Guarding Hearts (Living Again #3)

by L. L. Collins

  Ellis put his hand in between their bodies and splayed his hand over her flat stomach. He hadn’t been the only one that lost a child. “When I lost Mason, it felt like my life was over,” he admitted. “So believe me when I say that I can empathize. I’m so sad for you that you were manipulated into giving away your daughter. You would’ve been a fantastic mother, even if you were young. How did your relationship with your parents fare after that?”

  “Well, things were tense with us for a long time. You know that they have the tendency to take control as far as I’m concerned anyway, so it wasn’t anything unusual, but on a much bigger scale, of course. I’m not sure that I’ll ever truly be over what they did, but I’ve come to terms with it. She’s better off where she is.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Ellis said. “But I’m glad you’ve come to terms with it. That’s all we can do when we have no other choice.”

  “I know what the press found out about you, but can I hear the story from you? I don’t want to say that I know information about my boyfriend from paparazzi.” She ran her hands through his hair, raking her nails across his scalp. It was an intoxicating feeling.

  He sighed. “I’ve never known my father,” he started. “I honestly only know that his last name was the same as mine and he was originally from California. He was in Florida on Spring Break when he met my mother, supposedly. They had a fling, and he left, back to California. When my mother found out she was pregnant, she didn’t know how to contact him, but who knows if she really tried. I have no idea why she chose to keep me, but she did. She swore it wasn’t to get him to come back, but I think that might’ve been part of it. For as long as I can remember, she hated me. She would call me vile names and say I looked just like my father, which infuriated her. I don’t ever, not once in my life, remember her saying she loved me or touching me in any way. No hugs, no notes in my lunch box, nothing. I had no idea what love even was. I don’t remember what she did for work before I was about five, but at that point I started figuring out that something bad was happening at my house while I was at school. I would come home on the bus and walk home by myself. There were always a lot of people in my house, mainly men, and my mom always was acting funny. She made me get a snack and go into my room myself. This was my life. I was lucky if I had any food to eat at all when I was home, and I had to listen to the constant parade of men that came to ‘visit’ her. There were many times I would walk into the house after school to see her bent over the kitchen table, being pounded by one guy while she was doing something else to another. That’s how I grew up, Sam. She was high on something, and when she wasn’t, she was having sex with guys to get money to get high.

  Providing for me was never her priority. I was one of those dirty kids, the kind that teachers had to provide school supplies, backpacks, and someone’s hand-me-down shoes to. As I got older, I just wouldn’t go home. I would walk the streets for as long as I possibly could. Some nights, I wouldn’t even go home, preferring to sleep outside somewhere or crash on a friend’s couch.

  It was only a matter of time before I was rebelling, getting in trouble. No one cared about me, so why should I care about anything? I got in fights at school, stole, drank, and tried drugs. Why not, right? My mom was a junkie that didn’t even care about her own kid, so it must be worth it, right? I met Mandy when I was fourteen, and we started hanging out every day. Her home life wasn’t much better. Being the teenage boy that I was, we started sleeping together, but no one had ever taught me what happened if you didn’t use protection. It was amazing it took as long as it did for her to get pregnant. I was actually excited, thinking that I could start my own family and escape my mom. I was naïve. Once Mason was born, my mom all of a sudden wanted me to bring him and Mandy around. I thought it was amazing that she wanted to be my mom, and a grandmother to Mason. One night, I had Mason and my mom wanted to hold him. The next thing I knew, she was dangling him over the balcony of our apartment. She had been high as a kite and I didn’t even notice. Mandy came in and started screaming, the police were called, and that was the end of me having Mason at her house. After that, I got arrested for stealing a car, stealing money from a convenience store, beating up the manager at the store, and I had some drugs on me. The worst part of all of that was that I had Mason with me.

  That’s when Mandy’s parents decided that I shouldn’t be in Mason’s life, and got a judge to agree. They took away my parental rights, and I stayed in juvenile detention until I was eighteen. I met Carl when I was in there. I was very quiet, never really got to know anyone, but he never gave up on me. My mom killed herself, overdosed when I was seventeen, so when I got out, I had nowhere to go. I was an adult, and the state couldn’t care less about me, but Carl did. He took me in. I had to do community service, and he went with me. I was shy, and didn’t want to put myself out there for anyone.”

  Sam climbed up on top of him and put her lips to his. He could taste the salt of her tears. Gripping her face, he kissed her with all the emotion he had never understood before. “You’re so amazing,” she breathed, opening her eyes so they were looking directly at each other. “Your life is a miracle. Look at what you’ve accomplished despite your circumstances.”

  “It’s all because of Carl and a little boy I met named Jaden. He was a little boy at the Big Brothers/ Big Sisters program that I was required to do community service for. He had a rough home life, which was why he was there for after care. He was the cutest little boy, with dark hair and blue eyes.” Ellis reached over to the bedside table and pulled a tattered picture out of his wallet. “This is him.”

  Sam took the photo, smiling as she saw the little boy with the toothless grin. “He’s so cute. You still carry his picture? Do you still keep in touch with him?”

