Tattooed Hearts

by C. A. Harms

  It made me uneasy.

  I stood and moved to join them, and Sean leaned in closer to Landyn, acting as if he didn’t even see me.

  Again that ache in my stomach grew even stronger. I could have ignored his reaction and pretended not to be offended, but my body reacted before my mind could catch up. I placed my hand on his shoulder, and he finally looked at me.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked and he nodded, almost too quickly. “Is that your final answer?” I taunted him with his words from last night, hoping to gain a reaction from him, but he only stared at me.

  “Sean,” I whispered, and even I could hear the worry in my voice.

  “Later.” He finally gave me something. It wasn’t what I needed, but I knew he had something on his mind that he obviously didn’t want to discuss in front of Landyn. And that frightened me more than I wanted to admit.

  I spent the day with a lump the size of a baseball in my throat. I tried to pretend things weren’t different between Sean and me, because I didn’t want Landyn to notice, but it was hard. I craved any small touch from Sean and felt pathetic that whenever he offered one, I closed my eyes to commit it to memory. At one point I found him staring at me with what I could only describe as sadness. I couldn’t figure out why he’d be sad when just this morning he seemed so settled and happy.

  Landyn and Sean were inseparable throughout the day. We’d gone to Toys ’R’ Us and Target, and Sean had spoiled him by buying Landyn almost everything he laid eyes on. When I tried to offer him what little money I had, he shot me down.

  I had never been able to shower Landyn with toys, or even get him the things he needed, and for the first time all day I had seen genuine happiness in Sean’s eyes when Landyn gave him the biggest hug.

  I loved being a witness to these moments between them.

  But as the day went on, I felt even more unsure of myself as I stood back and allowed them to share their time while I made dinner. As we ate, I picked at my food in silence as Landyn and Sean kept talking. I did, however, laugh when Sean decided to tell Landyn about the time I decided I was going to jump ramps with my bike just like the boys did. I had never in my life felt so much pain as I had when I landed on the pavement and broke my wrist.

  “That is why you never jump ramps with your bike,” I told Landyn, trying my hardest to come across stern. I even showed him the scar on my arm. His eyes went wide with fear as he looked back and forth between me and Sean. I wasn’t ashamed of using fear if it meant less trips to the emergency room.

  For a moment I felt the tension that had settled in my stomach fade, but it didn’t last long. As the boys wandered off to Landyn’s room to play with his new toys, I let my mind wander while I cleaned up. With each passing moment, my stomach coiled tighter with fear about what was going on.

  “If you keep scrubbing at that pan, you’re gonna wear a hole right through it.”

  I lowered it to the sink and let my head sag forward. Just the sound of Sean’s voice from behind me was enough to push me over the ledge.

  “Hey,” he said as he placed his hands on my shoulders and turned me to face him.

  I shook my head and continued to look at the floor between us. “Where’s Landyn?” I asked, refusing to admit I was seconds from falling apart.

  “He passed out playing with his racetrack,” Sean said, sounding pleased with himself. I nodded as I tried to turn back to the sink. “Jen.” He gripped my hips in an attempt to hold me in place, but I pushed against his chest and turned away from him.

  He had found it so easy to remain distant all day, so it shouldn’t be hard for him to keep doing it.

  “Can we talk?” he asked.

  “So now you wanna talk,” I snapped, grabbing the pan and scrubbing hard at it again. It would be the cleanest dish in the house by the time I was done. “You’ve ignored me all day, but now you’re ready to talk? Hmm.” I shrugged. “I guess it shouldn’t be that hard for you to wait a little longer, then, should it?” My hurt had turned into anger. Maybe that wasn’t the best solution, but it seemed to keep the tears at bay.

  Silence set over us, and I refused to face him. He did, however, release his hold on my hips. I instantly missed it, but I remained strong.

  “Did you love him?”

