Violet Ugly: A Contemporary Romance Novel (The Granite Harbor Series Book 2)

by J. Lynn Bailey

  I don’t fight this. I won’t ever fight against my feelings for Ryan Taylor again. I’ve learned my lesson.

  He takes my hand and leads me to the bathroom, shutting the door behind us. He leaves me to turn on the water. He undresses, and I cannot remember a time when I’ve felt so open to love. Open to a man who knows my secrets. My past. My future. A man who holds me up when I’m broken. That man is standing in front of me, naked, exposing his own worn truths. Open to me. To us.

  He reaches out to me—not because he doesn’t want to see us like this, but because there’s a need for our skin to be touching again. When he does this, I feel his hardness against my stomach, and my body grows with ache.

  “I can’t look at you like this and not get hard, Mer. I’ve never been able to do that. That takes power that just isn’t in me.” He smiles as he nuzzles my ear.

  I want him inside me.

  I want his best side.

  His worst side.

  I want all of it. I’ve seen all of it.

  He leads me to the now-hot shower, and we step in. The beats on my back feel like divine purpose, as if we’ve lived these tragedies, these experiences, to be right where we’re at today.

  When my mother died, I remember how angry I was that Dubbs, a cruel man, was still walking this earth. But, if Dubbs had died instead of Rebecca, maybe Ryan would be dead. Dubbs wouldn’t have been able to save him.

  Eli told me what had happened with Ronan and Mona and Ryan. I had gone to Eli first when I came home just because I knew the situation with Ryan would take a lot longer. We have a lot of lost time to make up for.

  Ryan puts his mouth to one breast. The mouth that I’ve longed for. He probes, the heat of his tongue when he teases me. He takes his mouth and moves to the next one. The urgency grows with each flick of my nipple, telling me he doesn’t just want me; he needs me.

  The shower pushes its wall of hot against my back while Ryan takes care of my front. He comes up to meet my lips, his hard chest against me. With both of his hands, he cups my jaw and stares down at me, looking at me with need.

  Needing my lips.

  Needing my body.

  Needing my whole heart.

  I want to feel him between my legs as my middle grows with weakness.

  “If I can’t have all of you, Merit, I’ll take small pieces instead.”

  Then, his lips crash against mine. It’s not soft. It’s hard. It’s not the kiss he wants to give; it’s the kiss he needs to give.

  My mouth is open, my body, too. Passion builds between my legs, inside my stomach, and straight to my heart as if I’m hearing it for the first time. Like I’ve been awakened by the last guard I had up, and I watch as it comes tumbling down.

  My fingernails trail down his back.

  My mouth takes him and we collide like it’s our first kiss and our last kiss and a lifetime full of memories.

  I can’t miss this.

  My body is fire, and Ryan is fuel.

  Our mouths push and pull.

  My hands slide down to his hips, and I hold him there, spreading my fingers apart to get a better grip. His hardness only reaffirms that we’re exactly where we need to be in life.

  I want to spread my legs, so he can do what he needs to in the shower. What we both need. Because this isn’t about promises.

  It’s about love and being wholly connected.

  Ryan looks down at me—not adoringly, but with dedication, with love. “I’m going to wash your hair, Merit.” He reaches for the inn’s small bottle of shampoo. He lathers it in his hand and washes my hair from the front.

  My breasts are against his chest, his erection against my stomach, and my hands are the only things holding us together.

  My folds pulsate.

  He rinses my hair and then takes the world’s smallest bar of soap and begins to wash my body. I reluctantly release him from me.

  His hands reach my thighs, and he pushes the bar of soap between them. Then, when I least think he’ll do it, he takes his fingertips and gently opens me up.

  I whimper, and my head drops to his chest.

  “Eyes on me. I need to watch you, Merit.” His tone is sweet and direct, all at the same time.

  I pull back and spread my legs a little bit, wanting to feel more of him.

  His fingers push inside me.

