The UN Series Complete Box Set (169 page)

CHAPTER TWO

Time does not heal all wounds. Whoever said that was full of shit! And should be locked away forever. It’s been four days and nothing has changed. I still can’t even look at food. Today was the first day that I actually got up, showered, and got dressed. I’ve been living in pajamas. After I finished being sick in the back alley, Parker took me back to his house that he shared with Tate, but not before I got to watch Slade explain to his wife that her brother’s body was lying dead inside of her bakery. I’ll never forget the cry she let out. It was as if someone had shot her at that moment. And I felt her pain. Tate might have been the one to die, but I think we all lost something back in that kitchen. A piece that, no matter how much time passes, we will all still have missing.

I now stand with my eyes shut, the soft breeze blowing my blond hair around. That scene keeps playing over and over in my mind, remembering the incident that took place no more than a week ago. Tate died right in front of me. That bullet was intended for me and he jumped in front of it. Every time Parker tries to remind me of that—that Tate was saving me—I want to kick the shit out of his balls. Doesn’t he realize that is what hurts the most? Knowing that if I hadn’t been there, he would still be alive.

Tears slowly roll down my face and I close my eyes tighter hoping them to stop. I know he’s watching over me and I hate to be so weak for him. But how can you be whole when you’re missing your best half?

I hear a crunch of leaves from behind me, but I don’t open my eyes to look to see who it is. I know who it is, Parker. He doesn’t leave my side. He even took some time off from the force. He told them that he needed to grieve the loss of his friend in private. If you ask me, he’s babysitting me. Maybe he thinks I’m suicidal.

There ended up being over a hundred people here at his funeral today. Tate was such a closed-off person, and he kept to himself. But he was loved by so many. He still had friends who wanted to tell him goodbye one last time.

I find the strength to open my eyes and look at the fresh grave at my feet. His funeral was over hours ago. Everyone has left, but I can’t seem to make my feet move. It all seemed so unreal until today. Until I placed a letter of how much I loved him into his casket. I feel like he is gonna come walking into his house cussing up a storm or opening a beer. But he doesn’t. How do I go back to his house without him? I told him that I would never quit fighting for him. I know he’s no longer here, but I feel if I walk away from him that I’m giving up.

I look over at the baby headstone that rests beside his. Our little angel was the result of our one-night stand in Vegas, and I lost it. My head hurts. My heart is broken. My body is numb. Our loss is consuming me to the point of suffocation, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to surface from it.

“What am I supposed to do now,” I ask aloud. “You were supposed to be my forever,” I cry out.

I feel a hand land gently on my shoulder and the weight alone makes me fall to my knees. I place my hands in the dirt as well and dig my fingers into it. I wish the ground would swallow me up. I wish God would take me with him.

I lose all control of my senses. My body shakes uncontrollably as sobs wrack my body. I lift my hands from the dirt and wrap my arms around myself, rocking back and forth as I kneel in front of Tate’s grave. I’ve lost the only two people who I have ever loved.

“I’ve lost them both,” I sob.

Parker drops down in front of me and grabs my face. “Missy. Breathe.” His dark brown eyes drill into mine as I sit in front of him.

I shake my head, quickly trying to throw his hands off my face. When that doesn’t work, I shove them off. I frantically dig into my purse next to me searching for my cell phone. I pull it out and dial up his number. It goes straight to voicemail.

“This is Tate.” I cry out as his deep voice speaks into my ear. “Leave me a message.”

“I love…” The phone is ripped from my hands, and Parker places it in his pocket. “You.” I make myself say the words for my own satisfaction. Hoping that he hears them. “I love you,” I cry as I continue to shake uncontrollably. I’ve never felt so much pain in my life. So helpless. So sorry that I cost him his happiness. The happiness that he deserved. Tate had a hard life growing up. His stepdad beat him and his mother. He had the scars to prove it and his anger always kept him from being happy. From allowing himself to be loved. And his stepdad found him again and took that away from him. All because of me.

