Chapter Twenty-Five
Killian
I brought her to the waterfront under the guise of watching the sunrise. She knew it was bullshit and I wasn’t trying to be romantic. I was just looking for a neutral location. We took a seat on a wooden bench on the boardwalk, the glass and steel towers behind us and an unobstructed view of the Manhattan skyline in front of us, the dusky blue sky streaked with red. She drew her legs to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.
“You really pick the winners,” she said. “First Joss and now…Darcy.” She pulled a face like just saying the name made her sick to her stomach.
Louis filled me in later while we counted the cash drawer in the office. Apparently, this Darcy chick had been bitchy to Eden. I only had a vague recollection of Darcy. I didn’t even remember her name, but I doubted it would help my cause to mention that.
Darcy didn’t mention Johnny, thankfully. Instead, she went on and on about the amazing night we shared. By then, she’d followed me to the outside bar where I was working, so Brody had gotten an earful, but Eden didn’t have to hear about it.
“Did you tell Darcy I was your girlfriend?” Eden asked.
“Yeah, I told her.”
Eden shrugged. “I guess that’s something, at least.”
“You have nothing to be jealous about.”
“You seem to have a type and I’m not it.”
She was focused on the one-night stand which was the least of my transgressions. “She means nothing to me. It was one night, nearly two years ago.” I only knew that because Darcy filled me in. “Way before I ever met you.”
Her shoulders slumped. “I know. It’s just…ugh. I hate to think of you with someone else.”
I knew the feeling. “Don’t think about it. I told you I’d never cheat on you.” At least that was a promise I could keep. I couldn’t imagine walking in on Eden with another guy. Didn’t even want to. I’d never do that to her. It nearly destroyed me when I saw my mother with another man. I was too young to understand what they were doing, but I knew it was wrong. I’d never breathed a word of it to anyone. Not even to Connor.
She rested her chin on her knees. I could almost see the wheels in her head spinning. “Your dad mentioned something about fighting…the night he came in. He asked if I was one of your groupies.”
Fucking Seamus.
“I was waiting for you to tell me about it yourself. That’s why I never asked.”
I looked straight ahead at the skyline, at the lights that never seemed to go out, in offices and apartment buildings. All those people, living their lives, with their own dramas and hardships.
Fuck. This was so hard to say. I’d never told anyone. Never said the words aloud. Everyone who had been in my life before already knew, and nobody else needed to know. Until now. She needed to hear it from me, not from someone else.
“I used to be an MMA fighter. I was in the UFC.”
“What happened?”
I needed to go right in, lay out the facts, and get it over with. Rip off the fucking Band-Aid.
“My last fight was against Johnny Ramirez. He was my teammate, my friend…. a great fighter. One of the best.” I swallowed hard and forced myself to keep going. “I punched him in the temple. I usually tried to avoid head shots. I wasn’t…” Out to kill him. He’d had me down on the mat, my legs locked. It had been a wild hook from a submissive position. I hadn’t thought it would pack so much power. “The medical team gave him the okay to keep fighting. We went two more rounds and I won. Afterwards, he was pissed off that he lost, but he seemed okay otherwise. Walking and talking. Later that night, he complained he was dizzy and tired, and they took him to the emergency room.”
“It was a subdural hematoma. Traumatic brain injury. They performed an emergency craniotomy and he was in a coma. Three days later, he died.” My voice sounded automated, like I didn’t give a shit. Like the words I was saying didn’t affect me, didn’t have anything to do with me.
“Killian,” she said, her voice soft. “It wasn’t your fault.”
I shook my head and let out a harsh laugh. “It was entirely my fault.” I held up my hands and flexed them. “I killed him.”
“It was an accident. A horrible accident. You can’t blame yourself.”
I could, and I did. “He had a wife and a son who was born after he died.”
Eden straddled me on the bench and wrapped her arms around my neck. My arms went around her waist. She couldn’t do or say anything to make it better, but somehow, she did. Just by being here. The tension in my muscles relaxed and I breathed her in.
She pulled back and held my face in her hands. “What you told me doesn’t change the way I feel about you.”
I closed my eyes. “Eden.” She pressed her lips against mine. Neither one of us tried to turn it into a kiss. It was almost more intimate than a kiss.
When our lips separated, she climbed off me and sat next to me. I wrapped my arm around her and she leaned her head on my shoulder. We sat in silence as the blues and pinks of twilight became an orange glow that reflected off the buildings of the Manhattan skyline.
“It’s a new day,” she said quietly. “A world of possibility. Do you believe that?”
“I don’t know.” But I’d like to.
She didn’t say anything for a few minutes. “Killian? What would Johnny have done?”
“What?”
