Forever Tattooed (Tattooed Billionaire Book 3)

by Alicia Rae

  He immediately paused and glanced over his shoulder at me. “Raelyn, I haven’t seen you in over forty-eight hours, and I barely saw you for a couple of hours the two days before that. Give a guy a break. I’m desperate to have you near me.”

  I felt the same, regardless of the existing barrier of unspoken words between us, so I passed by him and went to the passenger door.

  Damien came to stand at my side. My heart skipped an uneven beat with him only inches away from me. That invisible gravitational force between us sparked, causing my pulse to accelerate.

  He pulled out his key fob and jingled his keys in his hands. “It’s killing me not to kiss you right now.” His spare hand came to my chin where he gently grasped it, forcing me to stare at his stunning grays.

  I wanted him to, more than anything. But feeling his tender lips on mine wouldn’t get me the answers I needed. I had to maintain a clear mind, and that never happened when he kissed me.

  I slightly rotated my neck to gaze past him, unable to mask the pain. My heart was weeping for him. “Please don’t. We need to talk.”

  He pulled ever so gently, forcing me to look at him once again. “We’ll talk,” he agreed. His tone filled with perseverance as he continued, “But, afterward, don’t think for one second that I won’t fight for you, Raelyn, because I will. I love you. I have no intentions of letting you go. Not now, not ever. I’ll chase you to the ends of the earth, gorgeous girl. You’ll always be mine.”

  Deep down, my subconscious realized that he’d just admitted that he wouldn’t bring me back to my car tonight. My hope shimmered brightly above all else. His determination was burning fiercely, which meant we were unbreakable. He wouldn’t let me leave. He loved me enough to share his past with me. Damien was finally going to open up to me.

  He must have taken my silence as an agreement because he unlocked the car and opened the passenger door for me. I slipped inside the vehicle and put on my seat belt.

  Damien came around to the driver’s seat and climbed in. The confined space was greater than I could bear, for the emotions bristling between us were more than words could ever describe. I was on the verge of succumbing to the feelings overflowing out of me.

  It wasn’t until his hand found mine that I felt centered.

  twenty-five

  Damien

  After I parked the car, I had no choice but to let go of Raelyn’s hand to come around to her side of the vehicle to open the door. She stepped out onto the driveway. The nervousness and uncertainty on her face hit me square in the chest as I sent the door in motion to close behind her.

  “Walk with me?” I asked gruffly, pointing to the side of the house, intending to take a stroll along the beach. I wasn’t normally a man of many words, and this was going to take a fucking ton of them, so I wanted to be where I felt the most at home.

  “Sure.”

  I immediately sought out her hand again before I took my first step. Her proximity and touch not only calmed me, but it also gave me strength.

  And, tonight, I really fucking needed it.

  As we reached the shore all too soon, I dreaded the upcoming moment, knowing I would have to rewind my mind and travel back into the forsaken dark days of my past. I felt the heavy chains wrap around my chest where the thick metal instantly tightened around my flesh, constricting painfully and slowly and sucking all the air out of my lungs.

  It was torture and pure fucking hell.

  But I would do it. For her. I loved Raelyn enough to give her what she needed—the truth. No matter how much it’d hurt me to relive it.

  The salty air of the sea hit my senses, and I inhaled a deep breath. “You already know that I didn’t have a normal childhood and that I wasn’t loved by my gold-digging mother.” I expelled all the air out of my lungs. “But I’ve never spoken of my stepfather, Terrance. Terrance Stevens.” Just saying his name compared to someone shoving battery acid down my throat.

  “By the time I was two years old, Annabelle married Terrance for his deep pockets. One of my earliest memories of Terrance that I can recall was him cracking me across the jaw for sneaking one extra cookie after school. I fell out of my chair and split the back side of my ear wide open on the corner of a cabinet. Both Annabelle and Terrance refused to take me to the hospital to get stitches—not out of fear of child neglect, but solely because they didn’t care enough to attend to me.”