*****

My body bounces as I ride in Parker’s lifted truck. He picked me up and carried me away from the gravesite. I was so tired that I didn’t have the energy to fight him. And I was tired of saying goodbye.

I pretend to be asleep. It’s easy to do because I’ve been invisible all my life. I never had friends growing up. I was shy and the kid that the popular ones teased. My glasses were too thick and my hair was a dirty blond. My chest never grew when I went through puberty, and I was never really that into sports. I was the book nerd. I studied hard and read romance novels. While other teenagers went out to movies, malls, and dates, I stayed home reading or doing homework. I was an outcast. That was until Tate. He made me feel something. Alive. He didn’t make me feel ashamed of the way I dressed. Or the fact that I didn’t look like a supermodel. He made me feel loved. Granted, our road to falling in love wasn’t easy. Well, it wasn’t easy for him.

The truck comes to a stop and my body jolts. The passenger door opens and Parker grabs my hand, helping me out of the truck. I come to a stop at Tate’s front door and just stare at the red door. Can I go in there? Can I handle seeing all his clothes in the bedroom that we have made love in so many times now? I’ve told Parker several times to take me to my apartment, but he won’t. I think he’s afraid to leave me alone. As I said, suicide watch. But I can’t blame him, all I’ve done is cry on the couch in my pajamas.

“Missy?” Parker says reaching out for my hand. I pull it out of his reach.

“I need to be alone,” I say turning my back to him. I don’t want him to see the tears falling down my face. The tears that won’t stop. The tears that, no matter how numb I feel, will continue to fall until the day I die. I keep my eyes directed down at my sneakers as I walk around the side of his house. I open the gate and enter his backyard. I make my way to the back porch and sit down in his favorite lawn chair. I hate it. It’s cold, hard, and squeaks when you try to rock, but he loved it. He said that no matter what the Missouri weather threw at it, it was still gonna hold his ass up.

I lean back in the chair and I close my eyes. The soft breeze blows my hair around and it almost feels like his arms are wrapping around me. But that’s just my imagination. Tate never was all that affectionate. He wasn’t a gentle lover. He was rough, controlling, and demanding, but I loved that about him. I wasn’t some prize to be won. A princess to be saved. I was a woman to be devoured. I was his to command. His scarred hands were rough and his words were intoxicating. In bed, I was a different person. The person that I always wanted to be.

I remember the first time we had sex. I had instigated it. If I were honest with myself, I had used him. I was madly in love with him and was tired of him not seeing me in the same light. We were in Vegas for his half-sister Samantha and Slade’s bachelor/bachelorette party. I somehow convinced him to follow me up to my hotel room. It was the best night of my life, followed by the worse day of my life.

My heart pounds in my chest and I’m standing in six-inch heels for the first time in my life. My legs shake and my breath comes quickly. This is my only chance. The moment I step into my hotel room, I reach down and pull my black sequin dress up and over my head. My body trembles from the fear of rejection. Have you ever loved someone who did nothing but ignore you? It hurts. More than you can imagine. But I’ve seen Tate with women before. He likes the ones with confidence. The ones who know what they want. And I want him.

“Tate,” I say, taking slow steps until I find myself standing in front of him. He stands there for a few seconds. I can see his inner fight. He wants to turn me down; he wants to turn around and leave me here all alone. But I also see the desire in his darkened eyes. After what seems like forever, he reaches out and he caresses my breast.

I couldn’t help the moan that escapes my lips when his thumb runs over my nipple. To have him finally touching me after three years has me already wanting to explode. His fingers feel rough. They feel like a man who knows how to use his hands. My nipple hardens under his touch, and he leans down to taste it.

“Yes,” I cry out when his tongue makes contact with the pebble. “I need you inside of me, Tate. I need to feel you.” I thank God that I drank those drinks I had earlier because I wouldn’t be able to tell him how I feel without them.

He pulls away and picks me up before tossing me onto the bed. I was getting a look at the beast—the beast that I want him to free.

