A New Resolution (26 page)

Maybe not everybody, but a select few could know. It would be enough. It was more than enough. As long as she had these men she could weather anything. For with them, she wasn’t alone anymore. She wasn’t afraid anymore.

Nolan’s eyes opened and smiled as he saw her, his shoulders sagging with relief. He looked like hell.

“Hey, baby,” he whispered, his eyes filling with tears as he grasped her hand and kissed it.

“Hey, sexy,” she whispered, her voice hoarse from disuse. She tried to swallow, but her throat was so dry and her eyes felt caked with neglect. “How long was I out?”

“A week. You’ve been in and out the last couple of days, but you weren’t really with us yet.”

“So, have I lost my leg?”

“No.” He smiled, shaking his head at her ill attempt at humor. “You had an infection that kept you under awhile longer, but it’s all right now. It will be rough going for a bit, but you’ll be good.” Nolan brushed what was probably a very greasy strand of hair out of her face. “You’re tough.”

“You bet your ass I’m tough.”

Kieran woke as he heard their voices and greeted her with a thousand kisses. Feeling his sweet breath on her skin and the shaking in his hands as he gripped hers, she knew it wasn’t by her will alone that she’d survived. The knowledge that these two men loved her had given her the strength to fight her way through Agent Bishop’s attack. She had not only fought to be with them once more, but also fought for herself, for the woman she might have been, and for the woman she had become.

Epilogue

New Year’s Eve, 2013

“Oy, you two! It’s on. Stop making out and get back in here!”

Kieran had to work hard to hold back his grin as his two kiss-bruised lovers made their way, hand in hand, from the kitchen and into the living room. Lore used her cane as her leg was still bothering her, and Nolan attempted to support her without letting Lore know he was supporting her. She knew, of course, but allowed him do it anyway. It always gave Kieran a little jolt of panic whenever he saw Lore use her cane, reminding him of that awful week when she just wouldn’t wake up. They’d begged and pleaded by her bedside, hoping she or some higher power would listen to their prayers. But she was here now, well and on the way to barely needing the cane throughout a normal day. He shook himself free of the painful memories, wanting to revel in the bliss that was their present.

Kieran had spent a good part of the day constructing a giant blanket fort for them to camp out in all night long. Their first New Year’s Eve together should be all that Lore had imagined and more, and Kieran had done everything in his power to make it so.

Thanksgiving and Christmas had been as magical as he’d known they would be. The greatest gift Kieran and Nolan had received was Lore moving in with them the weekend before Christmas. She’d pretty much moved in before that anyway, spending her time immediately after the hospital at their house. She hadn’t even tried to persuade the men to let her recuperate back at her own place, much to Kieran’s surprise. Anyway, it had made sense; Kieran worked from home so he could be there for her if she needed him. And holy hell had she needed him.

The recovery process hadn’t been as smooth as they’d hoped. About a couple of days after the shooting, the doctors noticed Lore’s health declining and surmised a small infection had taken hold in her leg. Luckily it hadn’t been too serious, but the resulting recovery time nearly doubled.

Lore had taken it like a champ after waking up, cursing and whining that she was fine and a damn infection wasn’t going to kill her if a crazed FBI agent couldn’t. She never ceased to amaze Kieran, this woman who’d kept herself hidden from view, away from the light so she could never truly blossom. Watching her smiling in her red and blue silk pajama bottoms and blue tank top, Kieran could see her spirit was finally in full bloom.

“If it were you with either me or Nolan in there,” Lore said, collapsing on the floor next to Kieran with a huff. “You’d be making out too.”

“True,” Kieran agreed. “But it wasn’t me; therefore, I’m innocent.”

“You’re anything but innocent,” Nolan said, sitting on Kieran’s other side and looking unfairly handsome in nothing but his plaid pajama bottoms. His impossibly hard abs and broad shoulders just called out to Kieran, begging him to kiss or lick them. Which he did, making Nolan gasp.

“You wouldn’t have me any other way.” Kieran kissed his mouth, savoring the scratchy stubble against his own cleanly shaven skin. Nolan framed Kieran’s face, his large hands stretching the length of Kieran’s jaw and temples.

“How long till midnight?” Lore asked, reaching behind them to grab the bottle of wine they’d been working on to lead up to the champagne.

