#Heart (Hashtag #6) (3 page)

It was still there.

That jolt of electricity, that surge of chemistry right to my heart.

Even now that I was wearing his ring, he still affected me like that first day.

I hoped it never changed.

But unlike that day, he didn’t hurry to scoop everything up and stand. Instead, Romeo fell back on his butt and pulled me into his lap. My things still littered the concrete, and the air was cold and brisk.

I didn’t notice any of it. All I felt was his large, warm body beneath mine.

“I should have pulled you into my lap that day,” he murmured, stroking my hair out of my face. “I should have looked into your beautiful face and known just how badly I needed you.”

I pulled my knees closer to my chest, and Romeo wrapped both arms around me, holding me close. “We were from two different worlds,” I whispered. “I was out of your league.”

“No. I was out of
yours
. But we created our own world, didn’t we? A world I wouldn’t trade for anything.”

“I love you,” I answered softly.

He groaned and pressed his forehead against mine. “You’re killing me, Smalls.”

I smiled.

He kissed me like we weren’t sitting out in the open, like it wasn’t below freezing outside and neither of us had any sleep. He kissed me like we hadn’t kissed a thousand times before, but this was the first time. The only time.

His lips were full and soft. The way he moved was lazy. Everything around me went hazy. Everything inside me went missing. It was only him and me. The past, the present, and the future swirled around us to create a cocktail of promise. A promise I knew we would both keep.

When he finally pulled back, I sighed deeply and snuggled into his chest. His lips brushed over the top of my head. “Your hands are cold, sweetheart.”

“I didn’t notice,” I murmured.

In one fluid movement, he stood and set me on my feet. Within seconds, he’d scooped up my belongings and opened the door with the keys. I went ahead. Hearing the low sound of the TV, I dropped my bag on the floor and hurried into the family room.

Ivy’s blond head peeked up from the couch, and her eyes filled with surprise. “Rimmel!”

Braeden’s dark head jerked up, and he spun around. I smiled at him, and a huge grin took over his unshaved face. He gave a shout and jumped up and leapt over the back of the couch, sank low, and scooped me up to spin me around.

I laughed.

“There’s my baby sis who’s gone and got herself hitched!”

“Engaged, not married,” I told him, smiling. He stopped spinning me, and I pulled back to look at him. His lopsided grin was so cute I laughed.

“You look good,” he said, gruff. “Happy.”

“I am.”

He made a big show of kissing me loud and rather sloppily on the cheek before squeezing me again and then finally putting me down. He turned to Romeo, who was standing in the doorway, amusement clear in his eyes, and scowled.

“You,” Braeden growled. “Don’t you know you’re supposed to ask for a blessing before you go giving out rings?”

Romeo made a rude sound. “I’m pretty sure I don’t need your blessing to get married.”

“That’s my sister.”

Romeo glanced at me, and I giggled. He rolled his eyes and sighed. “Braeden, would you please give me your blessing—the guy you’ve known almost all your life and ten times longer than your
sister
—to get married to the only woman I’ve ever loved?”

Braeden didn’t miss a beat. “I’m not sure you’re good enough for her.”

I gasped, and Romeo gave him the finger.

Braeden cackled. “Blessing given.”

“My life is complete,” Romeo muttered.

“Rimmel!” Ivy called from her place on the couch. “Ignore those boneheads! I need to see that ring. I need details!”

Ivy looked small sitting in the center of the couch with a thick blanket piled over her lap. Her blond hair was pulled up into a messy topknot and her face was free of makeup. There was a white bandage on her forehead, covering the stitches still in her head, and her broken wrist was cast and lying in her lap amongst the blanket.

She looked pale and tired. Even though most of the bruises from the accident and her struggle with Zach were almost faded, she still looked a little battered and worn around the edges. It was to be expected really. She’d had a really hard past several months. Frankly, I was shocked she looked as good as she did.

I smiled at her and stepped up beside the couch. She handed me the coffee mug in her free hand, and I sat it on the white table we’d painted together. When her hand was free, she made an impatient sound and wiggled her fingers.

I laughed and held my hand out between us.

She gasped loudly. “Oh my God! This is gorgeous!”

“I know,” I giggled.

Braeden leaned over the back of the couch to look at the ring. “My man has good taste.”

Ivy was captivated by it, and she turned my hand this way and that, watching it catch the light. “It’s perfect for you.” She smiled and looked up. “I watched the whole proposal on TV!”

“They’re gonna start talking about romance and flowers and shit,” Braeden told Romeo. “It’s bad enough I was sitting here watching the fashion channel with her.”

“Hey,” Ivy said, a little hurt in her tone. “You said you liked it.”

Braeden’s face softened and he leaned over the couch to kiss the top of her head. “‘Course I do, baby.”