  I whirled around, forgetting the pan I still held until I heard the water splatter against the floor. But I didn’t look down or attempt to clean up the mess, and neither did Sean. Instead we stared at one another, and what I saw nearly broke my heart.

  The strong, confident Sean I knew now looked torn, almost defeated. With his arms crossed over his chest, he leaned back against the countertop and titled his head to the side.

  “Did you?” he asked again, and his throat bobbed from swallowing hard.

  “Of course I loved him.”

  Sean flinched as if I had just hit him, and he tried to hide his reaction by looking away. And then I realized what was wrong: he was questioning my feelings for him.

  I would not accept that.

  I stepped forward and placed the pan on the counter at my side before tossing a towel over the puddle on the floor.

  He remained standing there as I placed my hands on his arms, which were still crossed.

  “Listen to me,” I said, hoping he would see I was speaking from my heart. I needed him to understand what I felt and have felt for so many years. “But I never loved him the way I love you,” I clarified. “Our relationship was never anything more than two people sharing a home. He slept in the spare room or on the couch, where he passed out most nights. It was a love formed more out of pity and concern than a romance.” I shook my head. “Robby was never the guy I pictured spending my life with. He was never the man I wanted to turn to when I needed comfort and reassurance. He was just the one that was there when I hit the bottle that one time, and damn it, Sean, I need you to understand something. Had it not been for my father, I never would have married him.”

  The tears I had tried to hold back earlier had now filled my eyes.

  “But I had no place to go. I was so lost in regret and sadness that I felt marrying him was my only option. And yes, maybe in the back of my mind I hoped it wouldn’t backfire and that we could be two friends who agreed to raise their son together, but that was so far from reality.”

  I pulled at his arms, and he slowly lowered them as I stepped in closer. I didn’t care if I was being needy and pathetic. I wanted to feel him close to me.

  “When you walked away, my world fell apart,” I confessed. “I would have rather you stayed and hated me than to never get the chance to see you again. But in that moment, I lost the only thing left in my life that ever meant anything to me. You had always been my one safe place, and one stupid choice, one night I could never take back took it away.”

  He closed his eyes, but I didn’t let his reaction stop me from continuing.

  “The love I felt for Robby was never more than friendship, and now even that is gone. But the love I’ve felt for you”—I tugged on his waist, needing him to open his eyes and look at me—“it has never faded, even with our time apart. Even if you hadn’t come back, and even if I wasn’t standing right here in front of you, that love would still be as strong.”

  I squeezed him just a little tighter. “Please look at me.”

  When he did, that sadness in his eyes was still there.

  “I’ve always loved you, Sean,” I whispered. “Always.”

  SEAN

  THE WAY JENNY looked up at me pulled at something deep inside me. In the back of my mind, I had always imagined her and Robby as having the perfect life. I think it was a weird form of torture I used to punish myself for not speaking up about my feelings for her when I had the chance.

  I knew she’d never loved Robby like that though. But Jimmy was right: I needed to hear it from her in order to move forward.

  “I want to know that you’re in this with me. As deep as I am.” I lowered my forehead to hers. “I don’t want to wake up one day to fin
d you second-guessing your choice either.”

  “No going back,” she whispered. “No regrets.”

  I wrapped her small frame in my arms and pulled her close.

  “Losing you the first time nearly crushed me,” she confessed. “Please believe me when I say I never want to feel that way again.”

  I hadn’t realized just how much I needed to hear those words from her until that moment. But somehow that simple explanation made the sporadic decisions I’ve made over the last few days all make sense.

  “I love you,” I whispered as I opened my eyes and pulled back just enough to look down at her beautiful face and those big, blue eyes looking up at me with such hope. “I never stopped.”

  “Not even once,” she whispered in return. “More times I can count, I dreamed of you coming back to Irving and making everything better.”

  I cupped the back of her head and felt the soft caress of her hair feeding through my fingers. I kept my other arm firmly wrapped around her body, giving her no room to move away from me.