“Ten minutes,” Nolan said, pulling back from Kieran with a wink and a quick nip to his bottom lip. Fuck, he loved that man.

“Who’s performing?” she asked as she bit into a large whiskey-laced chocolate cupcake, one of her favorites they’d discovered during her recovery process. If she had had a particularly bad day at physical therapy, Kieran would bring her an array of cupcakes to ease her pain. They’d found this particular flavor disappearing the fastest.

“Miley Cyrus, of course.”

She laughed, eyeing the scantily clad performer on the flat screen. “Christ, do you remember when it was N’Sync and Britney Spears? I was a huge N’Sync fan.”

“Please stop reminding us of how old we are,” Kieran joked, kissing her cheek, then stealing the rest of her cupcake. He popped it into his mouth to her scandalized expression. “It doesn’t make this New Year’s thing any easier.”

“Please, baby, you don’t look a day over eighty,” Lore said with a sardonic smile, licking the frosting off yet another cupcake.

“Ass,” Kieran said grumpily, noticing the cupcake she’d licked was the one he’d purposefully set aside to eat after they had their New Year’s Eve sex. The little minx.

“Love you,” the minx said through a full mouth.

“Love you too, but you’re still an ass. I know that was my after-sex cupcake!”

She pouted, a smidge of frosting coating the corner of her mouth. “C’mere and give this ass a kiss.”

“Now you’re just asking for it.” Kieran tackled her to the ground. He blew raspberries on her neck before trailing his mouth down to her breasts. Her squeals and giggles, accompanied by the sound of Nolan’s deep chuckles, were the only music Kieran could hear, the New Year’s Eve musical entertainment forgotten.

NOLAN SIGHED AS Kieran continued to torture Lore with his mastery in tickling. Eventually the woman would plead for Nolan’s help or beg Kieran for surcease. Either way it was all too amusing, especially when Nolan heard her giggles turn to pleasured gasps as Kieran began to blow raspberries on her bare nipples, having tugged down her thin cami.

“Kieran, you’re killing me,” Lore whined, her eyes flicking over to the TV to catch the time. Five minutes to midnight. “We have to stop— God, don’t stop.”

“Yes, stop or we’ll miss it.” Nolan bent over and bit Kieran on an ass cheek, making the man yelp and look back at Nolan with a frown. Kieran didn’t know how much he tempted Nolan, nor did Lore as she sat up, her cami still pulled down under her nipple. Nolan reached forward to give her breast a gentle caress before helping her adjust the shirt.

“Maybe,” she said with a heavy breath. “Maybe this holiday is overrated. We should just get to the New Year’s sex.”

“Tempting, but we need to watch. It’s our first New Year’s; this means something.”

She smiled at him, coming closer to steal a sweet kiss. “Thank you,” she whispered, her eyes alight with glee as the countdown was due to begin in little more than three minutes.

“Kieran, get the champagne ready.”

“Already gotten.” He brought three intricate champagne flutes over. Nolan recognized them as the set he’d bought at that market Kieran had dragged Nolan through, the one where they’d cornered Lore and made their desire for her known. The glasses were already half-full with the bubbling liquid.

Lore took a glass and brought her nose to the rim, wrinkling it when some stray bubbles tickled her skin. She smiled, her cheeks tinting with a slight flush. “I used to do that with my dad’s glass as a kid. He always laughed.”

Nolan wrapped his arm around her and kissed her forehead, breathing in her always surprisingly spicy scent. “Who wouldn’t when you make such a funny face?”

He kissed her outraged, open mouth when she went to punch him. “You’re both asses,” she said as he pulled away. “Why am I with you again?”

Kieran laid his head in Nolan’s lap as he liked to do sometimes in the evening after a long or stressful day. Even after all these years, Kieran never failed to make Nolan’s heart fill with a tender love close to bursting. A status his heart simply had to get used to now that they had Lore. She was everything he could ever want, occasional bad temper and all. Just thinking what could have happened if that bullet had landed somewhere else… What would this New Year’s Eve have been like without her? It was too painful to think of, and he didn’t need to, because here she was with them and he’d always protect her. Her and Kieran both. That was Nolan’s resolution, to put his past behind him and look to the future, securing it and loving his two wonderful soul mates. Who in the world was so lucky to find two soul mates?