“We’ll give you two a minute to be all girly and shit,” Romeo said and winked at me on his way past. “Want some coffee, Smalls?”

“Sure,” I answered and sat gingerly on the couch near Ivy. I was afraid of jostling her body too much. I knew her broken ribs were still really tender.

Braeden snagged his mug and Ivy’s off the table and followed Romeo toward the kitchen.

“So…” I began right away. “How are you feeling?”

Ivy grimaced. “I’m fine. I’m tired of being a prisoner to this couch, though.”

“Didn’t the doctor say you could go back to classes?”

She nodded. “Yeah, this week. I wanted to go today, but Braeden wasn’t having it.”

“He still hasn’t left your side,” I mused, thinking about what a good boyfriend Braeden made. I’d always known he would.

“No, and he’s bossy as hell,” Ivy grumped. “But…” Her voice softened. “I really do love him.”

“I’m so glad you two are together.”

“Me, too.” She paused, and some of the light went out of her eyes. “When I think about everything I almost lost…”

I put my hand over hers. “But you didn’t. You’re still here. So is B. It’s over now.”

“Is it?” she whispered and swiped at her eyes.

Worry crept up the back of my neck. Why wouldn’t it be over? Why would she think it wasn’t?

Before I could ask, she smiled brightly and sat up a little straighter, holding her side as she moved. “Tell me all the details. Every last one of them.”

I opened my mouth, but she cut me off. “And I’m sorry I wasn’t able to style you for that game. If I had known it was going to be
the game,
I would have dragged myself out of bed and told Braeden to shove it when he said I couldn’t go to the boutique.”

I laughed. That would have been fun to watch. “It’s fine. Besides, I think it’s rather fitting I was wearing a hoodie and jeans when he proposed. That’s the real me, you know?”

She nodded. “Yeah, it is, and you’re right. It’s perfect.”

After that, she grilled me about every detail, stared at my ring, and started going on about all the different ways we could have our wedding.

We were still giggling about flowers and dresses when the guys came back into the room. I glanced up and met Romeo’s eyes. He smiled, and my heart swelled.

“Rimmel!” Ivy said and grabbed my hand. “Pay attention. Color is very important.”

Romeo winked at me before I turned back to her lecture on color selection for weddings. She looked more refreshed than when we first walked in, color in her cheeks and a smile on her lips. Braeden seemed to notice, too, and he gave me a grateful look from her other side.

This is why Romeo and I came home.

This is why we wanted to be with our family.

Because together we were better.

Together we could handle anything.

Guilt, Bruises…

& Orange Juice?

(aka Part One)

Two months later…

Braeden

The odor was pungent.

It burned my nostrils, and I could feel the bitter tendrils in the air all the way down into my lungs, where it filled me up and created a burning sensation in my chest.

Even through the distinct sounds of groaning metal, the loud, rapid dripping of the god-awful-smelling gasoline, and the smooth purring of the Hellcat’s engine several yards away, it was the silence that was the loudest.

The absence of her.

Her voice.

Her struggles.

Her life.

I blinked away the blurriness in my vision, willing away the intense urge to panic and the sudden moisture filling my eyes.

“Ivy!” I roared, rushing around the wreckage, ignoring the fact my foot stepped right in the center of a puddle and my shoe sucked up the liquid like a sponge.

Every cell in my entire body was focused on one thing.

The woman I loved.

The reason my heart even beat.

She didn’t answer even when I asked her to, when I begged.

I screamed up at the sky, as if letting out a warning to the heavens that if she were dead, there would be hell to pay.

Only the stars winked back at me, making me think of her. Making me choke back even more tears and fear.

The slight squeeze of her fingers wasn’t even enough to assure me she was still alive. It could be a trick, another sick mind game of Zach’s.

Fucking Zach.

I shoved myself onto the ground and into the shattered window. Sharp pricks of glass cut into my arms, stabbing me in the stomach as if warning me to turn back.

I wouldn’t walk away from here. Not without her.

She was responsive when I first saw her battered body inside the car, but by the time I pulled her out, she wasn’t.

I rushed away from the heap of metal, my lungs and chest tight and seizing from the sharp smell of gasoline. I laid her on the ground.

She was so bloody.

So pale.

So still.

Her eyelids looked purple against the rest of her ghostly face, and her lips…

They were blue.

“Ivy!” I panicked. “Baby!”

Nothing.

Sheer terror grabbed me like icy, sharp talons. My hand shot out and grabbed her chin and pulled her face toward mine.

“Open your eyes right now!” I demanded.

She didn’t.

I squeezed her chin until my fingers hurt, but not even that made her wake.

She was too pale, too still… too blue.