  She was so beautiful with those full, pouty lips and defined cheekbones. And fuck, those blue eyes would forever be the death of me.

  “Kiss me, Sean?” she asked. “I’ve missed it all day.”

  So had I.

  I lowered my lips to hers and relished the way she relaxed against me as she pressed her hands against my chest, fisting my shirt. That was all the proof I needed to know she was mine.

  I nibbled on her lower lip before pulling back to find her expression was filled with longing.

  “I think tonight I’ll join you in our bed,” I said, and she bit her lower lip. Without saying a word, she took my hand and led me toward the stairs. I followed, watching her hips sway from side to side as she climbed toward our bedroom. Thinking of it as ours felt so satisfying.

  Things were about to change for us. And I could barely control myself or my desire to have her.

  Once we were inside and the door behind me was closed, I watched in awe as the woman I had dreamed of and longed for slowly began unbuttoning her jeans and shimmying from side to side as she moved them down over her hips and thighs. The hungry look in her eyes was doing crazy things to me. She hooked the hem of her shirt in her fingers and carefully and tauntingly began to lift it up her body and over her head.

  I couldn’t move. I have never in my life seen anything more beautiful.

  She bit her lower lip as she reached behind her back, unclasped her bra, and let it slowly fall away from her body.

  I was a sexual man, and I’d never struggled to take what I wanted when I was with a woman, but in that moment I was lost in my head. My feet wouldn’t move, and though my hands longed to touch the gorgeous woman before me, they remained fisted at my sides.

  Hell, I couldn’t even remember what my name was at this point.

  My hand lay sprawled across her stomach as her thighs squeezed at the sides of my head. Her back arched as her mouth opened, forming an O. I had never in my life seen anything more erotic.

  She was lost in pleasure as I worked her over with my mouth.

  The way she fisted my hair should have caused me pain, only I was entirely consumed by the way her hips continued to rock against me. She was on a mission for release, and I too craved the moment of her completion. Jenny was like a drug, and the way she moaned as if she had never been touched before, never experienced the kind of pleasure I was giving her, made this even better.

  She had never been treasured and explored. She’d never had a man look at her as if she was the only person in the world capable of satisfying him, and she was all that to me and more. All my past experiences were merely for release. Until Jenny, I’d never felt that soul-deep connection between two people in love. Even though most people wouldn’t have seen it this way, I was her first—in the only way that mattered.

  And I planned to show her just what being loved by a man that truly adored her felt like.

  I knew we’d be explosive together, but I hadn’t prepared myself for this. My sweet little Jenny was a tiger in the sack. She was demanding and didn’t hold back when she found something she liked.

  And apparently my head buried between her thighs was something she fucking loved.

  “Yes,” she moaned as I sucked on her clit, pumping her hips as she rode my face.

  My cock twitched at her movements. If she was half as wild when I finally got to be inside her, I knew I wouldn’t last. Just the idea of her moving her hips the way she was now had me ready to blow.

  “Right there,” she instructed. “Oh my God, yes, don’t stop.”

  I had no intentions of stopping. Hell, I’d camp out here all night if she told me to.

  “Right there,” she said again. “Yes, oh, yes.”

  She released her hold on my hair and gripped the sheets at her side. Her body shook as I continued to eat her out, sliding my finger in and out of her pussy.

  She convulsed as she clenched around my finger, and I had to think of something else for a moment because I was two seconds away from coming.

  Once she relaxed and her thighs fell open, I looked up to find her breathing heavy, her eyes closed tightly. I moved up her body and positioned my cock at her entrance, thankful I had put the condom on before I decided to prime her for the big finale.

  I think she was lost in the bliss of her release, because she didn’t even open her eyes when I ran the head of my cock over her slick opening.

  “Jenny,” I whispered, and she opened her eyes slowly. I smiled at the effort the motion took her, taking pride in driving her into such a happy slumber.

