by A. Zavarelli
When I woke again, it was because Birdie’s breathing had changed. Somehow, even in my sleep, I’d been aware of her. When I opened my eyes, she was curled against my chest, her fingers tangled up in mine.
In the darkness, I couldn’t see her, but her grip on me told me she was awake. I’d fucked up and forgotten about the nightlight, and I knew that was what had woken her. I didn’t know how to evade the inevitable panic attack, but Birdie did.
“Just tell me you’re here,” she whispered against me. “And I think everything will be okay.”
Even though she could feel me, and I could feel her, she needed that assurance. I wouldn’t deny her. Never again would I deny her.
“I’m right here.” My lips settled against her forehead, breathing her in. “I’ll always be right here, Birdie.”
When Birdie finally stirred from her sleep, I was awake but hadn’t moved from my place beside her. I was used to chasing the daylight, rising early and getting shit done. It had been over a decade since I’d slept in, but today, I hadn’t woken until after eleven. The day was slipping away from us, but for once, I found that I didn’t care. I had plenty of capable guys back at the shop in my absence, and this was exactly where I needed to be.
“You’re still here,” Birdie murmured as she looked up at me.
I couldn’t blame her for expecting me to be gone. Not after I’d run out on her the last two times we’d had sex. I wanted to tell her it would never happen again. I wanted to explain the tangled mess of feelings unraveling in my thoughts, but I didn’t know how to relay them.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Probably about time for you to eat some breakfast.” My fingers grazed the length of her arm, and she shivered.
“I don’t know if I can move.” She glanced down, observing her naked body, and a blush crept over her cheeks.
“I don’t need you to move. You stay in bed. I’ll get breakfast.”
She yawned, stretching out and curling her toes inward before she rolled onto her side. Her face was still slightly swollen, and the bruises had begun to change colors. It would be some time before they went away, and every day would be a reminder. A conversation we’d need to have, but not right now.
Her eyes moved down between my thighs to the cock that was already swelling in her presence. Her nipples tightened in response before her gaze returned to my face, eyes soft and calm.
“We’re naked.”
“Yep,” I answered.
“You brought me to your room, and you stayed with me.”
“Yep.”
Darkness seeped into her features, and the shutters came down on her face. She was thinking too much about all the ways this could go wrong, and I didn’t like it. I couldn’t break down her walls if I didn’t know what they were.
“Birdie.” I reached for her hand, sheltering her small fingers in mine. There was so much I wanted to say, but I didn’t know how to verbalize it. All these feelings were new to me. I’d never known anyone could make me feel so fucked up but still have me coming back for more.
“I want you in my bed every night.”
The words I blurted didn’t come out the way I’d hoped, and I didn’t know how Birdie would take them. Gypsy warned me that she would push me away. This was probably the exact opposite of what I should be doing with her, but I was past caring about everything that made this wrong. Our ages, our fucked-up pasts, the shared inability to connect with anyone else. There were a lot of reasons we shouldn’t be together. But there was one that we should, and it was this undeniable feeling in my chest every time she looked at me.
“I thought you didn’t do relationships.” She studied me, and I knew this was a test. How I answered this question would set the course for wherever we were going.
“I don’t do relationships.” I sighed. “At least I didn’t. Until you.”
“You told me to get fucked two days ago,” she reminded me with a brittle voice.
I dragged a hand over my face and shook my head. “I know I did.” My voice cracked as I tried to explain it to her. “Birdie, I’m fucking deranged. I don’t know how else to say it. I’m probably the worst thing for you. I’ll say stupid shit, and I’ll fuck up. I’d be lying if I said I won’t. This is all new for me. These feelings, this need to have you around me all the time. I don’t know what to do with any of it. I just know that I fucking need you. And I want you to need me too.”
Her eyes softened, but she was quiet for so long, I didn’t know what to expect.
“And what if I told you that isn’t what I wanted?” she asked. “Would you keep me here anyway?”