“Noooo!” I screamed, my voice hoarse with emotion and strained in defeat.

She was dead.

Ivy was dead, and I was here… alone.

Ivy

It was happening again.

I knew it before he even started moving. The tension coiled in his body, the way his fingers gripped the blankets with so much force it was a wonder they weren’t torn in two.

I’d become attuned to sleeping with someone who was haunted by nightmares. I’d become attuned to reading all the things Braeden never said.

There was a lot.

A lot of torture.

A lot of pain.

A lot of fear.

When he started thrashing about, I moved on instinct. Not away from him, though, toward him. Even during a night terror, when he was clearly out of his mind, I wasn’t afraid of him. I would never be afraid of him. I loved him far too much for that.

I didn’t think twice when I reached for his hands. The granite-like strength of them beneath my palms didn’t faze me even a little.

“Braeden,” I whispered loudly. “Everything’s okay.”

“No,” he half groaned, half sobbed. The sound tore at my heart. It did every time.

I tightened my hold, but he started fighting against it, against me.

I was knocked away, my body caught by the mattress, and a pillow skidded over the side and landed on the floor. Prada untangled herself from the sheets and looked up at me with wide eyes.

“It’s okay, pretty girl,” I crooned.

She glanced over at Braeden at the same moment he flung out his arm. She leapt off the bed and went to her dog bed in the corner.

“Don’t leave me,” he sobbed. The guttural sound, the sheer pain in those words was a knife to my heart. I froze, momentarily stunned by the grief and torment in his voice.

It was the first time he’d said that during a nightmare. But this was the longest one yet. Usually, I could quell the worst of his upset with a touch or my voice. Usually, his eyes would spring open, unfocused and blurry, and find me.

Tonight, he was too lost for that.

He thrashed again, and I ducked out of the way, narrowly avoiding being shoved off the bed. I thought about yelling for Romeo, worried maybe I didn’t have the strength to subdue him.

I didn’t, not really. Not physical strength anyway.

But I had another kind of strength that far outweighed muscles.

And I wouldn’t call for Romeo when it was me Braeden needed most.

I moved fast, straddling his hips and pressing my body over him. The weight of me sitting on him made him pause in struggling.

“Braeden,” I said, firm.

Both his hands caught my wrists and squeezed. He squeezed so hard it hurt, but I said nothing and I didn’t flinch away.

I wanted to press my hands on his shoulders and pin him down completely, but I couldn’t disengage from his grip.

“Braeden James, look at me,” I demanded.

His eyes snapped open.

My heart broke.

Tears swam in their surface. Real, raw emotion. He looked up, reality crashing back into his world as a single fat tear fell from the corner of his eye and trailed down the side of his face.

Inside my chest, the beating of my heart slowed to a heavy thud.

I think most people want to find a love that’s so strong nothing can break it. I think most people fantasize about becoming someone’s entire universe. The feeling is almost like a drug.

But just like any drug, there are side effects to a love so unflinching.

Pain.

Weakness.

Fear.

I’d never seen Braeden cry. Until now.

Until the reoccurring nightmare of me dying in his arms won its first round.

I wanted so badly to wipe that tear away. His grip was still so tight, almost unbearable, yet I acted as if I didn’t even notice. I leaned down close to his face.

“I’m here, my love,” I whispered, gentle. “I’m right here. Warm and breathing.”

I didn’t know exactly what he dreamed almost nightly. He never would admit the details. But I knew it was always about the car accident the night Zach died. I knew in it, I was always the one who died.

His grip relented, and I took his face in my palms after brushing at the wetness on his cheeks. I couldn’t even tell you what it did to me to see such a strong man cry.

“I’m right here with you, B. Exactly where I belong.”

“Ivy.” His voice was gravelly, like he was in danger of losing it.

I nodded, and a few long strands of silky hair fell over my shoulders and dangled between us. One of the strands dragged across his chest, and he sighed.

I wore it straight and long a lot these days. It was a lot of extra work, but I found the way it brushed against him as a quiet caress at night calmed him in ways my words could not.

True to my thoughts, his fingers found the strands and he carefully wrapped his hand around them.

A sigh of relief filled the space between us, but I knew it wasn’t going to be enough.

Not tonight.

I still saw it in his eyes. The emptiness. The horror. The darkness he tried so hard to keep hidden.

“You’re here,” he murmured, tightening his hold on my hair.

I nodded and caressed his face. “I love you, Braeden.”

He made a sound deep in his chest. The wariness in his gaze hurt. Not because he was unsure if this moment were real or just another dream, but just the fact that he had to wonder.

He was tortured.

I reached up and untangled one of his hands and laid it against my chest. “Feel that?” I whispered.

He nodded.

“See, I’m alive. You saved me. Everything’s fine.”