  A guy loved knowing he was good at oral, or anything sex-related, really, and her reaction was all the confirmation I needed to know she was greatly enjoying my efforts.

  I repeated my earlier motion, allowing the tip of my cock to run over her clit before pushing my hips forward, giving her just a little of what was to come.

  Once again her mouth fell open, and I grinned.

  “You want more?” I asked, and she nodded as she placed her hands on my shoulders. “Keep your eyes open, baby,” I directed her. “I want you looking only at me when I’m inside you.”

  She nodded again, and I slowly began to push forward, giving her all of me. A whimper fell from her lips, and her eyes began to roll back.

  “Look at me, Jenny,” I demanded, and her eyes found mine once me. “Don’t hold back. I want it all.” I needed to see the delight in her eyes. I wanted them on me as I gave her this pleasure. “Hook your legs around my waist,” I told her, and within seconds she complied. Her heels dug into my ass, and she silently begged for more.

  “What do you need?’ I asked, because I longed for her to take control. That had never mattered to me with any other woman, but with Jenny it was all I could see. “Tell me, what does my girl need?”

  “Harder,” she growled as she pulled my body toward hers with her legs. “Oh my God, Sean, please,” she begged.

  I gave her what she wanted. Yes, I’d wanted to go slow our first time together, but that was impossible. I’d gone through too much longing and fantasizing over the years to not give in to the hunger we both felt.

  “Fuck me,” I growled. The way her pussy was squeezing me had my toes curling.

  “I’m so close,” she told me, and I think she knew I was barely hanging on. The moment she contracted around my cock, all hope of holding out was lost. I came as I bit down on the inside of my cheek, trying hard not to scream out all the things rolling around in my head.

  Because there were some things a six-year-old shouldn’t hear in the middle of the night.

  Throughout the night, I found comfort in Jenny’s body curled tightly against mine. At one point she whispered my name, and when I lifted my head to look at her, I realized she was still asleep. Knowing she was dreaming of me was so gratifying. I lay at her side, just watching as she smiled and sighed, lost in her dreams. Each time she whispered my name or placed her hand against me, I gladly accepted the spike
of comfort.

  Fuck, I was so lost.

  I wrapped my arms around her as I pulled her closer, throwing my leg over hers to gain even more contact.

  I was never letting go of this.

  “I love you,” she whispered sleepily, and this time I was the one who sighed.

  “I love you too, baby,” I said, knowing she didn’t hear me but feeling better for saying it anyway.

  I dozed off to the feeling of her soft breath fanning out over my bare chest and woke to a completely different sensation. One that made me smile, even though I knew either Jenny or I would need to explain why we were in bed together. I looked toward the woman at my side, praying like hell she was fully covered. To my delight, I found she still felt it necessary to wrap herself up like a burrito in her sleep, even if that left my naked ass half hanging out of the sheet.

  I slowly turned back to face Landyn as I carefully moved the pillow that lay at my side over my hip, hoping like hell he hadn’t noticed. When my eyes settled on Landyn’s, he was grinning widely.

  Something told me I hadn’t been as smooth and sneaky as I had hoped.

  “Where is your underwear?” he asked.

  “I, uh . . .” As I stumbled to come up with a good excuse, I heard a soft giggle at my side. When I looked over, I could only see the top of Jenny’s head poking out from beneath the covers. She thought she was funny hiding out and letting me handle this interaction alone. But I passed the baton quickly.

  “I went to bed dressed,” I said as I looked back at Landyn. Shrugging as if I was bewildered, I asked, “Jenny, do you know where my clothes went?”

  She remained silent, still attempting to hide away. Landyn slowly moved over my body and onto his mother’s, then pulled the covers down, exposing her head completely.

  As he she tickled him and he giggled, I sneaked off the side of the bed and grabbed my boxers from the floor. I quickly slipped them on and darted for the bathroom door on the other side of the room. Just before I closed it, Landyn said something that made me feel like I’d just been kicked in the nuts.