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Deadpan, she replied, “What would you like me to say, sir?”
I wanted to vomit. I wasn’t her ‘sir’. I was her Old Man.
Feeling desperate was foreign to me, yet here I was, drowning in it. “I want you to say… that you’re still here, with me. Not with whoever hurt you.”
She blinked a few times. “W-What?”
The hand not holding my gut grabbed my chest. If there was a chance she could hear my plea, I was going to lay it all out there for her. “I need you.”
As if waking up, her arms slightly lifted in alarm before reaching out to my stomach. “Oh my God, why are you out of bed?”
She quickly tried to usher me back to rest, but I refused. “No, rest can wait.”
My father made a grave mistake in not being honest with my mom, telling her she was his world, and losing so much precious time with her. Being a witness to his regret, I had promised myself no liability, so I’d never feel his pain. But meeting Elle shattered that promise into smithereens. Now all I could do was learn from Pops’ mistakes and not miss one second of treasuring this woman. And, since a bullet had just been pulled from my abdomen, and a Mafia asshole was soon, if not already, hunting us down, there was no time to lose. “Elle…” I swallowed fear and surrendered to bliss. “I need you.”
“I-I don’t understand.”
I let go of my chest and tapped my lips so she could remember our spirit-to-spirit connection we found in that first kiss.
Hers parted, a sharp inhale following. “You need me to kiss you?”
I needed her to be okay, safe, in my arms and in my bed, but a kiss from her sweet mouth was a hell of a start. “Always.”
After an intense pause that warmed the space between us, she licked her full lips and then lifted onto her tippy toes. A soft kiss was pressed to my mouth, causing my eyes to slide shut and making me forget the pain I was in from the bullet. I moaned as my arms wrapped around her, so relieved she was coming back to me.
Content again, I pulled my mouth from hers.
Yet to open my eyes, I leaned my head back. “Your kisses are like the best sugar in the world.”
As a child, if I hurt myself, my mom offered me a cookie. That sweetness would make me forget my injury. Just like Elle’s kisses.
Elle’s soothing voice returned. “Lynx.” Her cheek rested on my chest. “How can men be so different from one another?”
I placed my chin to the top of her head, wanting to shelter her forever. It was a man who had caused the scars. This man? Me? I only wanted to care for her.
Inhaling her freshly showered sent, I admitted, “I wish I knew.”
She kissed my chest. “You’re so kind.”
I had recently killed six men, making me far from what she thought of me, but I guess that’s the beauty of seeing the soul. You get to bear witness to parts of someone most can’t see.
My chest clenched when I realized, if she could see good in a monster like me, what could she see in a Devil like Lorenzo?
Even though her body against mine had my wound protesting, I held her tighter. “For you, Elle, kindness is the only way I can be.”
She melted to me. “You say the best things.”
Such simple actions or words touching her heart told me that, under her sass and fight, there was a girl who longed for what had been stolen from her. A girl who’d been forced to hide away until it was safe to come back out so that she could view the world with un-scorned eyes.
I guess you could say that little girl sensed the little boy in me. The clubhouse hadn’t been the most innocent place to have been raised. I missed out on a few innocent firsts, too.
I baited, “Never been told that before you.”
That shocked her. “What have you been told?”
“It’s usually ‘stubborn pup’ or ‘you will be the death of me’ or ‘are you trying to shorten my life?’.” Elle chuckled until I said, “Or, ‘you’re an asshole’ as I kick some girl from my room.”
Her head lifted, forcing mine to retract.