“I need you too, baby,” he says before he reaches down and pulls his shirt up and over his head, and my body tingles in anticipation. He is finally going to give me a piece of him. He finally wants me the way I want him.

“Make love to me,” I whisper and he pauses. I immediately hate the words. Guys like Tate don’t make love. They don’t know how.

“Love isn’t what I want,” he replies honestly. His words are slurred and I give him a drunken smile to mask my sadness. Who has hurt this beautiful man so much that he couldn’t love?

“Then what do you want?” I ask as I run my hands up his muscular chest. His skin feels hot to the touch and the muscles ripple as he tenses.

He leans over my body as a hand slides between my legs. He smiles when I open them up further for him. Please. Touch me. My breath hitches as he pulls my panties to the side and feels how wet I am for him. I arch my back and cup my own breast when he slides a finger slowly into me. I’ve never had sex before, but my body knew what to do on its own. I’d imagined being with Tate too many times before not to take full advantage of it.

“This,” he says through clenched teeth. “I want this pussy, Missy. I’ve always wanted it.”

“Take it,” I beg. “It’s all yours to do whatever you want,” I ramble and inhale sharply when he pushes his finger in as far as it could go. It doesn’t hurt, just feels foreign. But amazing at the same time.

He leans down, laying his body on top of mine, pinning me down. My heart pounds and my sex tightens at the feel of his dominance. “Don’t say things like that,” he warns as he nuzzles his face into my neck.

I open my eyes and look up into his. I look deep into the depths of those baby blue eyes shadowed with darkness. At that moment, I knew he needed something pure. Something innocent. I thought maybe, just maybe, I can be that for him. Maybe. I want to offer him my heart, but he doesn’t want that. All I have left to offer him is my body, and that is the something I will give him as many times as he wants. “I want you to take it. I want you to use me, Tate. Quit talking and just take it.” My body trembles that he may reject me. My breath comes faster and faster as my heart pounds against his chest.

All of a sudden, he rips my panties off and I gasp as the fabric scratches my sensitive skin. Leaning down, he places his lips by my ear. “You don’t know what you’re asking of me.” His voice is dark and sinister. He was having fun playing with me. I go to speak, but he slowly places a finger once again into me, silencing my words. My nails rake down his back as I try to get a breath.

“Yes, I do,” I whisper. I know I’m giving my soul to the devil, but it is my soul to give. And he is the only one I’d allow to have it. “I’m yours. I’ve always ever been yours.”

I open my eyes and look out over his backyard. That one night in Vegas led to a pregnancy. A pregnancy that I lost. And I went through it without him. That next morning, he woke up and freaked out. He cussed me like a dog. He panicked when he saw the blood on the sheets. He had no idea that I was a virgin. I know, most people would ask ‘how did he not know’? We were both drunk. Extremely drunk. I hate to say that he probably wouldn’t have slept with me if he had been sober. Anyway, he was mad at himself. Called what we had shared a mistake. I understood it. He didn’t look at me that way, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. So, six weeks later when I found out I was pregnant, I kept it to myself. I didn’t feel the need to tell him. He didn’t love me at the time. He sure as hell didn’t want a baby with me. But I found out that the baby was dead at my first appointment. That killed a little part of me. 

“What are you doing out here?” I look over to see Parker standing next to me. “You need to come inside, Missy.”

“I can’t,” I say lowering my eyes to the ground. “Not yet.”

He sighs heavily before he sits down on the chair beside me. “So what are you doing out here?” he repeats.

“I was thinking about Vegas. After our first night together.”

He chuckles, making me frown. “What’s so funny?”

“I remember that day like it was yesterday.”
It was a year ago.

“You knew about it?” I ask terrified. I only told Samantha, his half-sister, about what we did. I knew others knew because Tate wouldn’t even look at me afterward. But I didn’t expect him to go and flat-out tell everyone about what we did.

He nods. “I was in Sam and Slade’s room when he came storming in like a pit bull in a china store. He started rambling about how he slept with you. And how much he fucked up.” He laughs again. “I was a dick to him. Made fun of the situation.”