  A look of pain crossed his face. “I really connected with him. I thought of him like I did Mason. He was killed one day in a drive by shooting in his neighborhood. His parents weren’t even home.”

  Sam gasped. “Oh my god.” He nodded, a lump forming in his throat again, even after all these years. “So these are all the reasons you have been shut down for so many years. Love to you meant hurt and devastation. No one ever showed you that love could be a good thing.”

  “Carl did, but I didn’t know how to accept it. He has called me his son for over ten years, but I can’t deal with the fact that he wants to be a father to me.”

  “But you trust him, you care for him,” she observed.

  “Yes. But I still have a hard time believing why he cares so much about me.”

  “Oh Ellis,” she said. “I’m so sorry for the little boy you were, how much you lost. What’s happened since your ex started talking in the press? Is there any chance of getting to have your son back? I mean, look at you now. How were you able to become to be a cop?”

  “That’s a lot of questions,” Ellis said, smiling. “First, Carl hired an attorney that got my juvenile record expunged. He probably sang a song and dance about how pitiful my life had been or something. If I had to guess, I would say that he promised to make sure I stayed on the straight and narrow. After Jaden died, Carl helped me get my GED and go to the police academy. As far as Mason, I’ve contacted an attorney about reinstating my parental rights, but it’s a tricky situation since he lives in New York. Mandy is a mess and is obviously no better than my own mother was, and it makes me sick that my son has had to grow up the exact same way I did. I’m going to do whatever it takes to make sure he knows that I love him, and I’m here for him if he ever needs me.”

  “Thank you,” Sam said.

  “For what?”

  “For trusting me enough to tell me all of that. I’m sure the amount of people that know that story you can count on one hand.”

  He nodded. “It wasn’t until all of this started coming out that Devin even knew anything. When I mean that I didn’t talk to anyone, I didn’t. I’ve always been good at pretending, putting on a front that everyone sees me as this funny, no-strings attached, play
er kind of guy. But really, I haven’t even been that. I wasn’t one of those guys that slept my way through each city. Since Mandy, I’ve only been with a few women, and those were few and far between. I was always terrified to be that intimate with someone again, and even the ones I was with, I couldn’t make myself connect with. Until I met you, I didn’t know what an instant connection felt like. I never knew that your heart could beat fast, that you could stay awake hours at night thinking of one person, or that being away from someone could be physically painful. I didn’t handle things the right way with you, and for that I’ll always be sorry.”

  “You have nothing to be sorry about, Ellis,” Sam said, her voice cracking. “I’m so proud of not only the things you have overcome to be where you are today, but the way you shared what you’ve never shared before with me tonight. I’m honored that you trust me enough to tell me all of that.”

  “I don’t just trust you,” Ellis said. “I love you so completely, so desperately, I’m not sure how to do anything without you anymore. I’ve lived my life so alone inside, and when I’m with you, I just feel different. I feel like I’m worthy of being loved. When you look at me, I can see what you see in me through you. You’ve not only made me believe in love, Sammi, you’ve made me believe in myself again.”

  She watched as a single tear escaped from his eye, and she scooted up, kissing both of his eyes. “That was the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me. I want to make that into a song someday. I love you, Ellis. Hey, what’s your middle name?”

  “I don’t have one,” Ellis said. “I guess my mom named me after her grandfather, whose name was Ellis, though I never knew any of them. My last name is my dad’s, though that’s all I know about him. What’s yours?”

  “Ann,” she wrinkled her nose. “After my grandmother.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” he laughed.

  “Such a true southern name,” she said. “Samantha Ann.” He loved the way she talked, with her southern twang. He couldn’t wait to spend the rest of his life hearing that voice.

  “Are you hungry?” Ellis was content lying in bed with her naked, but his stomach was rumbling. He looked at the clock and realized it was after one in the morning.

  “Starving,” she giggled. “Though I wonder if I could just get filled up on you.”

  “I’m going to feed you, because you have to have energy for round 2,” he teased. He grabbed the 24 hour room service menu. “What would you like?”

  “Hmm, whatever,” she said, her eyes closed. He got momentarily distracted by watching her face before his stomach reminded him what he was supposed to be doing.

  He ordered them a sandwich, fruit, and cheesecake to share, then turned back to her, in awe that she was his. She still lay there, completely comfortable without a stitch of clothes on.

  “Are you really okay, after this whole thing with Sean?”

  She blinked open her eyes and nodded. “He freaked me out, yes. But I also knew that once you knew something had happened to me, you’d come.”

  “You knew that I would come? Even after I ignored you for weeks? God, I’m such an ass.”

  “Ellis, your whole life was turned upside down because of me. I get it. But I also knew that once the story went public, you’d come and help them find me.”

  “Little did you know that I was already there. He took you from right under my nose. I still wonder if he actually knew I was there, which was why he was in such a hurry to get you out of there.”

  “Maybe he did,” she said. “He seemed to be able to do anything without be detected.”

  “That was your doing, right? The whole sending him to Wal-Mart for tampons? Because I notice that you are definitely not needing them.” He indicated her naked body, and she laughed.

  “I had to think of something to get him out of the house and to also not touch me with that… thing.”

