by W Winters
“Fuck,” he mutters. The word is a groan on Daniel’s lips and hearing it makes my body heat.
“Touch me please,” I beg him, but he shakes his head.
“Why else?” he asks huskily, the need showing through his intended words.
“You know that I would die without you. Whatever makes a person a person—I’d die if you weren’t here anymore.”
“I don’t want you to ever say that again. Don’t you ever talk about that. You’re not allowed to die.”
A short laugh that’s not humorous at all bubbles from my lips. I feel crazy, on the verge of tears, feeling the pain of a great loss at the very thought that he might die. “That’s my fear. It kills me, Daniel. You can’t die.”
“Well, for you then, I’ll do my best not to,” he tells me as the bed dips with his weight while he climbs over my body.
Pinning my wrists above my head, he nearly kisses my lips, but he moves to suck the arousal off my fingertips before our lips touch. The light, warm feeling is a stark contrast to his hard cock pressed into my thigh.
I try to writhe under him, but he keeps me still as he takes his time. The second he braces his forearm beside my head and positions himself, I suck in a deep breath and stare into his dark eyes.
He enters me slowly, torturously so. Taking his time to stretch me. The gentle sting elicits an instant heated wave that forces my back to arch. He doesn’t stop, he just pushes in deeper and stays there, pressing against my walls and forcing my lips to form a perfect O.
Still inside of me, he tells me, “Because I want to grow old with you. I want everything you want, whatever it is, because it’ll make you happy. I want my family to love you and protect you, in case something ever happens to me.
“You don’t want those things unless you love that person. I love you more than I love myself, Addison. I need you to know that.”
I only know I’m crying because he bends down to kiss the tears.
When his lips finally brush against mine, I steal them, kissing him hard and with the passion I have for him, for what’s between us.
With his left hand still pinning my wrists down, he ravages me, a savage taking of what’s his. I scream my pleasure into his mouth, letting the strangled moans take over when my climax hits me with a force I’ve never felt before.
It’s all consuming. It’s everything I’ve wanted and needed and the only thing I’ll ever crave for as long as I live. Because it’s him.
Addison
“It’s a pretty ring.” The timid voice carries across the large kitchen. “Blue under it; that’s unique. Is it a blue diamond?”
I didn’t even hear her walk in. As I stirred the sugar into my coffee, watching the white swirl of steam, I was focused on the ache between my thighs and the memory of Daniel kissing me all over last night.
He only left me to get the ring from my nightstand and to put it on my finger. If this ring ever comes off my hand, it’ll be because someone took it from my grave.
“It is. It reminds me of forget-me-nots,” I answer her. “That’s why we went with this one.”
“You picked out your ring together?”
“I know it’s not traditional—”
“What is anymore?” she says and shrugs. “If you haven’t guessed, I’m Bethany.” The smile she gives me reaches her eyes.
I laugh, short and with a single breath. It’s genuine. “I guessed as much,” I answer her with a smile.
It’s only us in the kitchen and as she pulls out one of the tall chairs at the island, the sound carries through the open space.
“First, I want to say hi. Second, I want to say I’m sorry. Jase told me…about the baby.”
My little piece of heaven splinters, but only slightly as I take my seat.
“Thank you,” I answer her.
Holding on to my mug of coffee, I pull it up to my lips to keep me from saying more. The warmth billows into my face as I take a long sip, praying for composure.
I don’t want to break down. Especially not in front of her, someone I don’t know. This…Bethany Fawn. I don’t know that I’ll ever be okay with losing our baby. Especially if we never get pregnant again, if we never have a little one to hold. I don’t see how it’s possible. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that either.
“I heard you got a ring too,” I say as I lift a brow and when her gaze catches mine, I make a note of staring down at her ring finger. She pulls her hand into her chest with a blush rising to her cheeks.
“It was a shock, to be honest,” she answers but the content note in her voice and the smile on her face remain the same. “We’re quite different…Jase and I,” she adds when I look questioningly at her.
“Yes, they are…different. That’s a word for it.” We could write a book about the Cross brothers and how different they are. There’s a time and place for that conversation though. “So Jase told me your last name is Fawn?”
“It is.”
“Mother or father?” I ask her and then shake my head as I let out a sigh at my ridiculousness. “This isn’t an inquisition. I’m just… I’m very curious.”
“It’s fine,” she responds and then she leans forward on the chair to rest on the counter. Her thin cream sweater is pushed up to her elbows. Paired with her dark blue jeans, it’s a simple look, but something about this woman screams that she’s anything but simple.
“My father’s last name, but he didn’t stick around after I was born.”
“My father’s last name as well,” I tell her and feel a chill sweep over my skin.
“You’re a couple years younger than me, right?” she questions me and I nod. Daniel told me what he knew of Bethany.
“A little over a year younger.”
“What’s your father’s first name?” I ask her as my gaze sweeps over her facial features. She doesn’t look like me, nothing but her lips. My father’s lips.
“Jeremy,” she answers, and I tell her the middle name, “Nathanial. Jeremy Nathanial Fawn.”