  I stare at Ryan and watch him as he watches me. I bite my lower lip as I feel his fingers move between my pink folds. My legs grow weak. He reaches the notch and lightly moves his fingers over it, and my entire body screams out in anticipation.

  “Ryan,” I cry out. “Please don’t make me come yet.”

  Slowly, he slides his fingers inside me. He stretches me. “I will be the last man to touch you like this. Do you understand, Merit?”

  “Yes,” I hiss.

  I call out.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Pause.

  “I will be the last man to make you cry out like this,” he says.

  “I need you, Ryan, inside me.” My voice quivers as I grab for his shoulders.

  “I know.”

  His mouth meets mine again, and our tongues push and move. We can’t get enough of each other through this kiss.

  I pull away, and his lips trail down my cheek, down my neck, as he moves his hand over my breast again.

  “Come on,” I say, turning off the water, pulling him by the hand.

  We step out, and I grab a stark white hotel towel. I pull it around both of us, knowing it won’t quite dry us off, but at least it will get some wetness off.

  I turn Ryan around to dry his back and once again see the cigarette burns. They used to make me furious. But, right now, I can look at them and know that Ryan is the man he is today because of what he’s been through. Still, I kiss each one. I kiss each one to remind him that he is loved, that he is so important, and that he matters.

  When we were kids, when Dubbs added a burn to the collection of burns, Ryan said he’d go to a place where he didn’t matter to overcome the pain. This broke me apart. We were around twelve or thirteen.

  “You matter, Ryan,” I tell him as he turns toward me.

  We walk to the bed I know we’ll share for the next few days. Come up for air. For water. Food maybe.

  This will take time.

  Our love will take its time.

  We’ll fix where we went wrong.

  He sits on the edge of the bed where I climb on top of him.

  When I move down, he slides inside me.

  I feel him again.

  It first takes adjusting, but I’m ready.

  He groans as he puts my breast in his mouth. I remember the red drips in my panties after the first time we made love. One thing Ryan isn’t is small.

  Ryan calls out as I reach the end of his length, “Oh my God, baby.” He closes his eyes first and then opens them to stare down at where we’re connected.

  I move up and down, stretching and growing and moving.

  Quickly, he grabs my hips. “Baby, you need to stop. I’m going to come, and I’m not ready to yet.”

  With ease, he lifts me up off him and holds me against him as I wrap my legs around his waist. He switches our positions. Putting my head at the headboard, he gently lays me down and pulls my legs apart.

  I blush as he stares at my body. “What?” I cover my face and smile before letting my hands then fall to my sides.

  Ryan smiles. My world lights up. For the first time in a long time, my world ignites when I see him smile.

  “You’re more beautiful than a moose in the early morning sunshine to a hunter with a moose tag.”

  I laugh.

  “You’re more beautiful than the love you give, Mer. You’re more beautiful than the kisses you give on my back. You’re more beautiful than when a sun rises and sets. You’re more. So much more.”

  Ryan starts with his lips on my mouth and slowly trails them down my neck and my chest, paying close attention to each breast. Down my stomach, down t
o the hair that protects my spot. Using his fingers, he pulls back my lips and pushes his tongue into my folds.

  He plays with my notch, and I cry out, “Ryan.”

  He watches me as I watch him.

  My breathing picks up pace with each flick of his tongue.

  My legs, like jelly, whimper in need, just as I do.

  Ryan pushes two fingers inside me.

  Oh, fuck.

  “No.”

  He freezes. “No?”

  “I mean, no, you can’t do that,” I say breathlessly as I sit up and take him in my hands. I bend down and put his tip in my mouth. “Not yet,” I say between licks.

  Ryan closes his eyes and eases back on his haunches as I take him in my mouth completely. I hear him breathing, his breaths getting louder with each motion of my mouth.

  He pulls me up to him, and our mouths crash together, our bodies moving with necessity. The necessity of each other. The necessity of love and desire.

  Ryan flips me around, and I grab the headboard.

  “Are you ready?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  He slides in me from behind, and it takes everything in me not to scream. Lovemaking is done behind closed doors. But, when he reaches around and touches my middle with his fingers, I cry out.

