes haunts me day and night. It was supposed to be me. It wasn’t.
There’s nothing I can do to change it. But I can pay Beth a visit and quiet her.
My keys jingle as the ignition turns off and the soft rumble of the engine is silenced.
Wiping a hand over my face, I get out of the car, not caring that the door slams as my shoes hit the pavement. The neighborhood is quiet and each row of streets is littered with picture-perfect homes, nothing like the home I grew up in. Little townhouses of raised ranches, complete with paved driveways and perfectly trimmed bushes. A few houses have fences, white picket of course, but not 34 Holley, the home of Bethany Fawn, also known as the woman who keeps raising hell at the Red Room. More recently she’s been calling the cops and demanding answers. She’s the woman who blames Carter for her sister’s untimely death. Her sister Jennifer, a girl we met in the Red Room weeks ago. A girl in a mess she couldn’t get out of, with a drug addiction she couldn’t kick.
I know all about wanting someone to blame and looking for answers to questions that don’t make any difference once you have them. Bethany’s hurt and angry, but she won’t find any answers from us. A simple warning should scare her off.
The skin over my knuckles tightens and the cuts from a few nights before crack open, sending a pain shooting up my arm. I welcome the seething reminder that I’m alive.
Knock, knock, knock. She’s in there, I can hear her. Time passes without anything but the sound of scuttling behind the door, but just as I’m about to knock again, the door opens a few inches. Only enough to reveal a peek of her.
Her chestnut hair falls in wavy locks around her face. She brushes the fallen strands out of her face to peek up at me.
“Yes?” she questions and my lips threaten to twitch into a smirk.
“Bethany?” Her weight shifts behind the door as her gaze travels down the length of my body and then back up to meet mine before she answers me.
The amber in her hazel eyes swirls with distrust as she tells me, “My friends call me Beth.”
“We haven’t met before... but I’ll happily call you Beth.” The flirtatious words slip from me easily, and slowly her guard falls although what’s left behind is a mix of worry and agony. She doesn’t answer or respond in any way other than to tighten her grip on the door.
“Mind if I have a minute?”
She purses her her full lips slightly as the cracked door opens an inch more to cautiously reply, “Depends on what you’re here for.”
My heartbeat gallops, trotting faster in my chest as the anxiety rises. I’m here to give her a warning. To stay the hell away from the Red Room and to get over whatever ill wishes she has for my brothers and me.
It’s a shame really; she’s fucking gorgeous. There’s an innocence, yet a fight in her that’s just as evident and even more alluring. Had I met her on other terms, I would do just about anything to get her under me and screaming my name.
The swirling colors in her eyes darken as her gaze dances over mine. As if she can read my thoughts and knows the wicked things I’d do to her that no one else ever could. But that’s not why I’m here, and my sick perversions will have to wait for someone else.
I lean my shoulder against her hard walnut front door and slip my shoe between the gap in the doorway, making sure she can’t slam it shut. Instead of the slight fear I thought may flash in her eyes as my expression hardens, her eyes narrow with hate and I see the beautiful hue of pink in her pale skin brighten to red, but it’s not with a blush, it’s with anger.
“You need to stay out of the Cross business, Beth.” I lean in closer, my voice low and even. My hard gaze meets her narrowed one, but she doesn’t flinch. Instead she clenches her teeth so hard I think they’ll crack.
With the palm of my hand carefully placed on the doorjamb and the other splayed against her door, I lean in to tell her that there are no answers for her in the Red Room. I want to tell her my brother isn’t the man she’s after, but before I can say a word she hisses at me, “I know all about Marcus and the drug and why you assholes had her killed.”
My p
ulse hammers in my ears but even over it, I hear the strained pain etched in her voice. Her breathing shudders as she adds, “You will all pay for what you did to my sister.” Her voice cracks as her eyes gloss over and tears gather in the corners of her eyes.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell her as the anger rises inside of me. Marcus. Just the name makes every muscle inside of my body tighten and coil.
The drug.
Marcus.
Before I can even tie what she’s said together, I hear the click of a gun and she lets the door swing open, throwing me off-balance.
Shock makes my stomach churn as the barrel of a gun flashes in front of my eyes. She leans back, moving to hold the heavy metal piece with both hands. Lunging forward, still off-balance as fear stirs in my blood, I grip the barrel and raise it above her head, shoving her small body back until it hits the wall in her foyer.
Bang!
The gun goes off and the flash of heat makes the skin of my hand holding the barrel burn and singe with a raw pain. Her lower back crashes into a narrow table, a row of books toppling over and mail falls onto the floor as I stumble into her and finally pin her to the wall.
Her small shriek of fear is muted when I bring my right hand to her delicate throat. My left still grips the gun. She struggles beneath me but with a foot on her height and muscle she couldn’t match no matter how hard she tried, it’s pointless. Her heart pounds so hard, I feel it matching mine.
She yelps as I lift the gun higher, ripping it from her grasp. Both of her hands fly to the one I have tightening on her throat.
She tried to kill me. I can’t fucking believe it.
Barely catching my breath, I don’t let anything show except for the absolute control I have over her. The door is wide open and I’m certain someone would have heard. A faint breeze carries in from behind me and I take a step back, pulling her with me just enough so I can kick the door shut and then press her back to it. Her pulse slows beneath my grip and her eyes beg me for mercy as her sharp nails dig into my fingers. A second passes before I loosen my grip just enough so she can breathe freely.