by Jenika Snow
He might as well start from the beginning, because he had eventually planned to tell her anyway. If she was going to be staying with them—and Mason wanted that desperately, and he knew so did Ash—then he needed to be honest with her. This world didn’t need any more secrets. He certainly didn’t want her thinking that he was this big fucking asshole because he liked being like that. She deserved the truth. “I got the tattoo after my stint with the Navy ended.” He had a few other tattoos on his body, ones that he had gotten with his buddies while an active Navy SEAL, ones that were for honor and courage, and to remember his fallen brethren. But this one was different, and meant something far different. “I was married with a son.” His throat clogged up. The only other time he had ever spoken about this was with Ash, and that had been one of the hardest conversations he had ever had.
“If this is too hard to talk about we don’t—” He shook his head, stopping her.
“No. I want to tell you, need to tell you. You need to know why I am the way I am, and why I will always be like this.”
“Like this?”
He scrubbed a hand over his eyes and breathed out. “Yeah, Sparrow. I’ll always be a hardheaded bastard at the best of times. My frustration and anger are a never ending cycle inside of me. I won’t ever be like Asher. He’s sweet and kind, gentle and will treat you like a delicate piece of china.” Her eyes were wide, and although he didn’t want to scare her or make her uncomfortable, there was no denying that she had to hear everything. She placed her hand right over his, and his heart slammed against his sternum. “This tattoo represents life, of what I lost, but what I want to have in the future.” He turned more on his side so she could fully see the tree that covered an entire side of his abdomen. Pushing down the waistband of his jeans, he then pressed his arm across his chest so nothing obstructed her view. He gritted his teeth from the movement and the pain it caused. There was a small sound that left her. He looked over his shoulder and watched her, but she was looking at his side with her mouth slightly parted. She reached her hand out, but right before she made contact with his skin she stopped and flicked her eyes to his.
“May I?” Her voice was soft, hesitant even. He nodded, not trusting his voice at the moment. Mason had to control everything inside of him not to move or make a sound as she glided her fingers along the roots of the tree that spread across to his abdomen, and around to his lower back. Gritting his teeth because her touch felt so fucking good, he forced himself to keep his eyes open as she moved her fingers up the trunk, and along the branches. “There aren’t any leaves.” It wasn’t a question.
“Before I left for duty my wife became pregnant, but we lost the baby.” Her movements stilled, but he reached across, took her hand, and continued to move it along the bared branches snaking up his ribcage. “The tree started off as just this branch with the tiny blackbird on it. She pressed her entire hand over the bird. “When I came back home we tried for another baby. She got pregnant, and we had our son nine months later.” He knew she was crying without even looking at her anymore. He could smell the saltiness of her tears as if they were his own. “Tyler had a rare disorder and actually outlived the lifespan the doctors gave him by a year.” His chest hurt from the memory, but he needed to keep going. “After he died Molly sank into a deep depression. I didn’t know what to do or how to get my wife back. I ended up getting the rest of the tree as sort of a tribute to what we lost, and what I wanted to gain in the future.” He glanced at her once again. “To answer your question, the branches are bare because on the outside it appears dead, but if you look harder, and really see what is there, you’ll realize that the tree isn’t dead at all.” He moved her hand down to the roots. “There is still life underneath it all, and we just have to wait for the seasons to change for that life to come back to us.” Her tears were running freely down her cheeks now, and he lifted his hand and brushed them away. “She didn’t have time to come out of the depression because she was bitten before the infection was widely publicized.” By the look in her eyes he knew he didn’t have to explain to her that he had killed his wife right after she became infected.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was low and filled with pain. He didn’t want to have the past hold him back from taking that next step forward.
He shook his head. He didn’t want her to say sorry, because that wasn’t why he had told her. She may have been quiet, but Sparrow had shown she was an empathetic person. He had seen the way she would watch the blackbirds rest atop the dead phone lines that lined the street as they walked. Saw the small smile on her face when the clouds broke free and the sun sliced through the murkiness. She was a gentle soul with a fierce exterior. “Life is all about give and take, of dying and being reborn. A little piece of Molly had died after the miscarriage, but she was reborn when Tyler came along. But as life tends to keep throwing hardballs, and giving wave after hard and painful wave of turbulence, we lost Tyler. She was never the same after that.” He looked into her eyes. “I lost her long before the immunization turned everyone into these walking corpses, and after I ended her life and her suffering. I felt a lot of guilt for thinking I had done the right thing.” Mason had only cried three times in his life. The first two were when he had lost his children, and the third when he had watched Molly close her eyes for the last time after he had shoved his blade into her head. But unexpected tears started to form in his eyes. He pushed them away, not wanting to bring on that kind of pain even if that meant it would help him get rid of some of his hatred and hurt. “But then I found Asher, talked to the first person about it all, and realized that with death comes release.” He hadn’t realized he had looked away until Sparrow placed her much smaller hands on his cheeks and urged him to look at her once more. They stared at each other for several long seconds, and the pain she felt for him, for what he had gone through, speared him right in the chest like a hot, sharpened blade. “The cabin we are heading to was something I had been working on for years, right after Tyler died. It was supposed to be a place I took Molly, hoping that nature, solitude, and the peace of being out in the open with me might help her come out of the darkness that was slowly consuming her. The cabin used to be my father’s, but he willed it to me after he died. Ever since then I have been stocking it with food, and making it so that when I did have Molly there she would have time to heal, and we wouldn’t have to worry about anything.” He looked at the ceiling and exhaled. “But none of those plans happened.” When he looked back at her he felt her sorrow, but that hadn’t been why he told her about his past. “Now I am trying to look at the future, and making sure nothing happens to you and Ash.”