  Raelyn sucked in a sharp breath, one laced with anger and hurt, as I automatically rubbed the line at the back of my ear, feeling grateful the hidden scar had flattened over the years.

  “From that day on, I lived my life in fear. Terrance, on the other hand, seemed to rejoice every second that I was around him. As I began to grow, being backhanded, slapped across the face, or shoved to the ground were soon the least of my worries, and it was obvious that he’d become obsessed with seeing how hard he could hit me and get away with it.”

  The weight of my heart wilting in my chest made each step along the sandy beach more difficult. “I’d beg, cry, and plead with Annabelle to help me, to save me from the pain. But—” I broke off, filling with resentment that blackened my soul. “She never did. Annabelle always had an excuse as to why I’d deserved to be reprimanded so harshly. I never got good enough grades, I never kept the house clean enough, I was too needy, I wasn’t nice enough to Drake, or I wasn’t worthy enough. The list never ended. I was reminded of my failures every day.

  “There wasn’t a single day in my childhood that I smiled. I was a brokenhearted kid, living in a fucked up house with fucked up parents, and most days, I believed it was my fault because I hadn’t pleased them enough. I was never enough.”

  I puffed out a breath before continuing, “On the other hand, Drake was the golden child. He was three years older than me. His mom died while giving birth to him. Terrance loved him more than life itself. In Terrance’s eyes, Drake was always on a pedestal. He was untouchable, and he never did wrong. His poor grades were acceptable. His mistakes were my fault because Terrance believed Drake was the epitome of perfection.

  “Annabelle always sided with Terrance and Drake without a sliver of guilt in her eyes when she looked at me.” I laughed in disgust. “My well-being or happiness wasn’t worth the risk of her losing her high-profile lifestyle. All she cared about was having free access to Terrance’s money.

  “By my early teens, I’d lost count of the times Terrance had put me in the emergency room. He and Annabelle had coached me to give excuses to the doctors and nurses. My broken collarbone was from falling out of a tree, not because Terrance had pushed me down a flight of stairs. A fractured forearm was because I’d rolled a four-wheeler—one that was only for Drake to play on and have fun with—not because Terrance had slammed my arm in a door. And so much more. I didn’t dare defy their requests. I wasn’t stupid. I got enough beatings as it was; there was no reason to provoke another one.” I sighed gravely, stuck in my own private hell of reminiscences.

  “The scars…are those from Terrance, too?” she asked, barely above a whisper.

  “No, those are from me.” My eyes fell to the ground in shame.

  “Why?” she cried on a gasp. “Why would you cut yourself?”

  “Because I was in pure hell, Raelyn. I was raised in a house, feeling only one emotion—fear. That’s it. Every day, I feared getting the shit kicked out of me. I didn’t have birthdays. I didn’t have Christmases. I wasn’t hugged by parents who cared for me. I wasn’t showered with love. Ever.” I took a breath and reiterated, “I lived every single day in fear. That was my life. And, with years of harboring that kind of dreadful anxiety, there would come times when I wondered if dying would be easier than living. There were days I wanted to die. The self-inflicted cuts were a reminder that, even though I was trapped inside a bottomless dark hole without an ounce of light, I was still breathing, and that fucker hadn’t killed me off yet. I needed the pain. It reminded me that I was alive,” I finished, feeling the jagged marks beneath the ink burn. The t
attoos were there to cover the remnants of a weak, vulnerable time in my life.

  “I’m so very sorry,” Raelyn cried, her voice overcome with anguish. “That must have been so, so awful.”

  My movements were brought to a halt when Raelyn’s arm tugged on mine, breaking my trance. I pivoted to see she was riveted in her spot. Her body shook with violent tremors, and her cheeks were soaked with tears. She was on the verge of crumbling.

  “I-I”—she sobbed uncontrollably—“I can’t walk anymore.” The quick rise and fall of her chest was strained and increasing by the second. “I-I can’t breathe.”

  My body was pressed into hers in an instant, and my arms looped around her, holding her, comforting her, loving her.

  No one had ever cried for me.

  No one had ever taught me how to love another soul, but with Raelyn, it came so naturally. I didn’t have to think about it. I just felt it.

