It’s Ty, a shot of deliverance, reshapingnothing left to loseintoeverything I’ve ever wanted.
And when he’s finished, he kisses me with an ardent thirst, staking his claim in a way that seems too impassioned for the after. But it’s as though Ty has been awakened—or at least, I hope that’s what this is.
He rolls us so that he’s on his back and I’m tucked against him, half sprawled atop him and half at his side. “We should’ve done that a long fucking time ago.”
I giggle into his sweat-beaded pecs as my fingers draw trails over him, tracing the outlines of his scars. There are so many, which fractures my heart and makes me wonder about that night terror he had. But it’s only been a couple of days, so I’ll hold off on asking for details.
Instead, I simply gloat. “I could’ve told you that. I’ve always known where I belonged.”
No response. He pecks me on the head and carries me to the bathroom, setting me on the counter to clean me up with soft pats and swipes of a warm washcloth on my swollen core. I resist the urge to prattle on about nothing or make an off-the-cuff remark about the hole he punched in the wall—the impulse to fill the silence—and bask in the devotion he’s extending to care for me, inspecting every inch of skin to assess the health of where he spanked and bit and impaled.
Finally, he gathers my hair into a ponytail, lifts me into his arms, and plods another wordless trek to the hot tub. “This will help,” he says, slipping into the bubbling warmth with me straddling his lap. “To soothe any soreness.”
And once we’re situated with the jets gushing around us, his fingers meander up and down my spine. “You have no idea how long I waited to watch you fall apart like that and scream my name.”
“Really?” The tentative nature of my question is obvious, but I don’t hold back. “I didn’t think I was even on your radar. How long? When?”
He squeezes me against him. “Not the first time I saw you because you were young. Sixteen, I think. Arguing with Axel about not being allowed to go out with Jax. How unfair that was. And he told you it was because—”
“Jax was an adult, and I wasn’t. I remember that day.” I’ll never forget it because when my attention snagged on Ty through the cracked door, I was enamored. I even made up an excuse to grab something from Axel’s office so I could steal a better glimpse.
“Yeah,” he says, his fingers sploshing through the water in a divine audit of my back and hips and ass. “Your eyes found mine, and you turned this pretty shade of pink. But that was it. I didn’t see you again for a couple of years. And I didn’t think about you after that. You were a kid, and I was a grown man.”
“It wasn’t a couple of years,” I correct him, unashamed of my teenage crush. “Not for me. You came about every six months for a visit, and I’d watch you on the security monitors.”
“Well, I didn’t know that.” He chuckles, dusting his thumb across my cheek so that a waterfall of droplets cascades to my shoulder. “But the second time I saw you, you’d just turned nineteen. And you were … all grown up. You had this black shirt with ribbons and hard lines in the stomach area.” He brushes his knuckles over my belly, so I supply the term he’s searching for.
“Boning.”
A smile blooms on his face. “Okay. Your shirt had boning.” A hushed snicker falls from his lips before he goes on. “You wanted to order sushi and Mexican, and Ryker acted irritated even though it was clear he adored you. You were busy, planning to go hang out with someone. You’d added the pink to your hair, and you wore it down in these big, soft curls. And your eyes were a bright green but had flecks of blue and golden brown floating inside them. You were so animated and vibrant. You lit up the whole room.”
He pauses for a second, but his focus isn’t anchored anywhere. It’s as though he’s lost to that visual. “I’ve never stopped thinking about that day.”
My chest tightens. Probably because my heart ballooned with each word of that admission. We’ve successfully obliterated any semblance of returning to the little-sister-of-his-friends relationship.
So, I tighten my arms around his neck, nestle my forehead against his shoulder, and squeak out the plea I have for all our sakes. “Please don’t break my heart, Ty.”
He lifts my chin. “I don’t intend to. I’m in this. I’ll spend my life protecting you, Rena. But everything I have to offer is cloaked in pain. That’s why I tried to stay away.”
“Don’t be all gloom and doom tonight.” I rake my hands into his curls, looping one around my index finger. “My brothers will take us there soon enough.”
“I’m sure they will,” he agrees, and his voice grows raspy and distant. “And so will my family in their own way. Things will need to be …settled. But it’s not all gloom and doom. It’s like your blueberry fields.”
“How so?”
He slants his head, studying me and collecting his thoughts at once. “The best crops come after a burn. The lowbush berries can withstand the heat, and a lot of nutrients are underground, so afterward, they flourish.”
My brows furrow because he’s always surprising me. “How do you know that?”
“It’s a good metaphor for the life I’ve built with my family and probably one you can relate to. We’ve been burned a lot, but we’ve adapted. That’s what you’ll get with me—with us—planting gardens on graves.” He waits for a beat, but when I don’t react to that subtle warning, he smiles and continues, “But I know the specifics because I’ve been a lot of people. And one of them grew up near berry farmers.”
“Who are you now?” I ask, my pulse thrumming with a cognizance that there is a lot more to unearth here—so much that lies beneath the surface.
No hesitation as he cups my cheek. “Yours.”
God, I love the sound of that.“Where do we go from here then?”
A mischievous grin twitches on his lips as he hardens beneath me and tugs me closer, his glistening pecs rising and falling with the foamy water. “I make you come on my tongue, paint you like I promised, and put you to bed.”