“If the roles had been reversed…what would Johnny have done? Would he have mourned your loss and continued fighting? Would he have given up something he loved?”
I didn’t have an answer because Johnny wasn’t here to ask. “He told me once that if he had to give up fighting, he wouldn’t be Johnny Ramirez anymore.”
“Is that how it feels to you?”
“Sometimes.” All the time. “But that life is over. I can’t go back to it.”
“Sawyer keeps going back to combat zones.”
“He doesn’t have a choice.”
“He had a choice. He re-enlisted.”
She couldn’t wrap her head around that, but I got where Sawyer was coming from. I didn’t know him, but I had a feeling that being in a combat zone was his new normal. People return to what they know. I’d never been to war, but sometimes I felt like I’d lived through one, so I understood why he didn’t talk about it. It wasn’t the kind of thing you shared with people who hadn’t been there.
“Killian?”
“Yeah?” I asked, hoping she would drop it. I was done. I told her what I needed to tell her and now I wanted to put it behind me. I kept picturing baby Leo’s face, his big brown eyes so trusting. He didn’t understand pain and suffering yet. He didn’t know that the world wasn’t fair or that the people you love could be snatched away in an instant. I wanted to protect him from this fucked-up irrational universe. Ironic, really. I was the villain in Leo’s fairy tale.
“Was MMA your passion? The thing you were meant to do?”
Yes. And no. It had cost me everything. “I used to think so.”
“If you can’t go back to fighting, you need to find a new passion. It’s important.”
“It’s not one of life’s necessities.”
“Maybe not for everyone, but it is for you. Because you found it once and it was taken away from you.”
“It wasn’t taken from me,” I said, through gritted teeth. She didn’t heed the warning in my voice.
“Do you think Johnny would be punishing himself? Or would he recognize that it was an accident and keep doing what he loved? Do you think this is what he would want for you? To know that you gave up something—”
“Eden,” I said, my voice hard. “Stop. You have no fucking clue what you’re talking about.” I rubbed the back of my neck, regretting that I’d ever told her. I stood and strode away, without waiting for her or looking back to see if she was following. I kept walking, straight up North Sixth Street, intent on getting in my fucking car and driving away.
She caught up but stayed two paces behind. I beeped my locks and yanked the driver’s door open. She grabbed my arm to stop me. “What are you doing? Running away when things get hard? That’s not who you are. It’s not what you do.”
“How the hell would you know who I am or what I do?” I removed her hand from my arm and climbed into the driver’s seat.
She blocked the door with her body. “You’re not leaving. Not like this.”
I clenched my jaw. “Step aside.”
“No.” Eden crossed her arms, not budging. “I want you to come home with me. To Pennsylvania.”
In three days, Sawyer was coming home on leave, and she didn’t want to miss his homecoming. I’d offered her my Jeep, but now she wanted me too. I’d never been taken home to meet anyone’s father before. And this seemed like a shitty time to bring it up.
She chewed on her lower lip. “Would you? My dad and brothers will really like you. And I want to celebrate your birthday with you.”
My birthday. Hooray. Fuck birthdays. Fuck everything. I jammed my key in the ignition.
“Don’t act like an ass. I need you.”
I need you. I looked at her face. “Why?”
“I just…do. Killian, I asked you not to shut me out. What you told me was hard for you. I know that. But I was trying to tell you that you deserve to be happy.”
“Yeah, I got the message. You’re not that subtle.”
“I never said I was. Maybe you should think about it. And maybe next time you tell me something important, you could consider my feelings.”
“Your feelings?”
“I care about you. How clear do I need to make it? Should I graffiti the words on the walls of Bushwick? Across the Brooklyn Bridge? Your words and actions affect me too. I’m sorry you had to give up something you loved. I’m sorry your friend is gone. I wish there was something, anything, I could do to make it better. But sometimes the only thing you can do is be there for the other person. And I’m here for you. Maybe you never had that before, so you don’t know how it works. In a relationship, there are two of us. We’re on the same team. I’ll always be in your corner—”
I grabbed the back of her head and pulled her towards me for a kiss, effectively shutting her up. She kissed me back, her lips soft and warm. She gave, and I took. Tasting her sweetness, her body yielding to me as I stood and pulled her closer, my hand tangling in her silky soft hair. It was a new day. A world of possibility. And I was a dumbass because this girl…she was the best fucking thing that had ever happened to me.
“You kissed me to shut me up,” she said when our lips parted.
I pulled her into another kiss. “Whatever it takes.”
“Does that mean you’ll come with me?”
I smiled against her lips. “Whatever you want, Sunshine.”
“I want you.”
I walked her over to the sidewalk, my hands roaming the curves of her body.
“But first I need to show you the error of your ways,” she said, as we climbed the steps to her front door, her body tucked against mine.
