We slipped out of the auto shop, giggling like schoolkids who’d secretly sneaked into the janitor’s closet for a make-out session.
Jacob pulled me to face him, his hands resting on my shoulders, and he pressed his forehead to mine. “Wanna go for a ride tomorrow?” he asked. “Want you on the back of my bike where you belong.”
I almost squealed with delight. Instead, I bounced on the balls of my feet excitedly and breathed in the style of Chandler Bing, “Could youget any better?”
My man chuckled, his grip on my shoulders tightening as he pulled me in and touched his mouth to mine before asking, “My songbird likes motorcycles?”
“I’ve never been on one.” My gaze locked with his, and I took in the icy blue eyes I loved so much. “But I do know that as long as I get to hold onto you, I’ll love it.”
He turned me to the side, his beautiful big bicep cuffing me to his side again as we headed around the side of the hotel. “Come with me. Wanna show you somethin’.”
“I’ve heard that before,” I replied drolly, laughing along with his chuckle as Jacob pulled me around the front of the building and up onto the hotel steps. His feet faltered and he dropped his ass onto the top stair, pulling me down to sit across his lap before gently turning my face toward his with his forefinger.
“I’m gonna show you the last piece of me,” he murmured. “The one piece you haven’t seen yet. I’mgonna do this here before we go inside because it doesn’t belong in our room with us, but it’s still an introduction that needs to happen before I let it go for good.”
My eyebrows pulled together curiously, and I watched as he reached into the inside pocket of his cut and retrieved his wallet. Flipping it open, his fingers went inside, and he pulled out a couple of small photographs.
“Saint,” he said, his voice suddenly husky with emotion. “This is Allicent.”
My sharp intake of breath was audible. “Jacob...” I began, but my voice trailed off when he held up the first picture.
“This was her on our wedding day,” he explained gently, holding the small square image out.
With trembling fingers, I took it from him, and pulling in a deep breath, I braced and turned the picture to study it.
A pretty blonde woman smiled up at me. She wore a long, white, capped-sleeved dress, and her pose was exaggerated, as if she were pretending to be a model.
“I sneaked that photo just before the ceremony,” Jacob told me, his voice soft. “I wasn’t supposed to see the bride before the wedding, but I didn’t care. I waited for her bridesmaids to leave and then broke into her room and made her kiss me before she headed out to the church.”
I laughed. “That doesn’t surprise me about you, Jacob.”
“Her dad caught us, but I swore him to secrecy. It cost me a two-hundred-dollar bottle of whiskey.” He chuckled. “Most expensive kiss in history.”
I smiled down at Allie Irons. “She’s beautiful.”
“She was,” he agreed. “I loved her until the end of her life, and I will until the end of mine. But I’min lovewith you. Allie was incredible, but I’m not holding onto her anymore. I’m holding onto you.”
“You didn’t need to do this,” I whispered. “I don’t expect you to switch your feelings for Allie off. If you were the kind of man who could, you wouldn’t be the right one for me.”
“I know,” he assured me. “But I think I needed to do this for myself. I wanted to show you the last hidden piece. I wanted you to see everything, even the painful, raw, ugly shit that isn’t easy or pretty. Now you’ve got all of me, baby; the good, bad, and everything in between. Allie was a big part of helping to shape me into who I am today. It’s because of her that I’m here now, heart open and ready for you. She made me that way.”
Throat burning, I slotted the image behind the other one, taking a look at a slightly older but still beautiful woman, except that time she wore jeans and a tight, pink tee and was looking to the side of the camera. A small smile played around her lips, and she seemed to be deep in thought, her long, blonde hair streaming out to the side as a gust of wind caught it.
“That was two weeks before she died,” Jacob rasped. “That photograph fucked me up for a long time because she looked so alive. All along, she had a ticking time bomb in her chest, and we didn’t know about it. How can that be, Saint? How can anyone be so full of life, then two weeks later, drop down dead?”
I tilted my head, resting it on his shoulder.
“For years, it stopped me from getting serious with another woman,” he continued. “Because I knew how goddamned precarious life could be. I was so fucking scared of running headfirst into the same scenario, to find a woman full of love and life and then lose her because of something I couldn’t control. So I resisted and shied away from making connections. There was one woman I felt a spark with before you and I fuckedit up on purpose; knew exactly what I was doin’ but did it anyway. Canceled a date with her and fucked a club whore instead.” He laughed self-deprecatingly. “I did it under the guise that I knew my club brother liked her and wanted to stand aside for him, but I was lying to myself. Can you believe that shit?”
“You were just protecting your heart,” I pointed out.
“Yeah,” he agreed with a smile. “And it all worked out for the best. She’s happily married, and just over a year later, I saw you backstage at a gig and fell head over heels in love at first sight. If I’d have gone there with her, I would’ve had to end it when I met you, and that shit would’ve gotten messy.”
“Life has a habit of turning out the way it’s meant to,” I stated.
He turned his head and murmured, “Yeah,” into my hair.
Emotion grabbed my throat and squeezed.
