Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men, #6)

by Darling, Giana

  I hesitated. “I’m not any kinda good man.”

  His Lafayette blue eyes scoured my face, my wrapped palms and tombstone-tatted knuckles. “If you say so, though I believe there is goodness in every man.”

  “Only goodness in me comes from the woman in this hospital bed,” I indicated with a jerk of my chin. “Maybe we split in two, the good and evil, but I’m the latter through and fuckin’ through. I got no regrets about it, but I’m wonderin’, you think a man like that, livin’ life the way he wants, sinnin’ and all, could be a good father? I got my doubts.”

  “You’re asking me as a Pastor or Bea’s grandpa?”

  “Both, I guess.” I wanted to know how much grace there was in his God, if what Bea said about Him was true, that He didn’t cast harsh judgments or write lost souls off as lost causes.

  The pastor smiled, the lines beside his eyes fanning, brackets emerging around his mouth. His was a face that smiled often. “You know, Priest, I might be a holy man, but even I’ve made mistakes. I raised my own son to be a terrible man. I let him turn my grandchild out of his house. But I learned from my sins, and I truly believe that is the mark of a good man or woman. If we blunder, do we apologize to the wronged party sincerely? Do we move on, having learned more about ourselves and how to be better? You say you have no regrets about who you are. I see nothing wrong with that as long as you still allow for change. Has your love for my granddaughter not changed you for the better? I believe it probably has, and I believe that a man who can be moved by love is spurred toward greatness. If you have it in you to love your child, I have no doubt you will be a worthy father.”

  I swallowed the acrid dryness at the back of my throat, grateful he hasn’t quoted scripture or referenced God directly. I was about religioned out at this point.

  But his words struck a chord, however slight, especially when he peered up at me, not a small man, just slight and narrow, and added, “But what I think doesn’t matter nearly as much as Beatrice, and if I know my granddaughter, she wouldn’t have fallen in with you in the first place if she didn’t believe you were the very best of men.”

  “Thank you,” I grunted, ready to get to my woman.

  He smiled. “You’re family now, so I should think you can call me Michael.”

  I nodded curtly, already moving into the hospital room, forgetting about his kindness and its direct contrast to Father O’Neal and Seth Linley the second I caught sight of my girl.

  She looked so little in the white hospital sheets, her gorgeous mane of silver blond hair dull with blood and grime, pushed back by a pink velvet headband someone had brought for her. She’d been gazing out the windows at the snow starting to fall in thick white flakes outside.

  She didn’t turn to look at me even though I knew she was aware of my presence. Instead, she stared down at her hands where she held the carved Dara Knot I’d given her years ago.

  “It’s so funny because I know so much about you in some ways. I know the constellation of freckles on your cheeks and the exact ridges of calluses on your hands. I know you don’t drink and that you hand-roll your clove cigarettes. I know you’re from Ireland, that you snuck over on a freighter with the help of a kind stranger. I even know your address when so many don’t.” She tipped those huge clear blue eyes to me, each striation in the iris stark and visible beneath the lake water blue. “I know you love me. But I don’t know how you feel about marriage. I don’t know how you feel about babies, and…and I’m pregnant. Which isn’t really a surprise because we didn’t use protection, even though I know you thought you wouldn’t be able to reproduce and––”

  I started toward her, done with her soliloquy but unable to stop the flow of her beautiful voice because I was just so fucking relieved she was alive to speak at all. So I moved toward her in three ground-eating strides and bent in half to grab her chin between my knuckles and seal that chatting mouth closed with a kiss.

  She tasted of ash and sorrow, but also, as my tongue swept deeper as I sat on the bed to press closer to her sweet body, I thought somewhat uncharacteristically that she tasted of hope.

  I only pulled back when she was pliant as warm clay, and then I pressed my forehead to hers, tipping my gaze down to watch my hand slide over the flat expanse of her belly.

  “I don’t feel anythin’ at all unless it revolves around you,” I said fiercely, hoping to brand the words on her soul. “And now, this baby. I might be a shit fuckin’ dad, but you gotta know I’ll try my best as long as you don’t mind havin’ a killer as your baby daddy.”

