I understood where she was coming from and I didn’t envy her going forward. That was a battle that wouldn’t be fun and I think we all knew it.
I looked up in surprise when Rowdy was suddenly looming over me with his hands on my shoulders.
“Tink, you might need to rally your man. I think beer and pain meds might’ve done him in.”
I spun around on my chair, and sure enough Rome was zonked out on the lawn chair. Rule and Nash were hovering over him, trying to decide if they should find the situation cause for concern or hilarious. I patted those tattooed hands and got to my feet.
“My turn to save him.”
That’s what we did. We saved each other. He forced me to see that living in fear got me nowhere and that holding out for some unobtainable ideal of perfection was just silly. I made him realize that whoever he wanted to be and whatever he chose to do was enough. He didn’t have to be anything more. He wasn’t perfect, I wasn’t perfect, but the love we had for each other … nothing was more perfect than that.
I elbowed my way between Rule and Nash and bent down so I could put a hand on one of Rome’s prickly cheeks. He didn’t look bad with a beard; in fact it made him look almost too rugged. The last thing he needed was anything that accentuated his raw and undeniable man-ness. But I liked his pretty face and missed it hidden behind those bushy whiskers.
“Come on, Captain No-Fun, time to go home.”
His dark lashes fluttered along the high ridge of his cheeks and those breath-stealing blue eyes blinked open. It was strange to see him so vulnerable, so open, but he had never hidden from me and apparently he was done hiding from himself because it was all there in his gaze when he looked at me. Everything he was—hero, lover, stubborn pain in the neck, and a man with or without a plan—I could see it all and it just made me love him all the more.
He had to have both the other guys help him to his feet and it was slow going on the way to the truck. Even though it took some maneuvering and the use of every swearword in his vocabulary, he insisted on taking the Dodge instead of riding in the Cooper, which I thought would have been easier. He was going to have to get over his hatred of my car because sooner rather than later it was going to be too hard for me to hop up into the massive 4×4. He didn’t argue when I held out my hand for the keys and tossed his crutches in the back. I noticed that he had white lines of pain fanning out around the corners of his eyes despite the meds and the booze. It looked like he might have overdone it a little.
I reached out and patted his knee.
“So I have a question for you.”
He shifted his gaze to mine and just grunted. Okay, Captain No-Fun was in serious effect.
“Ayden told me that she and Jet are more than likely moving out. He wants to convert the studio. How would you feel about just moving in with me and staying at my place?”
He was quiet, which made me nervous. I looked over at him and was surprised to find he had his eyes closed and his head resting against the window. I thought maybe he was asleep and I wondered how I was going to get him inside and had a sense of déjà vu.
“Can we tone the pink in your bedroom down just a little bit so my balls don’t shrivel up and fall off?”
His snippy tone made me laugh as I pulled into the driveway.
“Sure thing, big guy.”
He sighed and shifted his big body so that he could maneuver himself out of the door.
“I love your place, Cora. It’s colorful and cute just like you. Plus it’s a rental, so we can stay there until we decide we want to buy something and stay there permanently. That totally works for me.”
Man, I wasn’t sure I was ever going to be able to contain how happy this big, gruff man made me.
“It works for me, too, and it would make me really happy.”
I went ahead of him to let him in the house. When I got to the door he followed me in and I guided him to the room so that he could sprawl on the bed.
“If it makes you happy, Half-Pint, you don’t have to ask. That’s all I want.” He threw the arm on his good side across his eyes and sighed. “I love you, Cora.”
Every time he said it, I kept it in a place deep down inside of me to cherish and hold on to forever. It was a special place full of special things, and even if our time together had been relatively short, that place had enough love in it to last a lifetime. I sat on the bed next to him and ran my fingers over his scruff.
“I love you, too, Rome.” It was so easy to tell him that now. To hand over everything I had been so foolishly afraid of giving to him. I realized now love didn’t do any good if you held on to it in a death grip. It only had purpose, had power, when you had the courage to hand it over to someone else for safekeeping.
“I know.”
It’s what he always said to me. “I know.” Like without the words he just knew how I felt. I asked him about it and he just smiled at me and told me he needed someone to point it out to him. When I asked what he was talking about, he just asked me what I thought about naming the baby Remy. I loved it.
“I also love your face and I’m sick of trying to find it in all of these whiskers. I know you can’t use your arm very well right now, so why don’t you let me help you shave?”
I ran a finger over the delicate curve of his ear and the eyebrow with the scar danced upward. I was hoping the pain meds and the beer were enough to make him more agreeable.
“You don’t like it?”
“I miss your face. It’s too pretty to be covered with all of this.”
“Is that why you won’t kiss me?”
I frowned at him and leaned down to drop a kiss on his sullen mouth. “No. I’m not kissing you because with you, kissing always leads to more and the doctor told you that was a no-no. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Not kissing hurts me and you don’t even want to know what no sex does to me.”