I swallowed down the bitterness of her question and shrugged. “Yeah, I probably fucking would.”
Birdie laughed, and her fingers traced over the calluses on my hand as she considered my admission. In the morning light, her eyes glittered like a turquoise sea, and I could have stayed right there, watching the sunlight dance across her skin all day.
“You’re crazy, you know that?” she whispered.
I didn’t answer, and she didn’t expect me to. Her fingers gradually moved below the sheet to the scarred letters on my chest. Though it felt strange to let her touch me there, it also felt like I needed it, so I didn’t stop her.
“Was I your first kiss?” she asked.
I hadn’t expected her observation, and I felt the redness creeping back up my throat. But as uncomfortable as it made me, I wouldn’t lie to her. “Yes, Birdie. You’re my first kiss. And unless you count a hand job from a hooker when I got out of prison, you’re the only woman I’ve ever had sex with.”
“Why?” She stared into my eyes, searching for an explanation.
“I was young when I went to prison. And when I got out, I didn’t really know how to deal with women. I’d lived in a metal cage full of savages for thirteen years, and I guess I just never really learned. I didn’t have much of an inclination either, but after a while, Lucian thought it might be beneficial to break the ice and dip my toe in the water. He hired a hooker, and she met me in a hotel room with a bag full of sex toys. She told me she’d do anything I wanted, but I was still learning to find my voice. She asked me if I liked the freaky shit, said she thought I looked like one of those guys when she saw the scars on my chest. She told me she could give me some pain if that’s what I wanted, and that was what I knew, so I said yes.”
“So she hurt you,” Birdie murmured. “And then you asked Kylie to hurt you too.”
I didn’t know how she’d figured out the arrangement with Kylie, but regardless, I didn’t care. I wanted her to know. There was no more room for secrets between us.
“What about me, Ace?” she asked. “How do I fit into all this?”
“What do you mean?”
“The pain.” Her brows pinched together. “You know I could never do that to you, right? I won’t ever do that to you.”
“I know,” I admitted. “That isn’t what I need from you, Birdie. It’s not something I even want anymore. That need died in me the first time I saw you.”
“How?” she pressed. “How can something like that just go away?”
“I was empty before.” I closed my eyes and breathed her in. “And now, I’m not.”
“You’ve been stalking me,” she pointed out. “Collecting information about my life. Watching me. You know all these things about me—”
“Not everything,” I corrected. “There are still things I want to hear from you.”
She shivered, pulling the sheet around herself as she sat up. “Like what?”
“Who did this to you, Birdie?” My jaw flexed. “Tell me.”
“Why, so you can take care of it for me?” She smirked.
“Yes, so I can fucking take care of it,” I deadpanned. “Your days of taking on the whole world by yourself are over. I’m here now, and I won’t allow this to blow over. Don’t think for one second it will go away.”
“I’m not pretending it didn’t happen.” She glared. “
I honestly don’t know who it was. He just said he had a message for me, and then he attacked me. I didn’t get a clear shot of his face since he was too busy bashing mine.”
I released an unsteady breath as rage simmered below the surface of my vibrating skin. I wanted to kill this motherfucker. I wanted to stomp his face beneath my boot until the streets of Vegas ran red with his blood. Nobody fucked with Birdie. Nobody.
“You must have some idea,” I said. “Was there anything that happened before this? Any indication someone was after you?”
Birdie bit her lip, a habit she reverted to when she was hiding something. She still had secrets from me, and I didn’t know what they were. But I would find out, and I would get the motherfucker who touched her. Until then, she would just need to learn how to trust me.
I leaned into her and kissed her forehead. “We’ll talk about it another time. Right now, you just need to rest.”
THREE DAYS HAD COME AND gone, and Huck was still right by my side. He’d fed me, showered me, and even gone as far as dragging the television into the bedroom for us to watch. But honestly, I was at my happiest when he just let me curl up next to him while he read to me.
