Marked

by Drew Elyse

  It’s okay, Katie. Let go.

  “I can hear him.”

  I’d never told anyone about that. I didn’t want them to think I was losing it.

  “I heard my Heath, too. I still do from time to time.”

  “Really?”

  “Really, sweetheart. It happened a lot in the early days. Now, it’s usually when something big happens, particularly with our kids. I heard him that first time Liam brought you home.” She smiled. “He said, ‘he’s sunk.’ He was laughing.”

  Even through my tears, I smiled. Whatever those voices were, I liked the idea that Heath would be happy about me being in his son’s life.

  For the first time, I also considered what it would be like to still hear things from Joel down the line. To get a reaction now and then to Owen growing up, to whatever came our way.

  Don’t leave me for good, I thought.

  Not a chance.

  And he wouldn’t. Even if I never heard that voice again, Joel would never really leave me. He’d always be there in the memories. He’d be there in our son. He’d be right there where he imprinted himself onto my heart.

  It was knowing that, being sure of it beyond any doubt, that gave me the strength to slide off my wedding ring.

  I’d never get rid of them, but those rings were still just things. They weren’t Joel. They weren’t our love. Taking them off didn’t rob me of anything.

  It set me free.

  I put both rings into the box, closing the glass-top lid and locking the clasp into place. Both rings were clearly visible nestled inside. It did me no good to just shove them away where I would never see them. I couldn’t move on while keeping a death grip on every little piece of him, but I wouldn’t be able to do it by hiding those things away, either.

  No, those rings deserved pride of place, and I would decide a spot where they could have that. I’d keep Joel present in my life, in Owen’s, but he couldn’t be the center of my world anymore—and neither could his absence.

  “How do you feel?” Margot prompted.

  “Raw,” I gave her the truth. It was like every nerve, the pure base of every emotion, was right at the surface.

  “But not broken,” she pointed out, but I already recognized it.

  Like being about to face the grief each day, I’d survived this even though it felt like too much. I still had a long road ahead of me, but I’d taken a step, an important one.

  There were still more to tackle, and I would survive each one.

  Hopefully, in the end, they’d lead me right to where I needed to be.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Liam

  “Hey, man. You want to get a drink?”

  I looked up from cleaning up my station to see Parker there. We were the last two in the shop. We’d even sent Jess home so she wouldn’t have to wait around for our last appointments. Something was up with her, I didn’t give a fuck what she said about it just being me projecting.

  I knew perfectly fucking well how messed up I was, thank you.

  Pretty sure everyone else knew it, too.

  Which was probably why I was getting the surprise invite from Park.

  Park was a cool guy and an amazing artist. He’d been at Sailor’s Grave since a couple months after I started, and I didn’t know much else about him. He was quiet. Not a dick, just not the most outgoing. He always came along for drinks or barbecues or whatever else cropped up, but he never did the inviting.

  Until now, apparently.

  I considered declining, but why not? What the fuck else was I going to do? Go home and wallow? I’d had a couple weeks of that shit. I was topped up enough for a lifetime.

  I couldn’t even go to Mom’s and let her and Connor distract me. No, something was up with her, too. A couple times recently she’d all but blown me off when I’d mentioned stopping by. Connor had nothing to say on the subject, which made me even more suspicious. Connor had something to say about everything.

  At least Park was giving me something to keep busy. “Yeah, just let me finish getting this all sorted.”

  I got back to it, storing everything, giving all the equipment and my station as a whole a full clean, and then taking the small trash can to the back and dumping it. As I made my way back through the shop, I thought about why it had to be now that I didn’t want to do a goddamn thing that Park decided to reach out.

  It’s probably because anyone in a mile radius can tell you’re a heartbroken asshole, I thought.

  Yeah, the last few weeks had been horrible. There was no way to sugar coat it. I’d been in a shit mood from the minute I’d walked out of the Disciples’ clubhouse that day. I’d gotten a taste of what it was like to have the woman I wanted—the woman I’d started to need in my life—and had to give her up.

  Oh, and while I was on the subject of sugar-coated things, I’d not had a decent sugar fix in a while either. Kate had been right all those weeks ago when she’d been in getting her tattoo, the grocery store couldn’t give me what Sugar’s Dream did. It couldn’t give me my sweets fix that was worth it, and it certainly couldn’t give me face time with my girl. But that was her job, and after every other way I’d crossed the lines with her, I knew I had to leave that as a safe space for her to be.

  I couldn’t even get Jess to go for me, knowing that if Kate was working, she’d know the real reason.

  So I was womanless, cupcake-less, and fucking miserable.

  Yeah, I seriously needed to get out and stop the pathetic shit. I’d let her go. I’d had to. I couldn’t live the rest of my life like this because of that.

  Drinks with Parker tonight, then I’d tackle making myself be more engaged tomorrow. I’d fake it until I made it if that’s what it took.

  Anything had to be better than this.