  Then Bea did what she’d been doing since she was seventeen, and I noticed her eatin’ that peach. She surprised me.

  Her laughter rang out like church bells, pure and chiming as she raised her hands to frame my bearded face, bringing me close so I could feel that humour against my skin. “I never knew the words ‘baby daddy’ could bring me so much joy. I don’t need marriage or anything. I know you would,” she allowed before I could interrupt. “But I don’t need it. I just want to be sure you’re okay with this? I’m only nineteen, twenty in five days, but I want this so much more than I ever could have known.”

  “Then I want it too,” I said simply because that was the truth.

  I lived and died by this girl with the haloed hair and angel eyes. I’d give her the fucking world if she wanted it, but somehow, she only wanted me. Moving over to collect her gently in my arms knowing her damaged back was dressed but sore, I swung my booted feet onto the clean bed and held my sweet girl in my arms against my bloodstained cut, thinking this was it.

  This was us.

  This was my life now, my heart alive and beating against my chest instead of inside it.

  I collected her little, pale hand, the fingers red and scratched from clawing at the snow as she fought off Seth. I kissed the ends of those fingers, then sucked each pad lightly into my mouth, watching as her blue eyes went black, loving how such an innocent act could affect my innocent Bea.

  “I am obsessed with every inch of you. The fragile bones beneath your lean muscles, the entire expanse of your cream suede skin, and the way it bruises so pretty for me. I’m obsessed with the knuckles in these small hands,” I said, pausing to gently bite each hook of bone at the base of her fingers. “And every strand of this haloed hair.”

  “That sounds an awful lot like love, Priest,” she murmured, almost dazed.

  I cocked my head, considering it, the definition of love as I’d read it and how such a little word could possibly define the only emotion to ever take hold of my body and fucking soul. Finally, I shrugged one shoulder and dipped down to tongue at the pulse in her throat. “You can call it whatever you want, mo cuishle. That’s how I feel ’bout you. That’s how I’ll feel about this baby just knowing he or she’s a part of my Little Shadow, my fucking brave-hearted girl.”

  “The Walshes are still out there. I know Seth orchestrated a lot of his atrocities under the guise of their name, but they still might come for us all the way from Saskatoon,” she interjected, biting worriedly at her lower lip. “And Javier Ventura. There will be more too, I’m sure, enemies of the club who show up to drive us down or kill us outright. We won’t ever be truly safe in this life. I’m choosing it, choosing you. For me, there is no other option. I just wanted you to know I’m going into this eyes-wide-open. I know the risks, and I know as long as you’re breathing, you won’t let anything take us from you.”

  “I’d die for you,” I agreed easily as she trailed her fingers through my beard. “And I’ll live for you until that day. You don’t worry about anythin’, Bea. I’ll take care of anythin’ that comes.”

  “I know,” she said, nuzzling into me, eyes heavy with the need to sleep. “I don’t have to be afraid of anything when I have my very own psycho.”

  I chuckled into her hair, but safe in my arms, secured against my chest, my girl was already out like a light.

  Bea

  Seven months later

  The summer air was thick and
sweet, syrupy with the scent of honeysuckle and lilac. I lay in the long, dried grass on a checkered pink blanket with my eyes closed to savour the feel of the sun on my skin and that rich aroma of summertime. There was an ache in my back, a tight knot that seemed to clench tighter with each beat of my heart, but the soft ground beneath me and the soothing sounds of the buzzing bees lulled me into a kind of half-slumber. My hands smoothed lazily over my big belly, swelling almost comically from my slight frame beneath a white gingham dress.

  “Swollen like a peach.” The voice of my partner, my old man, my psycho.

  I smiled, hovering my hand over my eyes to block the glare as I squinted at Priest looming over me in a tight black tee. It was short-sleeved, something he’d taken to doing if he was spending the day just with me, unashamed of his scars now because I told him so often they were beautiful. To me, they were. Badges of the tragedies he’d overcome, marks of the making of this man who meant everything to me. I loved to kiss the ridges of his healed skin and rub my thumb over the silky pink burns as if my touch could soothe some phantom ache. Priest bared his arms now sometimes, so in a way, I think it did.