“Because you love us and we love you,” Kieran said, burrowing his head into Nolan’s lap. “Simple, really.”

“Ah, yes, so simple.”

BUT IT WASN’T simple, Lore thought to herself. There were so many factors, so much baggage they each carried, baggage that threatened their relationship at every turn. There were what-ifs and alternate routes the three of them could have taken to lead them down different paths. There were those who would look at their peculiar relationship as something unclean or abnormal. But truthfully—and Lore had made a new resolution to be true to herself—who cared about all that? They were here now, in this moment.

Nolan and Kieran proved every day how much they loved her. They’d proved it endlessly as she recovered from the bullet wound and the subsequent infection. They proved it when they sat and comforted her as she broke down from all the pain and the nightmares, the guilt she felt from killing a man sometimes threatening to pull her under into an abyss much like the one her mother had succumbed to. They’d patiently waited through each of her hissy fits as she grumpily learned to walk with a cane, and successfully dissuaded her from thinking she’d be a cripple forever.

They made her believe in their love as they held her hand while she handed over the key to the new owners of the home she’d grown up and become a different person in. The sale had been quick, and it wasn’t to any jack-off FBI agent. Agent Bishop, according to the local bureau, had apparently fostered an unhealthy obsession with her father while he was in prison, visiting him on a regular basis to harass and interrogate him for the whereabouts of the client list. Her father never caved, not once in seventeen years until his death.

Lore wouldn’t say she was proud of her dad, as the world really would have benefited from that list, possibly hindering the arms dealing a majority of the world suffered from. In fact, she’d always wondered when he was alive if she couldn’t go to the prison and ask him to give the list up or even some names. She’d asked her mom about it one day, when she was still living at home, and her mother had pointed out that if David had ever given up even one name, they would probably come after her and Lore in retaliation, as David was untouchable in a high security prison. Lore would never know if it was her father’s pride that kept him from snitching or his love and need to protect his only daughter. She’d like to think it was the latter.

“Twenty seconds.” Kieran grinned, sitting up from his relaxed position against Nolan’s lap, his bright brown eyes reflecting the multicolored spectacle on the television. She loved him so much. She loved his spirit and his innate sense of wonder at the smallest things. She loved how despite his past, he could see the goodness in all the people he met. Through his eyes, the world truly was a magical place, and anyone with a brain could see that reflected in his heart.

“C’mon, stand up for midnight,” Nolan said, easing from his seated position and offering her a hand up. She took it, yelping embarrassingly when he tugged her into a deep kiss, feeling the length of his erection against her groin.

“Hey, it’s not midnight yet.”

“So sue me.” Nolan winked, his mischievous nature shining through the staidness he often projected around others. She’d only ever seen that side when he was consulting on the harassment case and whenever they’d had to deal with the cops over the shooting. His protectiveness, of both her and Kieran, was a remarkable and otherworldly thing. As Kieran nurtured and protected their spirits, Nolan was their rock, unwilling to let any outside force influence or hurt them as he had been hurt in the past.

“Ten seconds,” Lore whispered, leaning in to Nolan as Kieran wrapped his arms around her waist from her other side.

“Tell us,” Kieran said, nuzzling her neck.

Nine.

“Tell you what?” she asked, preparing her drink for the toast.

Eight.

“What your resolution is,” Nolan murmured, nipping at her ear with a light tug.

Seven.

“You have one,” Kieran persisted. “Tell us.”

Six.

“My new resolution…”

Five.

“Yes?” they asked, smiling down at her so sweetly.

Four.

“To love you both with all my heart, for the rest of my life.”

Three.

“I love you,” Nolan said, clinking her glass.

Two.

“I love you,” Kieran said, bringing his glass in to complete the circle.

One.

“Happy New Year!” they cheered, taking a drink and tossing the glasses aside much to Lore’s amusement. Kieran dipped his head first, sucking her bottom lip and slipping his tongue into her mouth, exploring her with careful finesse. Nolan watched for a moment before joining in, Kieran moving over to make room for Nolan’s sumptuous lips. It was with a soul-claiming kiss, a declaration without words, that Lore started the year of her new resolution, a resolution she knew would change the course of her life once again. This time, it was for the better.