  Ellis shuddered at the thought of him forcing her to have sex with him. “You know because you threw him off and had him do that, he dropped his guard and that’s how we found you. That and Brian remembered the cabin from a time they had taken Sean there when he was a kid. But you kicked ass, Sammi. I’m so proud of you.”

  They were silent for a moment as they each processed what had happened. A soft knock sounded at the door, and Ellis jumped up, wrapping the robe around him to answer the door. After tipping the delivery man, he brought the food into the room.

  “Want to eat in bed, or at the table?”

  Sammi winked. “Well, the bed sounds like a lot more fun, but I plan on making good use of this bed for the rest of the night, so getting crumbs in it doesn’t sound like fun. Let’s eat over there. But first you need to take that robe off.”

  He grinned and shrugged the robe off, throwing it at her. She walked towards him, and he couldn’t help but ogle her amazing body. He was the luckiest man alive. She walked around him, stopping at the tattoo that covered most of his back. “This is such an amazing tattoo,” she said, running her fingertips over the intricate design. “Can you tell me about it?”

  “It’s the cross that Jaden wore on his neck that one of his teachers had given him, to keep him safe. The letters in the middle are his initials, his date of birth and death, and a prayer for safekeeping over his soul.”

  “Wow,” she said, still touching his back. Goosebumps broke out over his skin at her touch. “You may not have understood what real love felt like, but your heart did. You loved that little boy. What’s the other part of the tattoo?” She traced the words that outlined part of the cross, where the words “’It’s better to have loved and lost than never loved at all’ were written in small script. At the end was a date. “Wow. What’s that stand for?”

  “For Mason. That’s his birthday. Mason’s is to represent what I lost, and the wings represent the day my mom gave me my freedom from her life. When I look at it, it reminds me of how far I’ve come and what I lived through.” He turned and wrapped her in his arms. “Are you ready to eat?”

  “I loved you before tonight,” she said in answer. “I felt drawn to you, like our souls were two parts that had been looking for each other our whole lives. But now? Now I know that there’s absolutely nothing that will stop me from loving you forever, Ellis Warner.”

  He kissed her softly, wishing he could tell her in words what she had done for him. Instead, he started feeding her, enjoying the look in her eyes as they shared a meal.

  Sam stood up, picking up a strawberry and dipping it in whipped cream. She walked towards Ellis, a devious look in her eye.

  “I think I’m ready to play,” she said.

  His eyes widened. “Is that so?”

  She nodded. Reaching out her hand for him, he linked his hand with hers and she grabbed the tray of fruit and headed for the bathroom. When she reached the massive Jacuzzi bathtub, she set the fruit down and turned the faucet on.

  Ellis stepped forward and she stepped back, mimicking his actions from earlier. “Ahh, is this how we are going to play it?”

  “For now,” she teased. “But, only at the beginning. I want to show you that I love you. Then, I want us to make love.”

  She stepped towards him, and it took everything in him to let her take the lead and not touch her. She lifted the strawberry and he opened his mouth, his eyes fixated on her. He took a bite and she pulled the strawberry away, putting it in her mouth and sucking what was left. Even though she didn’t touch him, he felt it all the way in his groin.

  Stepping on her tip toes, she rubbed her body against him as she began kissing him, swiping her tongue into his mouth and taking part of the strawberry back. She stepped back, chewing part of the fruit. “Hmmm,” she moaned. He was frozen, watching her. Dipping her finger into the whipped cream, she lifted her finger to his mouth and he opened, sucking the sweet cream off of her. God, he wanted to lick that off other parts of her body…

  “Sammi,” he moaned. “You’re killing me.”

  “Patience,” she said, repeating
him. He watched as she put her finger into the whipped cream again, and he watched with bated breath where she was going to go next.

  She smiled, and he almost came undone. She reached down and put the whipped cream on his tip, and he gasped in shock.

  “Dear god,” he hissed as she took great care in cleaning it off for him. He felt like a teenager as he felt her warm mouth surrounding him. She licked her lips as she stood back up, then winked at him. Who was this sexy vixen and what had she done with Sam Kerrigan?

  “Get in the bathtub,” she said, and he stepped in without hesitation. For future reference, he needed to remember that giving her the power some resulted in some really hot, shocking moments. She stepped in after him and he helped her sit across from him. Their legs were entwined, and she scooted closer, winding her legs around his waist. This was phenomenal.

  She reached up and ran her hands through his hair, wetting it. “You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen,” she whispered, running her hands down his neck and to his shoulders. She began massaging him, her small hands working in the muscles that had been wound so tight from worrying about her. “And you’re all mine. How did I get so lucky?”

  “I’m the lucky one,” Ellis responded. She continued massaging his shoulders and arms. He ached to touch her, but knew she would stop him. She moved her hands around his shoulders to his chest, then down his chiseled abs.

  “Perfection,” she murmured. She lifted her eyes to his as her hands wrapped around his aching erection. She moved so she was sitting up, straddling him so her knees were on either side of his legs and she was pressed against him.

  He took the opportunity to cradle her face, kissing her, his tongue caressing hers. He wanted this to last forever. She rocked against him, causing the water to start splashing around them.