  He didn’t smile as he looked down at me because even though he was the happiest I’d ever seen, he still wasn’t inclined to use expression unless it was in threat. Instead, his brows were loosened from their perpetual furrow, his lips full and soft instead of pressed, and his eyes, those pale green eyes like peridot, shone with tangible emotion as he looked down at my sun-warmed form.

  I laughed when he pulled a bag from behind his back, reached inside, and produced a pint of peaches.

  “Yes,” I cried, trying to sit up with some semblance of grace when my belly made it nearly impossible to do so.

  Priest took mercy on me, dropping the bag on the ground beside me before offering me a hand to tug me upright. He then moved behind me, bracketing his long legs on either side of my body, so I was cradled against his lap, his hand pulling me back to lean against his hard, carved torso. He did that, positioning me, often. He liked me as near to him as he could manage or people would allow in social situations—tucked under his arm, locked into his side, on his lap if he was sitting, or between his legs on a stool. Even if he was busy talking to someone else, he was aware of me in little movements, his hand tangled in my hair, a finger hooked through a belt loop, his lips moving through my hair as he listened to someone speak.

  Loulou complained that there was no getting through to either of us if we were in a room together. We were caught up in each other, the magnetism between us had its own gravitational force, and we were happy to stay in each other’s orbit.

  I still worked at Little Miss Murder, which had exploded since the event of the Prophet, and now made me a tidy living on top of my inheritance from Benjamin, and Priest still had his dealings with the club and a job at Hephaestus.

  But whenever we were free, we were together.

  I’d always known some couples were like that. Though I’d never thought I’d be one of them, it made sense for us.

  We were each other’s obsession.

  I watched Priest pluck a ripe peach from the box in his long, tattooed fingers, then flick open his switchblade with the other hand. With his arms wrapped around me, he cut it slowly, deliberately into a single segment, then pierced that with the end of the blade and held it to my lips. I pulled it into my mouth with my teeth, the sweet juices spilling out the corner as I chewed the large piece. Carefully, Priest angled my head back against his shoulder so he could use the edge of the blade to scrape up the wet from the underside of my neck to my jawline.

  I squeezed my thighs together against the ache that bloomed when he brought that knife to his own mouth and licked up the juice.

  His eyes were all darkness as they lingered on my lips while he fed me another piece. My tongue lashed out to catch a drop of juice, and I felt his cock grow against my lower back.

  “Only you could make eating a peach erotic,” I breathed as his strong fingers wrapped around my throat and tilted my head back farther so he could lick at my sticky sweet lips.

  “You started it,” he claimed. “Seventeen years old and drawin’ my notice like you didn’t care I was a killer.”

  “If I ever cared, it was only because I found it sexy,” I admitted.

  I watched as he used the now clean blade to trace light patterns along the tops of my breasts visible above the cotton dress. They’d swollen heavily with my pregnancy, practically spilling from all of my old clothes no matter how loose they’d been.

  Priest was enjoying them.

  Shockingly, he enjoyed every moment of my pregnancy, relishing the changes, watching my body grow as if I was a rare and delicate flower in bloom. It was erotic as hell to have him worship me in bed, the swell of my stomach, the delicate, stretched skin of my breasts.

  He palmed one now in his big hand, testing the weight. “Eight months pregnant and you’ve never been sexier to me.”

  “Priest,” I protested laughingly.

  “Truth.” He plucked my nipple hard between his knuckles. “You’ve never been more mine than you are with our baby growing inside you.”

  I laughed then, falling into it, pushing my head back into his unyielding shoulder so I could share that laughter with the heavens. “Could you be more of an alpha?”

  He grunted, ignoring me mostly, his eyes fixed on my breasts as he used the knife to slice off a button, revealing even more of my pale cleavage.

  “Priest…” I warned even as my body went warm and pliant in his hold. “We’re in public.”