“This is weird.” Bethany pushes out the same thought I have.
“I think your dad left your mom because my mom was pregnant with me.” The years make sense. “That’s why you didn’t grow up with him.” Not that I grew up with him either. He left my mother and my mother left me.
“So he knocked up my mom and had my sister. Married her and they had me. Then he left us when I was a baby, because your mother was pregnant with you?” Bethany fills in the blanks.
“He got around, as if I needed another reason to hate the thought of him.”
“My mother had substance abuse issues; I always thought that was why he left us,” Bethany muses. “He was good at leaving,” she comments with a crease in her forehead, as though a bad memory is creating a groove right there. “That’s what my mother used to say.” She doesn’t try to hide the bitterness as she turns her back to me, leaving her seat so she can go to a cabinet to get herself a mug. I note that she already knows where they’re kept and where everything else in the room is too.
“If it makes you feel any better, he didn’t stay long and what I knew of my mother and the men she was with, it’s probably best you grew up without him.” With another sip of coffee, the room’s quiet except for the muffled hiss of the coffee machine. I don’t comment that I was a child when I knew them. Either of them.
“Yet we both received his last name,” Bethany says as she leans against the cabinet and then offers me a half smile curved with sarcasm before lifting her mug and telling me cheers. “Lucky us.”
“If we hadn’t, we never would have known.”
“We’re sisters. Same father, different mother.”
“Right.” I nod in understanding. Curiosity nags at the back of my mind, but I can’t bring myself to ask her any questions. That part of my life is long behind me. I wish it would stay in the past. I don’t want to think about my father or how many other children he had.
“Do you have any other siblings?” she asks me and I shake my head no
as I reply, “All I had growing up was a rotating address until I met…” I pause and wave my hand in the air. My throat’s dry but I shake it off. I’m stronger because of what I went through. But that doesn’t mean I want to relive it with this woman. Biological sister or not. My curiosity can wait until I’m better prepared and in a more stable state. Everything is chaos now and it doesn’t look like she’s going anywhere anyway.
“The Cross brothers,” she answers for me. “So you knew them before all this? Back when things weren’t so…”
“Yeah, but I left. I left before a lot of things happened. I left when things got bad. What a wonderful mother I’ll be.” All of our past history hits me at once and the same thoughts I had before, the ones that tell me I don’t deserve Daniel, I don’t deserve a happily ever after, and I don’t deserve to be a mother come back. Weaker than before, they’re only whispers and not screams. Nonetheless, they’re back.
“Don’t say that. You were young and you didn’t know. You’ll be a great mother. I hardly know you, but I know that. We’ll be better than our parents.”
“How can you know?”
“One, because you’re already thinking about it. Already wanting more for your children. And two, because we’re loved. Love does… Love changes a person.
“The best thing you can do for a child is to love them. You can ask anyone that. It’s the thing they need most. If you love Daniel and he loves you, you’re already off to a better start than our parents.”
“God knows one thing these men do is love hard,” I comment, agreeing with her and hoping she’s right. “Even with all the shit they’re in.”
“They do,” she agrees with me, casually reaching in the fridge for creamer. As if this is only a mundane conversation and not the turning point in my life that I feel it is in my bones.
“So you’re going to try again?” she asks me.
I want to tell her I’m scared. Scared to try, scared to lose. Scared I won’t be good enough. But I save those sentiments for Daniel. If I tell anyone, it should be him.
So I answer simply, “Yes.” I want a baby with him. A life. I want to grow old with him and be surrounded by a loving family. To love and be loved. “We’re going to try again.”
Daniel
“I just need to know.” A raw hint of emotion makes Carter’s voice tight. He clears his throat as he leans back in the chair. “I would understand; I just need to be prepared and we can work something out.” His voice is clearer, firmer, but he still can’t look me in the eyes.
“I’m not leaving. There’s nothing else for me. I can’t leave.”
“But Addison—” he argues, already having it in his head that we need to leave.
“She doesn’t want to leave either.” It’s quiet for a moment, then Carter finally looks at me, letting the statement sink in. “We’re staying and we’ll be all right.”
The ticking of the clock in his office is ever present. It fills the silence until he nods in agreement.
“A lot happened,” he comments.
“It will settle down. It’ll slow down.”
A knock at the office door accompanies his hum of agreement.
“It will,” he tells me before calling out, “Come in” to whoever it is at the door.
Addison.
“Am I interrupting?” Her question is softly spoken, but it carries through the room clearly as she stands there, not in the room, but not out of it either.
“Not at all,” Carter answers. His shoulders are straighter, his expression firmer. He really thought we were going to leave. He has the look of a man who’d already accepted loss.
“I was hoping to talk to both of you…” She trails off as her gaze drops to the floor nervously before peeking back up at us. “I had a thought.”
A prick of uncertainty creeps along my spine as she slowly walks into the room and stops at the chair next to mine. With her grip on the back of it, she chooses not to sit as she tells us, “I want to pay a visit to Officer Walsh.”