  We both come together. Hard.

  Thirty-Nine

  Ryan

  Granite Harbor, Maine

  Present Day

  Her still-damp hair is against my bicep while her head is against my shoulder.

  Please, if I’ve gone to heaven, let me stay here.

  Merit’s hand on my chest, she strokes my chest hair, and I feel her sigh against me, our bodies tired from telling each other just how much we need each other.

  “So, Dubbs isn’t your biological father.” Merit looks up at me.

  I shrug. “That’s what Ronan said. Guess Mona pretty much confirmed it when she didn’t say anything.”

  “How do you feel about all this?” she asks as she runs her hand over my chest.

  “Some people have mattered in my life, Mer. Some people have made an impact. Some people have come and gone. My parents are two I can think of. But nothing like you, Eli, Brand, and Rebecca. At this point in my life, I guess it doesn’t really matter who my parents are.” I’m quiet for a minute. “It might give my past some validity, I guess, just knowing where I came from, but it won’t make a difference. Might give me more insight, but I’m raised, Mer.” My arms tighten around her. “I don’t want to waste any more time. I spent a good chunk of my adult life looking for forever in all the wrong spots. But it was you I knew deep down that I needed.”

  Merit looks up at me, her green eyes wandering from my face to my chest and back to my face. “I’ve realized something.” I can tell she’s choosing her words carefully. “I blamed you, Ryan. I blamed you for my hurt. I blamed you for my mom and Destiny by pushing all my anger toward you. It wasn’t fair. I wasn’t sure how to process grief, so I didn’t. I just stuffed it deeper.”

  “Hey.” I try to pull her to me, but she stops by putting her hand on my chest.

  “Wait. I promise that, no matter what in this life, I won’t leave you.”

  “Mer, stop. It’s okay.”

  She shakes her head. “No, Ryan, it’s not okay. It’s not okay that others treated you like that. It’s not okay that I treated you the way I did. You deserve better.”

  I take a deep breath and rest my head back down against the mahogany headboard that has somehow survived the last hour of us making up for lost time. “Mer, there are no guarantees in life.”

  Merit’s face changes. Her eyes grow big, and her mouth opens.

  “What? Are you all right?”

  “Oh my God,” she whispers.

  “What?”

  She sits up and pulls the sheet to cover her breasts. “There was no other girl when I left. Was there?” Shock colors her face. “You didn’t want me to get an abortion. You just said it. There are no guarantees in life. You said this to me seventeen years ago. You couldn’t guarantee we’d make it, but you sure as hell knew my dream was not in Granite Harbor, that it was always in California. You weren’t going to let us hold me back. Oh my God. How come I didn’t see this before?” Merit’s head is in her hands, and then she stares back at me, waiting for an answer.

  Fuck. What should I say? I won’t lie to her. So, instead, I turn on my side and lightly touch her face. “What, Mer? What could we have done differently?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I can deal with my regret. The way I hurt her. I will take that on so fucking willingly, but I can’t stand the fact that Merit might have regret. The way she had to deal with Destiny and her death on her own, that’s another story.

  “You did it all for me.” She stares up at me as her eyes fill with tears.

  “I’m sorry you were alone when Destiny died.” My voice breaks because, now, I feel the wave of emotion. I catch the tears that fall from her eyes.

  She shakes her head. “I chose to have her on my own, Ryan. Don’t you see that? You can’t take responsibility for that. You didn’t know.”

  Her blonde hair gets lost among the white sheets, and it’s her stark green eyes that stand out the most.

  “I’ll spend every day making sure you know how much I love you, Ryan Taylor.”

  She takes my hand from her face, wet with her tears, and places it over her breast. Instantly, I feel it everywhere. Our bodies, which were once tired, are now on fire again as I harden against her opening.

  I drop my mouth to her breast again.

  “Again,” she says as I feel her legs widen for me.