  “In a park at two o’clock on a fuckin’ Tuesday,” he pointed out as his hand dove into the parted fabric and pulled out my flesh, my breasts lifted and pressed together over the bunched fabric beneath. “No one’s gonna see me fuck my woman.”

  “God will,” I half-teased.

  Priest shifted out from behind me, laying me back on the blanket so he could settle in a half-sprawl on his side to cut off another section of peach. I watched breathlessly as he squeezed the piece of fruit between his strong fingers over my breasts, the sunset gold liquid running in rivulets down and between their roundness.

  “Let him watch,” he welcomed in that raspy voice that abraded my skin and gave me goosebumps.

  And then he bent his head to lick up every drop of that sweet nectar from my flesh. His tongue lashed hotly, teeth biting gently to test the firmness of my tit, his breath blowing coolly over the wet skin. I shivered and groaned, clutching him to me by two handfuls of his silken copper hair.

  “My shadow loves the pain,” he hummed around my nipple before tugging it sharply between his teeth, then lashing the swollen nub with his tongue.

  “I love the contrast,” I agreed, arching into the pressure. “The pain with the pleasure.”

  He fed me his sticky fingers, sliding them over my tongue so I could suck off the juices. The taste of peach and man was heady enough to make me light-headed and almost dizzy. With his other hand, he rucked up the bottom of my dress, running his rough fingers along the edge of my panties, testing the placket of the cotton to see if I was already wet for him.

  I was. Pregnancy had made me almost feverish with constant desire, and Priest had no problem fulfilling my every need. He began to then, fingers teasing beneath the fabric when a painful spasm ripped down my back into my belly.

  I hissed. Priest recognized it instantly as a bad sound and pulled his hand away. He cocked his head, locking his eyes to my wide ones. He didn’t ask me if I was okay because he read me in an instant.

  When he got up, I tried to protest, but he hushed me with a single frown. “We’re goin’ to the hospital.”

  “Priest, I’m fine. Pains are normal. Maybe they’re Braxton Hicks contractions.”

  I tried my hardest not to laugh, but Priest had been the most detail-orientated dad-to-be I’d ever known. He read science books about pregnancy and childbirth, studying like a doctor for an exam. When we went to doctor’s appointments, he actu
ally scared the lovely Dr. Rosen with both his interrogations and his intensity.

  “Describe the pain,” he demanded then. Crossing his arms over his chest, he stared me down like I was the enemy.

  My lips twitched, but I held back my grin. “My back’s been hurting, but that isn’t exactly unusual, and then there was this spasm in my belly.”

  His eyes narrowed, head cocked as he ran mental calculations through his head.

  “I’m fine,” I insisted. “Can we please continue our picnic?”

  “If you have the same pain in ten minutes, we’re goin’,” he determined in a tone that brokered no argument. “Try changin’ position. I read that helps if it’s Braxton Hicks.”

  “Yes, sir,” I muttered under my breath as I moved into a partial incline on my side, braced on an elbow.

  Priest was suddenly there crouching before me, clenching my chin in his fingers so I was forced to meet the intensity of his gaze. “You and this baby are my heart, my pulse. Do you wanna fuck with that?”

  My heart softened. Sometimes, I forgot how new this was to him, loving someone. There wasn’t a moment or aspect of loving me he took for granted. For a man who didn’t believe in miracles, he treated me like one every day.

  He already felt the same way about our baby. I’d been surprised when he didn’t want to know the gender before the birth because he was so pragmatic, but in that way, it made sense. He’d explained his reasoning simply, finding out who our baby was when he or she was born was the biggest surprise, the biggest miracle he’d ever experience, and he didn’t want to ruin that.

  It was one of many moments in the past six months that made me realize there was a certain wisdom to be found in my man’s psychopathic tendencies, that it was those very characteristics that made him so uniquely beautiful.

  “Okay,” I agreed easily. “Until then, sit with me.”

  Reluctantly, he sat. He was tense, muscles coiled with potential energy just in case any little thing happened that would need him to spring into action. Watching him, knowing how conflicted he was sitting there because I asked him to when he really wanted to rush me to the hospital, my heart clenched for one long, almost painful moment with agonizing love for him.