She was silent for a while, and he wished he could read her mind. “I don’t know what your beliefs are, but what I can say is that mine are that your wife is in her own personal heaven, holding both of her children tightly in her arms, and looking down on you with a smile on her face because you are so strong and have such a good, warm heart, even if you can’t see it. You helped me when you had nothing to gain. Where others would have taken from me repeatedly, you let me join you and Asher.” She smiled softly. “In your own way, of course.” Mason found himself lifting his uninjured arm and placing his hand over one of hers. “You did what you had to do, and I know that when I had to end my brother’s life, I did it because I couldn’t stand the thought of him walking around aimlessly with no purpose, and of him suffering in his own personal hell. That isn’t how someone should live, and if my brother and your wife were still alive, they would have told you the same thing.”
It was eerie how similarly she and Asher thought, because Ash had said almost the same thing. It had been those words that had pulled him somewhat out of the bleakness he had found himself trapped in. Neither said anything for a long while, but it was a comfortable silence. His pulse pounded in his ears, in his throat, and had him feeling lightheaded. She dragged her tongue along her bottom lip, and Mason watched the act. He was hard, had felt his dick throb as soon as she placed her hands o
“Mason…” She was looking at his mouth, and he knew she felt this pull between them as well.
“Yeah, baby, I know. I feel it, too.” He leaned in close enough that they shared the same air. “I really want to kiss you, little bird.” Mason had never been the type to give fair warning to what he did. He took what he wanted, when he wanted. Some had called him arrogant, but he liked to think of himself as determined.
“I want you to kiss me.” Fuck, his heart was thundering so hard, and his mouth watered for a taste. “But you’re hurt, and I should let you rest—” Mason didn’t let her finish that sentence. He slammed his mouth on hers, and speared his tongue between her soft, succulent lips. He slid his hand behind her head and curled his fingers into her hair. She had told them she had swum across the pond, and the strands were still damp. He tangled his fingers in them and tugged her head back, baring her throat. Mason had his lips on the arch of her throat, had his tongue moving up and down the delicate column, and groaned deeply. He should have talked this out with her, had the three of them discuss where this was going to go, because as it was she probably thought it would just be her and him, and he couldn’t do that. He cared for Ash far too much, knew the other man wanted Sparrow just as badly, and had some kind of fantasized delusion that the three of them could be together.
She breathed heavily, and when he looked up with just his eyes, he saw she had hers closed. Her mouth was slightly parted, and he moved her head back down so he could take control of her mouth once more. The sound of their heavy breathing, and of her moaning softly, had him so fucking hard he could have driven nails through steel with his damn cock. She placed her hands on his chest and curled her fingers into the flesh. He grunted in pleasure. Her touch, smell, and taste, were so different from Ash’s, but not any less pleasurable than the man he cared for. “Wait.” She murmured against his mouth, but Mason fucking wanted her badly and broke away from the kiss only to trail his lips along the line of her jaw. “Mason, it feels so good—”
“Yeah, baby. It feels really fucking good.” She made a small noise in the back of her throat, and he wrapped her arms around her arms, trying to pull her closer to his body. Fuck, he wanted to feel her big breasts pressed against his chest, feel her softness and get lost in everything that was Sparrow.
“No, wait. We have to stop.” She added pressure to his chest and pushed him back enough that his mouth broke the seductive suction from her jaw and neck. She was breathing just as heavily as he was, and Mason couldn’t help but stare at the way her breasts rose and fell, and pressed against the thin material of her shirt. She had changed when they got to the cabin, and he just now realized that she wasn’t wearing a bra under that t-shirt. Holy. Fuck. Rubbing a hand over his jaw he felt the scrape of his stubble along his palm.
“I’m sorry. Shit, I am really fucking sorry.” He pushed himself up further on the bed and hissed out a curse when he applied pressure to the arm that had been shot.
“Hey, hey, just relax. You’re going to make things worse.” Her focus was on his shoulder again, and she gently ran her fingers over the gauze. “You’re not bleeding through, so that’s good.” She leaned back and twisted her hands in her lap. “I didn’t mean to upset you, or stop what we were doing.” Her cheeks became pink and she looked away for a second before she looked at him once more. “It’s just…” She paused. “You and Asher…” She shrugged, “I don’t want to get between you two, and I certainly don’t want to deceive anyone. You guys are a couple, and I don’t want to come between that.”
