And maybe we managed to get by with a loan from her father. He hadn’t left her side since the hospital. Never talked about why, never explained his actions, although I thought it had something to do with almost losing her. Stubbornness and denial often played a huge part in the choices we made, and unfortunately those choices hurt more than they healed. He was there and that’s all that mattered.
He shrugged and walked past her, taking in our new shop. Magic ‘n Ink would be ready to open in a few weeks. Cat and I had spent the last few years pouring our hearts into our dreams, and it was finally going to happen.
I pushed to my feet and gave her a smile. “If it were up to him everything would be black. He even wanted black light bulbs.”
She shuddered. “He’ll be a much better manager and accountant.” She tilted her chin, asking for a kiss. I gave her one, long, hard, and dirty. When I pulled away, her eyes were heavy-lidded, and lust swirled around her. “I brought dinner. Take a break and have dinner with me on the beach?”
“Is dinner code for sex?” I murmured, pressing my face into her neck. She smelled like fruit and sweat, this intoxicating aroma that went straight to my dick. “You’re about to get sand in some intimate places,” I warned, basking in the glow of her giggle.
“Wouldn’t be the first time.” Her head fell back, giving me access to her throat.
I kissed up her pulse. “I love you, Catherine. But you’ve got too much damn clothes on. Beach. Now.” I pointed, giving her hip a shove.
There was something about making love on the beach at night that spun my fantasies. She was my gothic mermaid in those moments, twisted in my arms, tats soaking up the moonlight, and her onyx hair glimmering in the sand. We were passion and love when we were together, and we burned the other each chance we got.
Things weren’t always easy, but we weren’t used to easy. We thrived in hard. I thought we existed better when we had to seek out the good moments. We worked for our smiles. We suffered through nightmares for our dreams.
The moment her feet hit the sand, I was on her. She dropped the food and I pulled her down in the sand, ripping at her clothes as her lips devoured mine. The dunes on the street hid us from sight. She tasted like coconuts, rich and tropical. I moaned into her, ripping her tank and bra off in one movement. I dropped my head to her nipples and pulled one hard bud into my mouth.
She arched in my arms and moaned at the moon.
I urged her onto her back and worked on her jean shorts, yanking them down her tan legs. I paused halfway to kiss the tattoo on her left thigh. I’d taken my time with it, marking her beautiful body with my ink. It was a dandelion backdrop, and the stems of the white puffy weeds drifted down to a swirl of purple and yellow, with splashes of white, a twisting strand of allurement that grew into a hand. The hand reached for both at the same time. Seeking wishes and yearning for magic. “Never stop reaching,” I whispered, kissing up her inner thigh.
She moaned, her fingers clawing at the sand.
“You deserve the richest kind.” My tongue delved between her slick folds and circled her clit. She cried out, her sandy fingers dropping to twist in my hair. When she could no longer take it, I pushed my jeans down and freed my cock, slipping into her with a deep, satisfied moan. I loved watching her eyes roll into the back of her head. She looked possessed, bewitched; I lost myself in her possession.
The way I always would.
In a lot of ways, Cat and I had it wrong when we met. We were so scared of wanting the other, of losing the other, that we got it wrong. We weren’t in the other’s life to push them, or to fix them. We were in each other’s lives to give the other something we spent so long without. Love. We would heal, because we had no choice. We would hunt for magic until our minds faded. But we would do it together.
Love came in many forms and existed for many different reasons. Our love was barely starting.
It would transform.
It would heal.
And it would break free of every ounce of pain that got us here.
“Food,” she mewled, reaching clumsily for the takeout container of sushi.
“Do you require sustenance?” I held it captive high above her head. Our clothes were strewn in the sand. It reminded me of us. We existed in a constant scattered state, but there were moments like this where those scattered pieces made so much sense, nothing ever felt wrong.
She nodded, peering up at me openly. “Feed me?”
I popped the top on the container and plucked out a roll, setting it between her soft, pink lips. “I could kiss your fucking mouth for hours.” I moved down to do so, but she moved her head away, smiling as she chewed.
“Your sexual appetite’s gotten worse lately.”
“Worse?” I quirked a brow, trying not to laugh at her irritated expression.
“I meant you’re horny all day and night. Aren’t you sick of looking at my face?”
My smile sobered. Cat rarely fished for compliments. She was confident and sexy because that’s what she wanted to be. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” she said, sitting up and reaching for her bra. She put it on and fumbled for her panties next. “At least it didn’t feel wrong when I found out.”
I stilled, figuring I’d better get dressed too. I put my boxers and jeans back on, plunging my shirt over my head. When I looked at her again, her bottom lip was between her teeth as she gazed out at the water. “Found out what?”
“You remember that storm we had a few months back? I missed my birth control appointment because the doctor was stuck on the big island?”
My heart seized. “You’re pregnant?” I breathed, my mind trying and failing to comprehend. “We’re not even married yet.”
