With some of the questions, I hadn’t the faintest idea what the answers could be, like what the garbage pickup days were or the color of the kitchen curtains. This seemed kind of crazy, even to me, since I’d lived there for four years and I could never really be arsed enough to pay attention.
I sorta had vague answers for some, but knew no specifics.
“What kind of birth control do you two use?” Larry asked. He seemed to find some sick pleasure in asking about the really private things.
“Um, she gets shots or something.”
“And your wife’s favorite position?”
Frank blanched at that question.
We tend to knock knickers most up against the wall, I thought to myself, which made me smile, even as it made me yearn.
And then there was one question that made my chest tighten. It made me miss her and wish I had done so many things different so many times.
“So, does she have any scars or tattoos?” Larry asked.
Always hungry,
Craving,
Desperate and fading,
A twisted, tortured memory
Of you
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, a couple tattoos.”
He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “What are they and where are they located?”
“Well, she’s got one on her lower back, just kind of a swirly heart and flowers. Another small one on the back of her neck, just below her hairline, a Celtic knot in the shape of a shamrock.” My voice caught in my throat, choking the words back until I finally forced them out. “And some lyrics… on her ribs. Written to a friend of mine who OD’d.”
“So she knew this friend?”
“It was the friend of mine that she dated a few years ago. The words… they’re to Trent…” I trailed off for a minute, forming the words I’d never said aloud, to anyone. I’d never even told Brannon. “The song was written to Trent, but it was written about Fliss.”
Frank pushed away from the door and pulled up another chair, watching me intently. “Was she dating him at the time he died?”
My throat felt tight, closed and swollen, as I nodded.
“He couldn’t see what he had,” I whispered, my eyes burned with the tears I’d held back forever. “He was always looking for something better, but he had something truly magnificent there the whole time.”
Larry didn’t say anything for a bit. He simply stared at me for the longest time. Maybe he was trying to get me to break. To test the validity of what I was saying. But it seemed like he was trying to figure out just how to respond to this heartfelt confession.
In the end, it was Frank who spoke first.
“Have you ever told her that?”
For two days, I thought about Frank’s question.
Have you ever told her that?
I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. Even booze and weed didn’t take the edge off. All I could think about was how hopeless it all seemed.
Through it all, I ached to see her. To hold her and touch her.
To love her.
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. Even if nothing came of it, even if I’d fecked it all up beyond repair, she deserved to know what she had meant to me all this time. She deserved to be exonerated of blame, to know that it was my envy, my guilt, that had kept me from her. That it was never her.
Her car was gone when I pulled up in front of her dad’s house. I considered just sitting outside until she got home, but then I caught sight of her dad. He had clearly seen me as well as he stood in the large picture window, sipping from a coffee cup. All six feet and four inches of pure pissed-off father.
I considered driving away. Fast. Getting on a plane right then and there and heading back to Ireland. Trying to forget her.
To forget how much I ached for her.
Instead, I grabbed what balls I still had, got out of my truck, and walked up the front steps. By the time I reached the top, he was there, standing with the main door open and the screen door closed. He spoke before I could.
“She’s not here.”
His tone, his words, sorta told me this wasn’t going to be a helpful discussion. This guy hadn’t liked me before, and he had even less reason to like me now, getting his daughter in a position where she could end up in a federal prison. Married for only a couple months before she left me. Shite like that doesn’t really fly with overprotective fathers.
I nodded, clenching my jaw and closing my eyes as I tried to think of something to say. Some apology or plea. Something to take this putrid ache from my chest.
“Why don’t you come in for a minute, son,” he suggested, propping open the screen door to allow me to enter.
I looked up at him. I should have been terrified that he was going to beat me to a bloody pulp, but instead I thought, Why not?
Maybe he’d put me out of my misery.
“I’m not sure what happened,” the sheriff began. “I’ve had my doubts all along about this marriage, but I thought there may be real feelings involved, regardless.”
I sat on the couch across from his chair and nodded, feeling like a child being reprimanded. It was sorta how this guy made me feel. He was kind of the epitome of every authority figure I had. A father figure, a father-in-law, and the law all rolled into one massive, angry grizzly bear of a package.
“I’ve never really met many of the guys Felicity has dated over the years,” he said. “I like to think I scared a lot of them away.” There was a hint of satisfaction in his voice, as though he felt pretty proud of this. I looked up at him, and he frowned. “But I do know she had a pretty rough run with one guy. I gather you know about the boyfriend of hers that died.”
“I do. I knew Trent.”
He looked at me cautiously, clenching his jaw in a stern, daunting motion.
“Things were… complicated towards the end, but he was a friend of mine,” I admitted.
He leaned back, staring down his nose at me in a way that made me cringe. “That’s not a way to get on my good side, son.”
“I don’t doubt that, knowing what I know about their relationship, especially now.”
“Why now?” he asked, brow raised.
“I didn’t realize just how bad it was. I didn’t know that he… that he hit her.”
