The car ride is filled with silence, but there’s not much room for anything else with the amount of excitement and anticipation overflowing the cabin space. My knees bounce nervously, jostling the gigantic bag of M&M’s I’m clutching in my lap, while repeatedly squeezing Creed’s fingers until my knuckles are white.
Riley comes home today.
Creed’s phone rings, and he answers it on the car’s speaker system. “Dad, what’s up?”
“There a reason why I’m being tailed by one of Asher’s men on the interstate?” Garrick’s grumbling voice cuts through the air, but Creed only chuckles.
He’s on his way home right now, but he popped by this morning to bring donuts and coffee, checking to make sure we didn’t need a ride to pick up Riley today. It’s still so surreal being around him and Creed simultaneously, the familiarity I felt around Garrick years ago making sense now.
Seeing the two of them standing side by side again was like getting a glimpse of what Creed will look like when he’s older, and I have to admit, I’m not mad about it. Garrick is timelessly handsome and a little rugged to top it off. He’s got a few tattoos,but nothing close to the amount of ink that covers Creed’s skin. The same dark hair, sharp jawline, straight cut of perfectly white teeth… but Creed’s eyes? Those come from his mama. Bright, ice blue and almond-shaped like hers. I know this now because I got to see her for the first time. His dad keeps an old photo of her as the background on his phone. My heart nearly snapped in two when I caught the bittersweet mix of heartbreak and all-consuming love in his eyes when he introduced her to me.
Nova was her name. The only woman to ever capture the heart of Garrick St. James. She was beautiful. Garrick said she was a short little thing like me. A heart-shaped face with a head full of curly, dark hair that she loved to pull up with a scrunchie. She grew up in the eighties and nineties but dressed as if she were from the sixties. Creed gets his smile from her, too. The perfect pout to her bottom lip with a softly pronounced cupid’s bow. Pretty, tanned skin with a soft dusting of freckles just on her nose and one beneath her left eye.
Creed told me he was young when she passed away, but it was impossible to miss the yearning in his eyes as he stared at the photo this morning. For the briefest moment, he bore the longing for a mother who I am positive was just as beautiful on the inside.
Rolling my head against the headrest, I look at the breathtaking man next to me. He’s driving with one hand on the wheel and the other with his fingers laced through mine, grinning despite me cutting off his circulation with every anxious squeeze.
“They’re not Asher’s men, Dad.” Creed’s grin stretches a little wider. “They’re the McTavish men.”
A stretching moment of silence, then…“Creed?—”
“Lachlan called it a parting gift.”
“A parting—how did he even know I was leaving?”
“I told him.”
“Credence—”
What??
My head snaps to Creed, whose eyes are rolling as he groans and drops his head back to his headrest. He peeks at me, looking awfully annoyed. I’ve known him my whole life, and I had no idea that he had a full name that wasn’t justCreed. I knew he had no middle name. Creed had told me once that his mom just knew he’d have a big enough personality with a name likeCreed St. Jamesthat he didn’t need one.
She wasn’t wrong about that.
I roll my lips together, trying so,sohard to fight the bubbling laughter. Not because it’s a lame name, but because of the way his dad used it, like he was a child being scolded for sneaking candy.
Quirking a brow, I will my voice to not give away my amusement when I whisper, “Credence, huh?”
“Don’t you fucking start, Stardust,” he murmurs under his breath.
I shrug, feigning innocence. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He releases my hand, just to clutch my inner thigh, dangerously close to the apex of where I crave him most. They automatically clench, and now it’s his turn to smirk. He slows to a stop at a red light, leans over the center console, and growls into the shell of my ear, “You wanna tease me about it? We’ll see just how long that lasts when I have you screaming it with my cock buried deep inside of you.”
And now I’m soaked.
Cocky bastard.
His fingers lazily stroke my skin, tracing lazy patterns up and down my scars. The pain is gone, but the goosebumps still take over because this touch feelsgood.Creed’s touch only heals, the contact soothing.
“I’m not in danger, you know?” Garrick says, drawing our attention back to the phone call.
“I know, but it would give me peace of mind to know you got home safe.”
“And a simple text or phone call wouldn’t appease you?” he says, chuckling, but Creed reassures him.
“They’re only escorting you home. They won’t stick around if you don’t want them to.” He sobers up a little as I watch a dark thought pass through his mind. “I just don’t want to risk it, Dad.”