“Not on paper.” She lifted her ring hand, turning it this way and that. She smiled softly at it. “We’ve been married in here for years.” She patted her heart.
I looked down at my ring, too. A simple silver band. She’d been my wife the moment I put that ring on her finger. “Are you really pregnant?” My smile started slow, until it overtook my entire face.
She mirrored my grin. “You’re going to be a daddy.”
Daddy.
Chill bumps broke out over my skin in the late Hawaiian heat. My heart ached for my child in an instant. A family. I wanted so badly to have one again.
“I am?” I heard myself ask, stunned even to my own ears. “And you’re going to be a mom.”
“Crazy, right?”
“No, not crazy, Cat. Perfect.” I grabbed her face between my hands, so hard in love with her I couldn’t see past the emotion. It pulsed on the edge of my vision like a demon, but it couldn’t be a demon.
We put them to rest years ago.
“You’re going to be an amazing mother. You’re nurturing and patient. You’ll do everything you can for our child. I just know it.”
She cried, right in front of me, the relief thick in her eyes. “I know that, at least I hope I know that. I know that. I totally know that. Right?”
I chuckled at her doubt. “You know what that doubt tells me? It says you’re worried, which means you care. That doubt is natural. But it isn’t necessary. You’re going to be the best mother. And I’m going to do my best to be the best father. We got this, Cat.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. “We got this.”
“Together,” I checked.
“Together,” she promised.
And Catherine Hawkins never broke a promise.
Catherine
Mell tore through the living room and dive-bombed the Moana beanbag chair I’d bought her. Klay ran after her, grinning and exhausted. Mell was Madi and Klay’s daughter. She was five as of last week. I was still finding frosting in places I couldn’t believe from her birthday party.
I rocked little Kenny in my arms, my heart so full of love I swore it would burst. I couldn’t believe the place I was at in my life. If I would have told the seventeen-year-old me, post rape, past heartbreak, that someday we’d be holding a baby w
e created with our husband, and loving every minute of our lives, she would have sabotaged it.
Seventeen-year-old Cat was afraid and damaged. So I took her with me everywhere I went. I held her hand, showed her that we were stronger than our attack. We were a woman who beat her pain into submission, and now we earned every single smile we felt.
As I watched Klay tickle Mell into a frenzy, Madison and Brando came in, laughing about something judging by their smiles. But Brando’s eyes looked for us. When they landed on Kenny, and then me, that light I worked so hard to grow overtook his gaze.
That looked soothed my dark soul, turning it into a supple shade of gold. My eyes fell on the tattoo I’d given him over his scar. It was everything I ever wanted it to be. His family’s names were worked into the stem of a black rose, and each thorn bore their initials. I wrapped the vine in his pain, and then encased it in his strength. The entire piece burned black and red, it shone with his healing.
“He asleep?” he asked, sinking down beside me on our sofa just as Mell screamed and launched herself into Madison’s arms. There was so much love around us, I could see it in the air.
I took a deep breath of it.
“Guess not,” Brando said, chuckling knowingly. He trailed a hand over Kenny’s little cheek, a tenderness in him that only his son brought out.
We named him after his little brother and gave him his mother’s middle initial. Kenny M. Hawkins. He looked like Brando, even at one. Thick black hair, wide dark green eyes—he was his father in every way.
Kenny giggled when Brando took him in his arms and continued to do so as he lifted him in the air.
Madison and Klay joined us on the couch, handing Mell off to me. Mell was the spitting image of her mother. Dark blond hair, gray eyes, and an overwhelming sweetness that made my throat thick every time I saw her. It existed in Kenny too.
All of us had lost that sweetness early on, but we would do anything to keep it in our children.
Pain hurt. It turned us inside out, but it also made us stronger. It opened our eyes to what truly mattered.
And that was sitting on the couch with my family. As if on cue, my father walked in, dressed in a horrible Hawaiian print shirt and cargo shorts. We didn’t speak of his mistakes, and I didn’t mention mine. Maybe someday we’d broach what happened, but until then we were fine with right now. Plus, it was hard to hold a grudge with the way he looked at Kenny.
Hurt was the same as a storm. It rained down on you, and if you let it, it could ruin you. But if you held on to the idea of forgiveness, and fought through the hail and the rain, the clouds parted.
The rain stopped.
In its place was pure, untainted magic.
That was all I had ever wanted.
Look out for Isaiah’s story, book 3 in the Guns & Ink series, Bad Love, coming soon!
SHANA VANTERPOOL
Romance author, coffee drinker, and bad boy aficionado. Every second not spent breathing is an opportunity to write and read. I live in Northern California with my family and actress dog, Halle Bella. (Just Bella when she decides to cut the crap.) Escaping with a good book is something I live for and I write so others can do the same.
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Hard Love (Guns & Ink Book 2) Page 24