His hand spasmed against my chest, and his molten eyes flared. Suddenly, the fear in the room turned to desperation.

I gave in, instantly. After what just happened, I was feeling a little desperate, too.

His ability to move fast always surprised me. Before I knew what was happening, he was on top of me, his heavy, sweat-dampened body pressing me into the mattress. He braced his hands on either side of my head. The look in his eyes was fierce.

I spread my legs.

His nostrils flared, and then in one hard, fast stroke, he plunged into my body.

I cried out, not because it hurt, but because it was so sudden and he was so incredibly hard. He usually didn’t penetrate me this way. Despite me telling him over and over that I could handle it, Braeden was still very careful with me.

My cry must have broken a little of whatever emotion he was lost in, because his body went taut and he stared down at me.

I didn’t give him the chance to think. I tilted my hips up, forcing him deeper inside. And just like that, he was lost again. The little bit of clarity left his gaze and his eyes slid closed. His face was both a mask of pain and awe as he started moving.

My inner walls felt tight compared to his throbbing, solid length. It was almost like he’d grown bigger or I’d grown smaller since we’d last made love.

But tonight was different.

Tonight, Braeden needed something from me, something he never asked for. And though my heart felt bruised for him, I was also oddly endeared.

This was just another way he was opening up to me. Another side of him he was finally letting me see. Almost our entire relationship, Braeden was nothing but strong. Nothing but unbendingly protective, almost impenetrable.

And even though right now it was his steely cock literally pounding into my entrance, it wasn’t me who was being penetrated. It was him.

I was finally getting into that very secret, very unknown side of him. The side where his deepest feelings lay.

The place B himself likely never acknowledged.

Above me, his body forcibly shook. I felt the tremble in his arms as his cock speared me over and over. He was anything but gentle; tonight he was greedy and rough.

When his hand fisted my hair, I allowed myself to be jerked upward, my head leaving the pillows so he could assault my mouth with his.

Our teeth gnashed together, but neither of us pulled away. This side of Braeden was addictive. I kissed him back, meeting his demands—keeping up with them even—without making any of my own.

I wanted him to have everything.

I wanted him to take it all.

He ripped his mouth away and growled—the sound more animalistic than human—and he buried his face in the side of my neck. He tucked one arm beneath me, flattening the palm of his hand beneath my ass and thrusting my hips up so I was tilted even closer against him.

I whimpered when he hit a spot that sent chills racing up my spine.

His teeth scraped over my collarbone as his other arm flung out. I felt him grip the top of the headboard, bracing himself against the bedframe.

With the angle of my body and his newfound leverage, he pushed so deep I felt the tip of his swollen and pulsing head at the entrance of my womb.

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

I failed to breathe. I failed to think.

He’d never been so deep.

And that spot he’d hit just moments ago?

His cock was now pressed against it, rubbing as he thrust as deep as a man could go inside a woman.

A guttural sound left his lips, and he started to pull back slightly. I snaked my arms around his back and kept him where he was. An orgasm was building inside me, teasing me with the sweet promise of bliss.

It was almost painful how strong my need was to release. Something in the back of my mind whispered I should let him pull out just a little. But then the rest of me, the harlot who wanted insane pleasure, told that part of me to shut it.

I knew when I fell, it would be the most powerful climax I’d ever known. The walls of my core were flexing so firmly around him I wondered if he could feel it.

As if to answer my unspoken question, the hand holding my ass in place tightened. His palm filled with my flesh, and he shoved deep with a hoarse cry.

I made a sound and clung to him, holding him tight as an orgasm ripped me in half.

I didn’t know I was biting him until, right next to my ear, he said, “That’s it, baby. Use your teeth.”

Still completely in the throes of an earthshattering orgasm, my teeth sank farther into his shoulder.

He growled, and I literally felt his cock pumping his release. I whimpered as my body milked him, demanding every last drop he had to give. Even after his muscles relaxed, he was still hard.

I collapsed against the bed, embarrassed that tears dashed to my eyes. Emotion so swift and strong rushed into my chest; it was all I could do not to cry.

What the hell kind of woman cried after sex?

The kind of woman who has powerful, barrier-busting sex.

I squeezed my eyes closed as he moved inside me, a few more long strokes that felt like a sinful massage after a hard day of work.

When he pulled out and collapsed beside me, I couldn’t move. I knew I needed to clean up, but I just didn’t care. In that moment, feeling the evidence of his release against my thighs was so satisfying.

It was assurance that Braeden got whatever it was he needed from me.

“Ivy,” he breathed and reached for me.

I cuddled up to his side, and his arm fastened around me. His lips brushed over my hairline in a gentle caress, and then within seconds, his breathing deepened and sleep claimed him once more.