“If he hadn’t died, I might have killed him.” There was true bitter remorse in his eyes, a protective agony that stemmed from knowing someone had hurt his child and he hadn’t done anything to stop it.
“I hate that she had to go through that,” I said, hesitating before I continued quietly. “Quite honestly, sir… I hated that she was ever with him. Even way back then.”
“He wasn’t good enough for her.”
“No, sir. He most certainly was not,” I agreed.
“Do you think you are?” he asked, his deep, dark blue eyes locked onto mine.
The intense choking sensation in my throat increased, but I forced my voice out around it. “No,” I answered, shaking my head slowly from side to side, “but I wish I was.”
He gave me a long, hard look before he stood, grabbing his hat.
“Well, I need to get out on patrol,” he said.
I began to stand, feeling as though I was being dismissed, but I halted when he spoke again.
“Why don’t you just make yourself comfortable? I reckon’ she’ll be home from work in another fifteen to twenty minutes.”
“It isn’t really fair of me to just show up like this with no warning. I doubt she wants to talk to me,” I frowned. “I can’t say I blame her.”
“Denny,” he said, and my eyes widened at the use of my name. He’d only ever called me ‘Danny’ or ‘son’ since he’d met me. “There was only one reason I didn’t haul you off to jail the minute you arrived here with your ring on my daughter’s finger,” he stated, looking down on me as he reached into his pocket for his keys. “Granted, that reason alone was enough in itself to make me want to kick your ass. The fact is, though, no matter wha
t Felicity ever thought she might have been doing, she would have never married you if she didn’t love you.”
My throat felt tight, and I had to swallow hard before I could force any words out. “But I’ve not exactly—”
“I’ve seen a lot in my line of work,” he interrupted solemnly, “some really horrible shit. But nothing has ever torn me up like seeing that bruise on my daughter’s cheek at the hospital. Seeing the terror in her tears. He may have been a good guy once, but he was not a good guy at the end.” He looked down to sort through his loaded key ring, found the one he was looking for, and glanced back at me. “You being here, talking to me and all I represent… it says a lot about your character. It tells me you really, truly love her. You love her in a way he never could.”
With that, he tipped his hat, donned his aviator shades while my brain processes what he’d just said to me.
“So stay,” he commanded firmly. “Wait for her to get home.”
Then he left me stunned and alone in their living room.
I barely moved. I barely even breathed. Shocked a little by the discussion, but even more by his perception of her feelings, especially that she had loved me before we were married. Stunned how he had, in his big, scary grizzly bear/sheriff/angry father way, had given me his blessing.
I looked back, over all the time I’d wasted feeling remorse. Feeling angry. Using my guilt to push her away. Feeling loyalty to a guy who really hadn’t deserved it at the end. Trying to force her from my thoughts… and yet I had loved her more and more every single feckin’ day.
All she’d been through with Trent, combined with my head games and regret and self-incrimination, and she had still wanted me.
She loved me.
I let it wash over me, the notion of her love, and realized the emptiness seemed to fade. The guilt began to pass in knowing that her da was right. Nobody would love her quite like I did. Even in the beginning, Trent hadn’t appreciated her. He hadn’t deserved her.
I wasn’t lying when I told her father I didn’t deserve her either.
But I could try to.
A key sounded in the lock, and I stood as the front door opened. She stepped into the room, dropping her purse and keys onto a chair by the steps, then she froze as she looked up to see me standing there.
“Howya, Fliss,” I murmured.
She blinked in shock, then closed her eyes, unmoving except for her tremulous breathing. A moment later, teardrops began to seep down her cheeks. Feeling a sheer, visceral need to touch her, I stepped around the coffee table to stand before her. Of their own volition, my hands lifted to brush away her tears. My lips followed, brushing the trail of wetness as I breathed in her warm, sweet scent.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She opened up her luminous eyes, pooling with moisture and dark with pain.
“You didn’t do anything I didn’t deserve,” she whispered.
“No,” I argued softly, choosing to lay it all out for her. Needing to come clean about what she meant to me. “I’ve been fighting this feeling for ya ever since I’ve known ya. You tried to tell me a long time ago, and I wouldn’t listen. I wish…” My thumbs caressed the delicate bones of her face, tracing along her cheeks and jaw, almost groaning aloud as her eyes drifted shut. “I wish I’d asked for your number.”
Her brow furrowed and she looked back up at me, shaking her head ever so slightly, not understanding.
“The first day we met,” I explained, “you were just a little too young, could have landed me in the clink, but you were everything I wanted. So I waited, but I waited too long. I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t stay in contact with you. All I did was remember you and hope, but I lost my chance. Then I took it out on you.”
I stepped closer, as close as I could possibly be. Her lips were so soft and so close and so sweet.
“I think, though, I’ve loved you all along. I think I’ve loved you since that very first day.”
I lowered my head to her trembling lips, catching her faint sob with a gentle kiss. Light and tender, and it held us both motionless, under its spell.