I had a pretty good idea—after all, I was on the other end of the ban—but his health and well-being were more important than an orgasm no matter how good he might be at giving them. I kissed him again and levered myself up off the bed. I stood over him and put my hands on my hips. I didn’t miss the way his eyes narrowed on my chest.
“I’ll run you a bath. You can relax and I’ll help you look less like a mini Brite. How does that sound?”
He grumbled that real men didn’t take baths, but he didn’t argue or try and stop me when I went into the bathroom and turned on the water. In fact by the time I made it back into the room, he had wrestled his shirt off and had his pants unbuttoned. I could just stare at him like that forever. Even with the angry scar that now decorated the side of his neck right above his collarbone and the ugly wound on his side, he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I just gaped at him like a dimwit until he laughed at me and ordered me over to help him up. It took some maneuvering and some shuffling, and by the time he got his pants the rest of the way off, there was no doubting that nearly dying hadn’t had any effect on his libido.
I looked at the erection that was now pointing straight upward at his rippling stomach and then up at him. He gave a small shrug.
“My dick doesn’t give two f**ks about doctor’s orders.”
I laughed and helped him into the steamy water. He was so big the liquid spilled over the sides onto the floor. He gave me an I told you so look but settled his broad shoulders back and closed his eyes as I brushed a thumb over his cheekbone and along the strong line of his jaw where it was covered in a soft layer of facial hair. I used my other hand to grab a washcloth and roll it over his shoulders and neck, careful of his new battle mark.
“Rome.” Those unbelievable eyes flicked open and I thought I was going to drown in the blue of them. “We might not be perfect, but you and I are so perfect for each other. I just want you to know that.”
He grabbed the hand that I was using to stroke his face and sucked the edge of my thumb into his mouth. Between the heat from the interior of his mouth and the tickle of his beard, I was beginning to doubt I could keep this all business.
“Kind of funny how that worked out, isn’t it?”
He ran his hand up my arm and tangled his fingers in my hair, and before I knew it, he had my entire upper half bent over the edge of the tub and I was not only soaking wet but sprawled across his chest as his mouth sealed itself over mine. Kissing him while he was furry was interesting, and maybe I had been too hasty in wanting to get rid of the beard. His tongue rubbed against mine, his teeth nipped at the delicate skin on the inside of my lower lip, and I realized he had completely maneuvered me into the position with the use of only one good hand. Tricky soldier.
I pushed up off of him and shook my wet bangs out of my face.
“The doctor said no.”
“I say yes.”
I should have fought harder when he moved my hand under the water and wrapped it around his prominent erection. I told myself I didn’t want to hurt him, but the truth was I missed the feel of him, the weight of him in my hands and in my body. I gave that impressive flesh a light squeeze and bit my lip as I waged an internal war with what was right and what was right now.
“Come on, Half-Pint. I only have one working side, I got more holes in me than a golf course, and I haven’t seen you n*ked in way too long. Climb on and give me something to smile about.”
God, how I wanted to, but I just didn’t want to hurt him and I wasn’t sure about what he was going to say when he caught sight of my little surprise. I thought I was going to have more time to show him, maybe break him into the idea slowly in case he hated it, but his good hand was working into the neck of my tank top and his strong fingers were tweaking my nipple, making it hard to think.
“Rome …”
“Cora …”
I don’t even know why I thought I could fight it. I didn’t have it in me to deny this man anything. I scootched up so that I was propped up on the edge of the tub next to his bad arm. I made him lean his head back so that his neck was resting on the rim, and I kissed him long and hard. He tasted like beer and forever.
“When I take my shirt off, don’t freak out.”
That single eyebrow shot up and he chuckled a little. “I’ve seen your miraculously growing tits, Cora. I think it’ll be fine.”
I made a face at him and pulled my tank top over my head. There was no missing what I had been talking about and I heard him suck in a hard breath then swear when the action hurt his still-tender side.
“Oh my God.”
The tattoo was pretty big. It started on the back of my shoulder blade, the chain meticulously detailed and so real it looked like you could pick it up off my skin. Rule had tattooed the little metal beads that made up the standard chain so that they were in the shape of a heart. The design twisted and twined under my arm and high across my rib cage. The twin tags with all of Rome’s vital statistics hung next to each other under the soft swell of my breast. He was there, forever on my skin. I didn’t know a better way to show him how much he mattered to me, and apparently it had the desired effect because his eyes shot up to mine and for once the man that always had the last word was silent.
“That’s what you wanted my tags for.” His voice was husky and there was no mistaking the emotion in his tone. “It’s beautiful.”
So was the way he kept touching it.
“Rule did it for me. I thought I was going to have more time to surprise you. I wanted to show you when I couldn’t tell you that you were it for me, too.” I reached out and brushed a knuckle along the spot that cut across his neck that was still raised, angry, and red. “You permanently marked your skin for me, Rome. I wanted to do the same for you.”
He got his good arm around me and pulled me fully into the tub with him so that we were hugging but so much more.
“This, Cora … this is as perfect as two people can be.”