  Back at my station, I grabbed a couple sketches that I was finishing off, putting them into my bag so I could head out. Tomorrow I was off, but I had a couple pieces for clients coming in over the next week that I wanted to put in some work on.

  Maybe I’d come in and do that here, just to get out of the house. I could chill with Jess for a while. If I didn’t push—because I should probably learn my lesson on that at some point before I fucked up again—she might be more like her normal self and I might be able to manage that, too.

  I threw my bag over my shoulder and went up to the front, only to stop. It wasn’t just my feet that froze. My head, my lungs, my fucking heart.

  Kate was there, being let in the front door by Park, but her eyes were already on me.

  I didn’t know what she was doing there. What I did know was that she looked incredible, even frowning. After all the distance, she looked more incredible than ever.

  Park, looking between us and rubbing the back of his head, was the one to break the awkward silence first. “I’ll head out,” he offered, getting enough of the situation to know he wanted to excuse himself. He looked to me, “Raincheck.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, only able to get that one word out.

  He didn’t waste time getting out of there, and I couldn’t blame him.

  When the door shut behind him, it was like the already thick tension became too much.

  “Gypsy—”

  “Lee—”

  Fuck, that name. It hurt just to hear it, and her flinch told me she felt the same.

  I recovered first.

  “What are you doing here?” It wasn’t an accusation, I didn’t want it to be. Even though it killed me to have her so close, I’d gladly let her stay if she needed it.

  “I…I need to talk to you,” she stammered a little, worrying her hands.

  I hated seeing her nervous like that. My first instinct was to deal with that. Whatever she needed to talk about could wait.

  “Come sit down,” I offered, leading her over to my station by rote.

  She followed, but she hesitated at the entry, running her fingers over Connor’s handprint there.

  “He’s so sweet.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed
, not wanting to rush her but aching to know what she was here for.

  “Like his brother.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. After everything that happened between us, I didn’t expect her to say that.

  “Kate—”

  “I hated asking him to keep the fact that he’d seen me from you, your mom did, too.”

  Wait. What?

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve been over to your mom’s house several times over the last few weeks,” she admitted.

  What the hell was happening?

  “Why?”

  “When you left that day, I realized you were right. I wasn’t ready. If I had been, it wouldn’t have been so hard to talk to Daz in the first place. I wouldn’t have freaked out over the things he said.”

  “I don’t love him. I can’t. I won’t.”

  You’d think, at some point, those words would stop feeling like a bullet in the chest each time they came to mind.

  So far, that just wasn’t true for me.

  “But you were wrong, too,” she kept going. “You said it wasn’t okay that you pushed me, but I needed it. If you hadn’t, I’d have stayed trapped in that same cycle of grief—maybe forever. It was you that gave me a reason to try and break out of that.”

  She still didn’t sit, so I kept on my feet, too. She started fidgeting again and my eyes went to her hands.

  No rings.

  My heart started beating hard in my chest.

  “I was certain it was going to blow up in my face, but I knew I had to try something, so I went to your mom. Margot, she’s been helping me.”

  “Helping you what?” I asked, even though I was sure I knew the answer.

  “Let go.”

  Fuck.

  I tried to hold it together. I tried not to start hoping, but it didn’t work.

  “Where are your rings?”

  She looked down, running her thumb over the space where they once were.

  “I took them off. It was time.” She gave a sad shake of her head. “It was hard, but Margot was with me the whole time. She talked me through it, told me about how hard it had been for her, too, but how much it helped to take that step.”

  Christ, I couldn’t believe Mom had been helping her this whole time. That was why she kept blowing me off because she had the woman I was pining over at her house.

  “She helped me through a lot. I know there’s no magical cure for grief. She told me herself that she still feels it all the time, but she’s helped me figure out how to keep it from consuming me. She helped me get to a place where I can see what I want, and I feel ready to go after it.”

  Please. Please. Fucking please.

  “What’s that?”

  She didn’t answer that. Instead, she shook her head a bit, a small smile forming on her lips. “I came in here so prepared, and you’re kind of throwing me off everything I wanted to say.”

  “Say it. Whatever you wanted to, just say it.”

  She bit her lip, taking a few steps my way until we were only a foot apart.

  And then, she destroyed me and put me back together all at once.

  “I do love you. I was scared hearing Daz imply that it might be true because I wasn’t ready, but when you walked away, when you took on that pain because you wanted to spare me, I knew it.

  “I can let myself love you. I loved Joel, part of me always will, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t give that to someone else.

  “And I will do whatever it takes to show you that’s true. I want to move forward, and I want to do it with you.”

  There was not a thing on this Earth that could keep me rooted to that spot hearing her say that. She’d barely finished when I had her pressed against me, and my mouth was on hers.

  My gypsy, my Kate.

  I pulled away, just enough to actually say the words I’d held in too long, “I love you.”