He cooked all my favorite dishes and asked Trouble to do a grocery run after which bowls of cotton candy ice cream started to appear. We were in our own little bubble, and I tried desperately not to think about how long it would be until it burst. I knew it was too good to last because even with the uncertainty hanging over my head like a dark cloud, I was perfectly blissed out.
Morning, noon, and night, Huck was inside me. He fucked me sweet, and he fucked me rough. He took me again and again, never tiring of me. The sex was my new favorite high, and I knew it was his too. We clawed at each other, even in our sleep, our bodies drawing nearer like magnets. It was intoxicating to be wanted so much by him. When he left me for even five minutes, I felt empty. I missed him. It was insanity, but it was the only thing that had ever made sense in my life. We were drunk and falling deeper and deeper into something I knew would mark my soul for eternity. It terrified me, yet I held onto it like my life depended on it.
For a minute, I allowed myself to pretend that this could be my life. That we could just exist on this compound and nothing else would ever matter again. But reality was slowly invading this sacred space, and soon we’d have to get back to the business of life.
There were conversations left unfinished. Messes left to clean. There was also the matter of me getting to the bottom of what happened back in Vegas. Huck wanted the truth, but I didn’t think I could bring myself to tell him about Joe or the video. At the end of the day, I was terrified he wouldn’t look at me the same. Maybe it was wrong, but I couldn’t bear the thought of his passion for me morphing into disgust when he finally understood what I was.
“You hungry?” Huck grazed his knuckles over my rib cage as he lay beside me, smoking a joint. It was getting late, and I was hungry, but I was also ready to eat at a real table.
“I could go for some food. Maybe in the kitchen tonight?”
He glanced over at me, the concern evident on his face. Instead of telling him I’d be fine, I let him think it through, something I’d come to realize he needed. This was a battle he had to fight within himself.
“Okay,” he said finally. “If you’re feeling up to it.”
He helped me from the bed and wrapped my robe around me before we made our way down the hall. I’d seen the aftermath of my attack, and my face was still littered with fading bruises and a few cuts, but at least the swelling had gone down. Huck never looked at me any differently. Even without makeup and my Frankenstein face, he still wanted me.
“You can relax on the couch while I cook,” he offered.
I nodded, and he helped me sit down even though it wasn’t necessary. My body felt just fine. It was my mind that needed the lobotomy. But I couldn’t complain as I watched him work around the kitchen with nothing more than a pair of jeans hanging from his hips. The man was one beautiful piece of art, and he truly had no idea.
“Mexican good?” he asked as he chopped some vegetables. “I was thinking fajitas.”
“Do I get tequila with that?” I asked, only half joking.
Ace arched a brow at me over his shoulder, then walked to the cabinet and pulled out a bottle of blue tequila. Our eyes met, and I felt another piece of the wall I’d built around myself crumbling down as I nodded in his direction. We both knew where this would go, but neither one of us was backing down.
He poured me a splash of tequila in a shot glass to sip on, then went back to his cooking. Twenty minutes later, we sat at the table and ate in silence, our eyes drifting toward each other like love-sick teenagers. Being with him right now was easy. So much so that it almost felt panic-inducing. Nothing could ever be this easy.
He cleared the plates, and we moved to the couch with the bottle of tequila, two shot glasses, and a salt box. I knew what was coming, but I just didn’t know which of us would be the first to obliterate the line in the sand. Ace had warned me that we’d be having a conversation. And the time for that conversation was now.
He poured another splash of tequila into my glass and then reached for my hand. My insides turned to liquid fire as he sucked my thumb into his mouth and then dipped it into the salt.
“Suck,” he commanded, holding my thumb to my lips.
I dragged the flesh over my teeth and let the salt melt over my tongue, never taking my eyes from his. Huck’s whiskey gold irises were molten hot, and I had a feeling if we didn’t open the discussion soon, our bodies would be doing all the talking.