“The hell you are.” My answer is immediate. And also ignored. Addison’s stare is unmoving and directed at Carter.
He doesn’t answer, neither of them looking at me.
“The fuck you are,” I say to emphasize my position. “There’s no reason for you to be anywhere near him.”
“Other than the fact that I’m with you. That my place is beside you…so yeah, there is.”
Carter’s still quiet and the ticking of the clock is louder, just like the rush of my blood is in my ears.
“Daniel,” she says, and Addison’s tone is gentle.
“No. You shouldn’t be concerned with this.”
“I don’t want to be mixed up in this, but I don’t want to be afraid of this man. I don’t want him to think he can get to me.”
“Are you sure you want to do that? You getting involved is more…” Carter talks to her, again, ignoring me.
The irritation grows as the two of them discuss this as though it’s a casual conversation.
“Stress? No. I think the stress comes from not knowing. I need to know. And if I can do something, I need to do it.”
“I don’t want you to—”
“To go to a police station? Where you have plenty of men in your back pocket?” Addison cuts me off and slight desperation seeps into her cadence. “I…” She pauses and swallows thickly. “I want you to think about it. Think about what I should be doing and what it would do for me.” She puts her hand over mine to tell me, “I want to do this. I want to show that man who I am and that I’m with you. With all of you,” she amends, giving Carter a nod.
“Just think about it.” She leaves me there, my foot subconsciously tapping against the leg of the chair. The second the office door closes, I admonish my brother, “You couldn’t back me up with that one?” The sarcasm is thick and unforgiving.
“You weren’t lying, were you? She does want to stay.”
For the first time in a long time, my brother smiles.
“If she wants to stay, then, Daniel, for the love of God, let her. Let her do what she needs to do.”
Addison
“Two sets of eyes are on his office in case he shuts the door.”
“I know,” I answer Daniel.
“If we lose sight for even a moment, I’m coming in.”
“I know,” I repeat and even though I’m attempting to sound agitated, I’m anything but. “You’re cute when you’re worried.”
His short huff is humorless, coming deep from his chest as we sit in the car.
“In and out, Addison,” he tells me, leaning over the console to give me a peck on the cheek. I don’t kiss him back, because I’m waiting, and sure enough, he asks again.
“You sure you want to do this?”
The way he asks it melts everything inside of me. I don’t answer him with words; instead I put a hand on either side of his handsome face, feeling his stubble beneath my palms, and press a gentle kiss to his lips. His dark eyes are open and staring down at me when I pull away.
“I’ll be right back,” I murmur.
“And I’ll be right here.”
As I shut the door to the car, I hear him say he’s starting the clock. I have five minutes. That’s what he gave me and I’m just fine with that.
If I’m going to be here with Daniel, as his wife and as a part of his family, I’m going to make sure everyone knows exactly where I stand.
Even with that confidence, my heart hammers as I walk through the dark glass doors to the station. Officer Walsh’s office is upstairs on the second floor. The elevator is empty, which doesn’t ease my nerves at all. I have to shake out my clammy hands and give myself a pep talk.
I’m merely planning to apologize for being caught off guard. To thank Officer Walsh for asking if I was all right and to let him know that I’m more than all right and not to question where I stand with the Cross brothers again.
Daniel and his brothers told me where Walsh’s office is. It’s the back-rig
ht corner office. I’m glad I know where it is and that when I finally get close, his door is open and he’s right in view. Alone, unsuspecting. Just like I was when he approached me.
It’s hard to give him the benefit of the doubt. That he’s only a cop looking out for a woman who’s mixed up with men like the Cross brothers.
I try to keep it in mind as I raise my fist to the open door and knock gently.
Words were nearly spoken as he lifts his head, but when Cody Walsh sees me, they’re silenced and instead he’s slow to tap the papers in his hands on the desk. “Miss Fawn.”
“Officer Walsh.” I speak his name pleasantly. Forgetting the pounding of adrenaline in my blood and noting that he’s only a man. Nothing more than human.
“I thought I’d see you again,” he comments. “Please come in.”
It’s quiet for a moment as I try to get ahold of my bearings.
He speaks first, easing the tension. “You’ll have to forgive my first impression. I don’t know what to make of the relationships they have. Your fiancé and his brothers.”
“Relationships?” I question, raising a brow and deciding to make light of it. “If Daniel has more than one of me…well, no wonder he’s so stressed.”
The short chuckle eases the officer slightly as he leans back in his chair, but his guard is still up. Something tells me it always is.
“Have a seat,” he offers, and I shake my head, telling him I was just stopping by for a quick moment.
“I’m not the bad guy, you know?” he tells me, catching me off guard.
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You didn’t have to,” he responds solemnly. “I’m still getting a read on them and you didn’t seem like you were all right,” he explains although he doesn’t have to.
“He’s not a bad guy either.” And I defend Daniel, although I don’t have to.
“I didn’t say he was.”
It’s quiet for a moment and I debate saying what’s on my mind. I nearly don’t but I decide I may never have another chance, so I should take it.