  It was her that kissed me that time, and nothing in my life had ever felt sweeter.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Kate

  I poured everything into the kiss, desperate to feel him, needing him to know what those words did to me. When I’d finally planned to come find him, my mind had started cooking up all sorts of bad outcomes—that I was too late, that he’d just been caught up in us and hadn’t actually felt it as deep as I had, that he wouldn’t want me anymore. The thoughts had plagued me for days, but I’d made myself push through.

  Hearing him say that he loved me made it all more than worth it.

  He pulled back, and I let him even though I wanted to chase his lips with mine.

  “You’re sure about this?” he asked through heavy breaths. “I don’t want to rush you. I don’t want you to end up in that place again.”

  The place where I was panicking and nearly shouting how I didn’t love him.

  No, I never wanted to be back there, either.

  “I’m sure. I can’t promise I won’t have bad days. I can’t promise I won’t backslide into the grief from time to time, but I swear that I know what I want. I know that I want to be with you if you can be patient with me when I struggle.”

  He cupped both of my cheeks in his warm hands and it made me feel more centered than I had in weeks.

  “I can be patient,” he promised.

  I knew he could. He’d been showing me that right from the beginning.

  It was time for me to show him that it was going to be worth it.

  I looked into his chocolate eyes. Green ones that used to look at me in the same way flashed through my mind, but it didn’t feel like agony to see them. It reminded me that I was lucky. I somehow had been blessed with the love of two men that had so much to give.

  “I love you,” I told Liam again. The words were pure, free of the guilt of giving them to someone else. The way they should be.

  I’m happy for you, Katie.

  I was, too. So happy.

  Liam pulled my face toward him, kissing me again. His tongue teased along mine until my whole body was responding. My hips rolled, trying to find relief for the ache he was stirring up. I rubbed against him, feeling the hard ridge of his cock. He was right there with me. His hands moved back into my hair, gripping it hard in a way that sent a shockwave through me.

  “Let me take you back to my place,” he growled.

  “No.”

  His hold tightened. “I need you, gypsy.”

  “Take me home,” I insisted.

  “The farmhouse?”

  I nodded my head even as he looked unsure. We both needed this. We needed for me to show him that I wanted us to be together in every way, out in the open. He stared at me for a long moment, searching for a sign that I wasn’t ready. He wouldn’t find it. I knew what I wanted.

  Without another word, he pulled me from the shop, shutting down the lights and locking up behind us. He led me to my car—because of Owen’s seat, I knew—and put me in the passenger seat.

  Without preamble, but with his hand firm on my thigh, he drove us home.

  “Please,” I begged.

  He was going to kill me. I was going to die right there if I didn’t get it soon.

  Liam didn’t budge, though. He was content where he was.

  “Lee,” I tried again.

  His hands on me tightened until I thought I might get bruises where his fingers dug in, but I couldn’t give a shit. Still, even with that reaction to his name, he didn’t let up.

  I couldn’t say how long I’d been on my back in that bed with his mouth between my thighs, but it was too long. I’d come already, and I was perilously near a second that I didn’t want to happen with just that incessant flick of his tongue against my clit. I wanted him inside me. I needed to have that aching place filled.

  He didn’t agree.

  I’d even take his fingers at that point if he was so determined to keep going down on me.

  “I need more.”

  He dragged his teeth over my lips, nipping at one before pulling back just e
nough to say, “You’ve got everything you need right here.”

  He was right. With him in this bed with me, I had it all. I just wanted to actually feel it all.

  “I need your cock.”

  The viciousness of his thrashing tongue only increased at hearing that, and I could feel the coiling tension close to snapping.

  “I don’t want to come without you inside me,” I kept pressing.

  I didn’t know if I’d be able to help it though. With the way he was going at me, I was right at the edge. It wouldn’t be possible to hold out much longer.

  “Please!” I cried, losing the sense of keeping my voice down despite the other people in the house.

  Not a heartbeat later, his body blanketed mine, his hand slamming down over my mouth, and his cock sinking in right to the root. My loud moan was muffled into his palm.

  “Hush, gypsy. You’ll wake everyone and they’ll all hear what I do to you.”

  If it weren’t for Owen, I wouldn’t even care. Let them hear.

  I bared my teeth, biting a bit at his palm, then turning to bite right on his fingers. Before I could make a sound, he shifted his hand and plunged two of the digits between my lips. I sucked on them happily, tasting his skin and the lingering wetness from my pussy on them.

  “Fuck, you kill me,” Liam groaned.

  I knew the feeling.

  He pounded into me, pulling out until I only had the tip before rocking back in until he was fully sheathed. I felt each thrust with my whole body.

  He came down until he was lying fully on top of me, still rocking his hips to take me hard. His head moved in close until he was kissing the edge of my lips right next to where they were wrapped around his fingers. That was what sent me over the edge.

  I came on a scream that was muffled by his fingers filling my mouth. It felt like my entire body condensed to that place where I was spasming around his cock. Nothing mattered but that feeling.

  Then, Liam’s cock swelled, jerked, and I felt him flood me with his hot release as he groaned loud and low. His pleasure only heightened mine, and we writhed frantically against one another as we both rode it out.