“Trent,” she whispered, “the ghost that keeps coming between us…” Her voice broke, and her eyes drifted closed, as if seeing me there was more than she could take. “Denny, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t love you and lose you again and again and again. It’s killing me.”
“You won’t. I swear, Fliss, I’m done running from you. I can’t walk away from you again.” I felt my own eyes burning with unshed tears, a thick tightness in my throat, as my voice dropped to a raspy whisper. “I love you too much.”
She looked back up at me, her face a mixture of wonder and heartache. I could see the faintest flicker of hope in her eyes, still clouded with doubt and pain, so I continued.
“You deserve so much more than me, but I want more than anything to be worthy of you. I want to make you happy. I want to free you from a past that hurts you. I want to give you what you give me… felicity… happiness.”
Her eyes followed her trembling fingertips as they lifted to my cheek, brushing the unshaven surface. She traced the angle of my jaw, moving forward to feather her touch over my lips.
I waited in breathless anticipation. Watching her closely for any clue. The slightest hint of forgiveness. Fliss pulled back ever so slightly, making my heart plummet as she searched my eyes silently. Her lower lip trembled slightly, and she bit it, her eyebrows drawn together in concern.
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” she finally said, leaning into one of my hands cupping her face.
I lifted my head just a hair and cocked my head at her question. Shouldn’t what? Shouldn’t be together?
My mind raced to argue. I opened my mouth to bare my soul, to beg if I had to.
And then I saw something in the way she gazed up at me. A sweet warmth began to light her eyes. A faint promise that gave me a glimmer of hope.
“Maybe we shouldn’t what, Fliss?”
“Maybe we shouldn’t get divorced.”
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. Like the force of my exhalation would blow this thought – this dream – away.
“It’s just that,” she started, her breath caught, and she lifted her wide blue eyes up to capture mine, “well… I kind of want to stay your wife.”
My heart pounded in my chest as I watched her struggle to get out the words.
“I kind of... love you, too.”
“Then stay with me,” I murmured into her hair as I pulled her close. “Come home with me, wife.”
I let her go long enough for her to shove her things back into her suitcases, which I threw in the back of my truck. She curled up against me on the drive back to Ophir, her arms wrapped around one of mine as I rested my hand on her thigh.
The house was quiet, not a roommate in sight, when we got home, and I pulled her up the stairs behind me. Closing the world outside, I kissed her with all the love and devotion in my heart and undressed her slowly.
“You have no idea what it did to me, lying beside you every night. Knowing every night for the past three months, I could roll over and touch you and taste you. You’d disappear before I’d wake up, but not anymore, Fliss.”
I lowered my lips, touching them softly against hers. She shivered beneath me with a gasp.
“Not anymore. You’re still mine… still my wife, and, God, I want ya.”
Her wide blue eyes searched mine, her breasts pushed against me with every labored breath she took. I felt the tightening of the muscles in her legs, a slight nudge of her pelvis against my aching dick.
“Please,” she whispered.
“Please what, Fliss?” I asked softly, holding her gaze as I put more of my weight on her. Her legs had spread wide, writhing beneath me. I rested my elbows on either side of her slender shoulders as I curled over her, pressing my cock firmly against her.
“Please, Denny… please love me.”
Her voice was barely more than a breath, shaking with emotion, choked with tears that w
elled up in her eyes.
“God help me, Fliss,” I muttered as I lowered my mouth to hers. “I do. I do love ya.”
Her arms and legs both wrapped around me tightly, her fine body molding into mine, her fingernails cutting into my back. I savored her kiss, the sweep of her tongue against mine, breathing in every little moan and gasp she gave. Every little ‘I love you’ she whispered against my lips.
As the sun began to disappear behind the mountains, I made love to my wife. I rode her hard and then gentle and then fierce and wild. I watched as she flew apart in my arms and groaned as she bit my shoulder to stifle her sobs.
We moved together slowly, in a dreamlike state. Her hips lifted to meet my steady, deliberate thrusts, shaking when my muscles flexed and I filled her completely, holding myself there. Tremors wracked her delicate frame as time ceased to exist. There was only her and I, only the connection between us and the irresistible pull of our bodies.
I buried my face against her neck, breathing in the soothing, heady sweet scent of her heated skin. My teeth nipped at the sensitive spot just behind her ear, and her hold on me tightened. Her fingertips feathered down my back to my ass and pulled me against her… into her. Her quiet sobs grew louder as it all built. The slow and persistent burn that took two people and made them one.
“Denny,” she cried breathlessly.
I lifted my head from her neck to look down at her flushed face. Her hands slid back up my hips and up my ribs and chest, feathering over my jaw, caressing their way higher until her fingers tangled in my hair. Her eyes were a deep, dark blue in the twilight, hooded with passion. I shifted my hips ever so slightly, increasing the drag of my piercings along her inner walls, and she gasped. Her features knit tightly as she began to climb, and I folded her knees up against her sides, circling my hips in a way I knew would set her afire.
Wild Irish Envy (Copperline #2) Page 21