  Her legs gave way. I guided us to the ground, supporting her weight. Once sitting on the damp sand, I pulled her onto my lap. Her legs wrapped around my waist, and she nuzzled her nose into the crook of my neck while I tightly held her, never wanting to let her go. The sound of her cries instigated my own tears to fall as my excruciating past washed over me with the brute force of a car rapidly colliding with a brick wall.

  I cried for the boy I once had been.

  I thanked my lucky stars for having the strength to overcome fear and for finding love.

  We sat there with our arms locked around one another—for how long, I was unsure. Eventually, our labored breathing evened out and steadied. The breeze dried the moisture on our faces. The hammering of my pulse slowed to a more reasonable speed.

  I didn’t want to talk anymore. However, the urge to get my past off my chest was too great to ignore. I needed her to know and understand every part of me, and I prayed so fucking hard that, afterward, we could put it behind us, once and for all, and that Raelyn would find it in her heart to forgive my once callous, cold heart.

  My throat was dry, so I swallowed before speaking, “By the time I was fifteen, I was growing fast and packing on a lot of muscle, so I was stronger than I used to be when he ruthlessly beat and abuse me as a kid. I could hold my own better. Terrance quickly realized I was becoming larger, and it only drove him to hit me that much harder. He took to more extreme measures to make sure that, when he did knock me to the ground, I’d stay there. When I bled from my mouth or nose, he’d punch me again, as though he wanted to see it pour out instead of drip.

  “I knew I needed to get out from under his roof, or there might eventually be a time when I couldn’t. So, right after my sixteenth birthday, I went to court to file a case against my parents. It was a long, dragged out battle to emancipate myself, but I won. I was finally set free.”

  Still managing to stay close, Raelyn drew back and set one hand on my shoulder while bringing the other to my arm where she stroked her index finger along the inside, passing over the Roman numerals in bold black ink with dark shading all around that faded into the rest of my tribal sleeve.

  I-II-I-V

  “One, two, one, five…I remember it stands for December fifteenth—the day you became free from your past?” she whispered, remembering one of the few things I’d shared with her when she probed me with questions.

  “Yes.” I moved my head up and down in agreement. The profound feelings of relief and contentment I’d felt that day so long ago settled over me. I’d never forget that life-changing moment. It was the very first time I’d ever felt hope and not fear.

  I couldn’t help but tense beneath her, for this story had no happy ending. It’d only ended ghastlier than it had begun.

  “Living on my own was the first time I ever felt happiness. Do you remember meeting Oliver Hutchinson at the charity event for A Voice for Kids?”

  “Oh, yes,” she answered softly. “He was a very nice man, who told me that you TPed his house at the ripe age of fourteen.”

  “I did, but later, I cleaned it up and apologized.” I smiled fondly, recalling that day crystal clear. “It was the first time I got into trouble as a kid and wasn’t physically struck for my actions. Instead, Oliver offered to take a walk with me where he spoke his feelings to me. He told me that what I had done was wrong, made me pick up my mess, and instructed me to apologize. It was a life-altering experience to be around a grown man and not be subjected to his massive knuckles cracking me in the jaw.

  “I owe everything to Oliver. He put me on the right track. He showed me that my life could change, that I deserved better. He paid for my attorney and helped me get my first studio apartment. It wasn’t much, and it was small, but I fucking loved it. It was my first place, and it was mine to have all to myself. I worked day and night while going to school, determined to make something of myself.”

  Raelyn shifted on my lap, snuggling closer, as I kept going, “Then, one Friday evening, about two months after my emancipation had been completed, things took a turn for the worst. I vividly remember that day. I got home just after nine. It was dark out, and I was dead tired after a long day of school and work. I opened my apartment door and found a dark shadow sitting on my old sofa in the living room.

  “I didn’t need a light to know that it was Terrance waiting for me, but I flipped it on anyway. His expression was livid, and his demeanor radiated with bitterness. He was outraged that I had been making it on my own without him. The determined look in his eyes was crystal clear. He wanted me back under his roof, so I’d remain his beating post, and he came that night to drag me back home where I belonged. I knew right then and there, I wasn’t going to go back to that house with him.”