Mason didn’t know what to say, and for a moment all he did was stare at her, trying to explain that Asher wanted her just as badly as he did, but he jumped forward when he should have taken a step back. But things changed when the world had ended, civilization had crashed, and Sparrow had been taken from them. Things were put in perspective, and priorities were shifted. All it had taken was this little bird to be in danger, for the threat to present itself in the form of motherfuckers wanting to take something that wasn’t their right to take. “I care about Ash. He was there when I was at my breaking point, but he helped bring me back a little, and helped me realize that life still goes on.” He heard her swallow. “But I think there are a few things we should discuss concerning the three of us. Things that will change a lot, Sparrow.”
Chapter Seven
Asher stepped off the stairs and made his way into the kitchen. The cabin was dark aside from the lone candle, which he had found in one of the drawers and then lit. He stepped into the kitchen, and the single flame from the candle that he’d placed in a rusted cup sat in the center of the small four person table. He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop on Mason and Sparrow, but he had gone upstairs to see how he was doing, and to see if Sparrow needed anything. That was when he heard Mason telling her about his past, and something in Asher had cracked that his hard, very reserved lover had opened up to Sparrow. That meant Mace truly did feel something more than tolerance for the female, and that meant a hell of a lot. But soon that deep and painful conversation had turned heated, and he had heard the clear sound of the two of them kissing. He had gotten hard instantly, and even if it was only that one sound that had gotten him erect, he had a lot of filthy images moving through his head. So, like a fucking pervert he had leaned around the doorframe and watched with restrained arousal as Mason and Sparrow kissed. It certainly wasn’t anything erotic, but fuck was it hot to see the man he cared about finally giving in to the woman that he was growing to care for. But then they had broken away, and Sparrow had expressed her concern and the two of them in a relationship and not wanting to come between them. Bless her heart for thinking so genuinely, but what she didn’t know, and what Mason hadn’t divulged to her, was that it wasn’t just the fact they wanted to protect her. They wanted to fuck her, claim her, and make it about the three of them. It had been him and Mason for several months, but now they had this delicate woman with her dirt-smeared cheeks and strong soul that made her able to take out two infected alone. She was strong, and Asher wanted her as much as he wanted Mace.
It had been at least twenty minutes since he had come downstairs, but he had heard Sparrow moving around upstairs. He went over to his pack and crouched before it, grabbing the small bottle of whiskey that he had scored several weeks back when he and Mason scouted out a convenient store. He had been saving it, not sure for what occasion, but right now seemed like a good enough time. With no shot glasses available, he took the bottle over to the table and sat his ass down. He was really fucking tired, but it wasn’t just about their long journey he had been on with Mason and now Sparrow, or the fact he couldn’t remember the last time he slept in an actual bed. It was also because he was trying to wrap his head around his wants and needs, what was realistic, and how everything would play out. They didn’t know if tomorrow would be their last, or if they would ever finally reach Mason’s cabin. That had always been the goal, and they had kept to that plan, but with everything in life, and even more so now, things changed. It seemed like it was one thing after another. He cracked open the whiskey and took a swig from the bottle. He certainly wouldn’t be getting drunk, not when Mace was held up with a bullet wound, and there was too much danger still present. But a little warmth in his veins might go a long way in making him feel a little less off balanced.
He drank another long swig before he heard the soft footsteps of Sparrow coming down the stairs and then saw her step into the kitchen. She stopped when she saw him, and eyed the bottle.
“Care to share?” She smiled, but he could see on her face, and sense in her body language, that she was a little uncertain about everything. Asher had left before she and Mason stopped talking, but he didn’t know if Mason had actually gone through and told her that they both wanted her, wanted her to be more to them than just a female to sleep with. They wanted her as their partner in every sense of the word.
He held the bottle up and tilted the tip toward the empty seat across from him, but she surprised him when she took one of the seats right beside him. She reached out and curled her fingers around the neck of the bottle. Their hands brushed together, and for several seconds they stared at each other. Asher let go of the bottle and leaned back in his seat to watch her bring it to her lips and take a small sip. The whiskey wasn’t anything top shelf, but it was decent and had a kick to it. She coughed after she swallowed, and his lips twitched with amusement. She was cute as hell. She handed him the bottle and shook her head, still coughing slightly. He took the bottle back and capped it. He got up and shoved it back in his pack and grabbed a bottle of water and a candy bar before moving back to her. “Not much of a drinker, huh?” He smiled and handed her the bottle.
She took one sip and set it back on the table. “Thank you.” Her cheeks were red and her eyes glossy. Yeah, she wasn’t much of a drinker. “No, I’m not much of a drinker. I can handle beer, but not the hard stuff. Honestly I never had a taste for it, but figured I’d give it another go given our situation.” There was a beat of silence.
“Were you able to keep cleaned up?” He knew she did by the look of the clean, dry clothes she wore, and the smell of lotion. They had found the soap and lotion at McMillian’s, and even though there wasn’t any running water in the cabin, it did have a cistern, which was a godsend for them.
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