“Tell me about prison,” I blurted while I still had the courage and then followed my statement with a shot of tequila.
Huck licked his lips and leaned back against the sofa to study me. “Do you mean prison or Mary-Kate?”
I was prepared for it, but my breath still caught in my chest. This was a dangerous topic to navigate, but I wouldn’t be at peace until we broke this barrier. The problem was, I didn’t know how to navigate it without making him shut down.
“Both,” I murmured, pouring him a shot. “Anything and everything. Whatever you want to tell me.”
I licked my thumb and dipped it into the salt again, and then I brought it to his lips. His eyes darkened as he sucked my skin between his teeth, and I felt his stare deep in the space between my thighs.
“I’m surprised it took you so long to ask.” He released my hand and threw back his shot. “That’s why you ran from me, wasn’t it?”
I shook my head. “No. I planned to run before we even made it to work that day. After we… after you just went cold on me.”
Ace glanced at me, and his eyes had noticeably softened. “I was an asshole, Birdie. You deserved better than that.”
I swallowed, not really sure how to respond to that. His apology was sincere, and I knew it, but I’d never been good at accepting apologies.
“Did you think I’d done it?” he asked, his voice rough. “When you saw the articles?”
My fingers twisted around the empty glass resting against my thigh. “My thoughts were on autopilot. At that moment, it was easy to believe the worst in you. But after I left, I felt like it couldn’t be true. That wasn’t the man I know you to be.”
“So that’s why you went to Lucian?” His brows pinched together.
“He told you?” I blinked.
“He texted me.” Ace nodded, his attention drifting to the floor. “Did he answer all your questions?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Is there anything else you think I should know?”
“Honestly?” He shook his head. “I know I’m a hypocrite for saying it, but it doesn’t do me any good to talk about it. That shit happened, and it’s in the past now. But I don’t want there to be any lingering doubts, so if you have them, now’s your chance to ask. I’ll tell you anything you want to know about it.”
My heart did a little backflip as I considered what he was offering me. Lucian tol
d me point blank that Ace didn’t share all the details of his life, and that he never would. Yet here he was, offering exactly that. And it was more than I ever needed, just to hear him say those words.
“I don’t need any other details.” I shrugged. “I guess I just… I want you to know that I’m sorry for what happened to you. I’m sorry you lost so many years of your life because of it. And no matter what anybody else might say or think, you never deserved that, Ace. No child deserves that.”
He released a breath I didn’t know he was holding, and when our eyes collided, his were the most open I’d ever seen them. His fingers came to rest on my jaw, and he leaned in to kiss me for several long, disorienting minutes. I felt drugged when he pulled away, and I sank back into the couch while he poured us both another shot.
“Your turn,” he said gruffly.
I knew it was coming. This was the thing I’d been dreading. But there was no escaping it either. “What do you want to know?”
“Tell me one of your secrets, Birdie. Just one. I want to hear it from your lips.”
I stroked his arm, using the repetitive motion to calm me as I imagined my mother’s lifeless eyes. It was the first thing that entered my mind when he mentioned it, and I supposed it was the first place I should start.
“Gypsy used to tell me when we were kids that our mom went back to her clan. She said we weren’t allowed because we were only half gypsy. But I know the truth, and I’ve never been able to tell her.”
“What is the truth?” Ace asked.
I closed my eyes, and I could still see her face. Her body was rolled up in a rug, and only her lifeless eyes were visible. “She’s dead. She died when I was so young, but I saw her. I saw her, and I never told Gypsy because I wanted her to believe that she was still alive. That she was okay.”
Huck was quiet beside me, save for the beating of his heart. But I felt his hand on my back, his presence and his warmth, and it was all I needed to purge that darkness from my soul. He understood this feeling on a level nobody else ever could. Long after her death, my mother’s murder continued to haunt me.