  A bolt of adrenaline rushed down my spine. “Things quickly got out of control. I was bigger and stronger than the little kid he used to beat to a bloody pulp. He came at me full speed with a fury and rage ten times what I’d witnessed in the past.

  “I was able to hold my own for a while, but eventually, his raw strength and skills overpowered me, and I found myself pinned beneath him with his hands wrapped around my throat. The sheer strength within his grip was quickly weakening me, and I felt the life draining out of me.

  “I knew he usually carried a gun on him when he left the house. So, I took a chance. I let go of his forearms to reach around to his back. I lucked out; he’d brought his nine millimeter that night. I grabbed it and pointed it at him.”

  I briefly closed my eyes and then reopened them. “As Terrance let go of my neck to surrender his hands in front of himself, my past pierced the depths of my chest. Fourteen years of abuse flashed through my mind, all at once, blasting me with painful memories. All the times he’d laid a hand on me—opened fist, closed fist, back of his hand. Every mistake I’d ever made that he used as an excuse to hit me. Each time he’d locked me in my room without so much as a scrap of food for dinner, laughing on the other side of the door as I cried and doubled over with hunger pains. The myriad of nights he’d come home, drunk or sober, to kick and beat the living piss out of me, covering me in bruises, with an arrogant look on his face, rejoicing in my helplessness to defend myself. Not a single day of my childhood passed without me limping or flinching or living in pure terror. Pain was all I knew as a kid. It was part of my life as much as breathing. The pain, the suffering—it all came out and slammed into me, hitting me like a ton of bricks…and I pulled the trigger,” I breathed, forcing long pulls of air in and out of my lungs while feeling them burn, just as they’d done that day when Terrance had his hands wrapped around my neck.

  Raelyn inhaled a breath, going completely still in my lap. I gazed at her, my eyes burning into hers, pleading for her to show me mercy for my sin.

  “The judge ruled it as self-defense, but to me, that will always be arguable.”

  “He had his hands around your neck, Damien. Choking someone isn’t a punch. Not that either is acceptable.”

  “But he released me, Raelyn, and I still pulled the trigger.”

  “You can’t predict wh
at would have happened if you’d lowered the gun though. That alone could have sent him off the deep end. He could have killed you.”

  I’d thought about that, too, for somewhere in the middle of our fight, Terrance hadn’t tried to drag me out of the apartment. He’d resorted to sitting on me and locking his hands around my throat.

  “Maybe.” I shrugged my shoulders, recollecting the great deal of controversy it had stirred within the town. “Regardless, I can’t seem to make myself feel remorse for what I did. I do feel guilty for taking a human being’s life, but at the same time, I don’t. Terrance never showed me pity. He never once gave me an inkling of compassion or love. I want you to understand that I’d never hurt another soul. He was the one exception.” I hung my head, unsure if I was making sense or if I really was fucking crazy.

  “I know it’s wrong of me to ask for your forgiveness, but I can’t stop myself from doing so or from wanting you to stay with me. You are truly my piece of heaven that I don’t deserve.”

  A quietness settled over us, and I felt Raelyn’s mind and heart at work as she silently pondered over everything I’d tossed at her tonight.

  She placed her hand on my chest. “I don’t blame you for what happened to Terrance. You were fighting for your life, Damien. A grown man doesn’t choke someone for fun. You did what anyone would have done; you defended yourself.”

  Hope flourished within me as she cupped either side of my face and stroked my two-day-old stubble.

  “I love you, Damien. Every single part of me loves every part of you.” The words were spoken slowly and meaningfully. “You’ve captured my heart, completely and irrevocably, and your past has absolutely no effect on that. My love for you is unbreakable.”

  If I’d loved Raelyn before, it was nothing compared to how I felt now, knowing she accepted me, all of me, for who I was. I didn’t have to hide my past from her. She knew, and she loved me anyway.