  I sit up but not before giving her what she asked for. I take the other breast in my mouth, and then I see her splayed out in front of me, naked and vulnerable and beautiful. I slip two fingers inside her.

  “God, baby, you’re so wet again.”

  I watch her as she closes her eyes, and a small whimper escapes from her lips. My dick hardens for her, only for her. I push her folds back, so I can see how beautiful and pink she is. Sliding my fingers out, I put my mouth down on her to alleviate the itch that she so desperately needs scratched.

  “Ryan!” she calls out as her body tenses. “Stop.”

  She pushes back on my shoulders. She flips around, reaches for my hands from behind, and puts them on her. She takes my shaft in her hand and puts it inside her. She drops to her elbows, and I fucking groan. With her ass in front of me, I grab her hips and pull her closer to get as deep as I can.

  “Fuck,” I hiss as she moans.

  I reach around, take her notch in my hand, and apply pressure.

  She sits up and grabs the headboard with me still inside her, and I push again. I take her hand and put it down there with mine. Her hand guiding ours, she pushes on herself, and I fucking can’t handle it.

  “Turn your head. I need to watch you come,” I say.

  She does as she was told, and when she does, I put my tongue in her mouth as she moves her fingers. I grab her breasts from behind while pushing myself inside her.

  She comes loudly in my ear, and I do the same.

  We make good use of our time. Against the bathroom counter. In the shower. On the floor. Making up for lost time.

  It isn’t until six at night when we become hungry, and a text comes in from Eli.

  Eli: Meet us at Angler’s for dinner at six thirty?

  All Merit seems to do when she gets ready is jump in the shower, which we’ve done a few times today, blow-dry her hair, and put that shiny stuff on her lips—lip gloss or whatever it’s called.

  I really haven’t talked to Eli since the whole thing happened. I’ve been trying to find the right words to thank my best friend for saving my life.

  When we get to Angler’s, Merit moves to our table in her little red summer dress. Merit is talking with her hands, which means she’s excited. I think she’s missed Alex and maybe she’s excited about us, too.

  Felix is wor
king the bar. “Heard about what happened. These are on the house.” Felix passes Eli and me two beers.

  “Can’t. Gotta pay for them,” I say. “But thank you, Felix.” I throw two twenties down. “Can we also get two house reds?” I look at Eli. “These are on me.”

  “Sure thing.” Felix goes to retrieve the wine.

  I look at Eli. “Thank you. For everything.”

  “You would have done it for me.” He tries to be casual. Takes a drink of his beer.

  There’s no doubt about that. I would have.

  Felix comes back with the wine and takes the cash on the counter to the register.

  “Do me a favor?” Eli asks after he takes a drink of his beer.

  “What’s that?”

  “Stay out of hospitals for at least six months. Please.”

  Aaron and Ethan Casey, twins, friends and fellow wardens, walk into Angler’s just as Lydia does.

  It isn’t awkward with Lydia at all. First of all, my fucking ego said to learn her name. There are Merits to other men and should be treated as such. I think Merit is secure enough with me to know that she’s my only forever.

  “Something’s different about you, Taylor.” Shannon, the cocktail waitress who hates me, approaches the bar to get her drink order from Felix. “The cocky bastard you once were doesn’t seem to be the same guy you are tonight. So, thank you, on behalf of women all over Maine. Thank you for not being a total cock.” She goes about her business.

  Eli looks at me and laughs. “I’m glad you and Merit are a thing.” He shakes his head. “I haven’t seen her this happy since before Mom died.”

  What he says hits me in the gut. Wasted years. But maybe they weren’t wasted. Maybe that’s how she and I got here today, where it all started back then, building the foundation for us. Maybe we were both at the right place and at the right time. For each other.

  “I’d like to ask Merit to marry me, Eli. If that’s okay with you?”

  Eli’s smile starts at the corners of his mouth. The same grin he gave Alex on their wedding day. This way, I know it’s genuine.

  “You as a brother-in-law? Oh, fuck. Pain in my ass.”

  We both smile. Take a pull from our beers.