That should be fun. “What else are you going to show me?” I took the keys out of her hand to unlock the door.
“Ugh.” She planted her hands on her hips. “I’m capable of opening my own lock.”
“But you don’t need to because you have me to do it for you.”
“Do I? Have you?” she asked, on the way up to the third floor.
“You’ve got me. How can I prove it?”
“Groveling would be a good place to start.”
“If you get on your hands and knees for me, I’ll grovel.”
“Deal.” I masked my surprise. I hadn’t expected her to give in so easily. But then, she expected me to grovel. “Better make it good.”
“My thoughts exactly. Tell me what you’re going to do to me,” I said, as I unlocked her apartment door.
She waited until the door was closed and locked behind us to tell me. By the time we reached her bedroom, I was so hard my dick felt like concrete.
* * *
Hours later, I woke up to her fingers tracing the lines of the phoenix tattoo on my shoulder and back. I rolled onto my side, and she planted a soft kiss on my upper back then wrapped her arm around me and molded her body against mine. If I was going home with her, I needed to tell Louis. I grabbed my phone from her bedside table, but Eden took it out of my hand.
“It’s all arranged,” she said. “I talked to Louis.”
I laughed under my breath. On top of her other talents, she was reading my mind and arranging my life to suit her needs. “When did you do this?”
“Two nights ago.” I could imagine, without turning to look, that her smug smile matched her voice. “I asked him not to tell you.”
“How did you know I’d agree to it?”
“I’m the optimist in this duo.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Even when shitty things happened, her glass was half-full.
“You haven’t groveled yet,” she reminded me.
“I got sidetracked by the hot babe who asked for a spanking.”
“Likely excuse,” she said, and I looked over my shoulder because I knew, just knew, she’d be blushing. Yep. God, I loved that. She could talk dirty, have sex doggy style, ask for a spanking, and still blush. That’s what made her so special. She was so many things all rolled into one perfect package—naughty and nice, sweet and sultry, dirty and innocent.
I turned around to face her and propped my head on my hand, tracing the curves of her face with my fingertips.
She raised her brows. “Still waiting for you to make good on your end of the deal. Quid pro quo.”
“Look at you and your fancy Latin.”
Eden rolled her eyes. “Stop procrastinating.”
“How does this groveling thing work?”
“You apologize profusely. But it needs to be heartfelt and genuine.”
Heartfelt and genuine. “I’m sorry I walked away.”
She gestured with her hand for me to keep going.
“I’m sorry I shot you down when you were just trying to help. And I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.”
Her face lit up with a smile. “Not bad for a rookie.”
In my life, I rarely apologized for anything, even though there had been hundreds of times when I should have. I understood now, how a woman could bring a man to his knees. If I had to, I’d crawl to her, groveling, just to put that smile on her face. How had she infiltrated every facet of my life so quickly?
“Just for the record, before you met me…you had lousy taste in women.”
“I could say the same about your taste in men,” I countered.
She grabbed my index finger, guided it to her mouth and bit down hard. I laughed. “She-devil.”
“Tell me I’m the best you’ve ever had.”
“You’re the best I’ve ever had.” It wasn’t a lie. She was the best, in every way.
“Will we ever be able to talk about this again?”
I knew what she was referring to—Johnny, my guilt, her quest to help me find a new passion in my life. “Someday. But not today.”
Her eyes searched my face and then she smiled. “Okay. Someday sounds good.”
The fact that I’d even used the word someday implied we had a future. And in three days I’d be meeting her dad. Jesus. Be brave, warrior.
That evening, I had a surprise for her. Judging by the look on her face when she walked into the office, it wasn’t a good one. “You cut your hair,” she cried. I thought she was going to burst into tears. “You look like…a GQ model now.”
“She hates it,” Ava said, stopping in the doorway. She offered Eden a Twizzler to ease her pain.
“I’m going to need more than one strip of licorice to get over this,” Eden muttered, ripping the licorice with her teeth, and chewing furiously, her eyes still glued to my short hair.
Ava tossed her the whole pack, and Eden caught it one hand, without taking her eyes off me. Skills. “O-kay,” Ava said, backing away. “I think I’m needed in the courtyard.”
I scrubbed my hand over my hair. It hadn’t been this short since my MMA days, which meant I looked more like I used to when I was a fighter. Not sure that would work in my favor. The idea was to make myself look more respectable. I had no idea how conservative her dad was, but he was a state trooper and they lived in a small town. Not much I could do about the scar or tattoos. I probably still looked like a thug who grew up on the wrong side of good. “Are you gonna leave my ass in Brooklyn, baby?” She was still staring at me, speechless.
“No. Your ass comes with me. But I want you to grow your hair back.”
I chuckled and leaned back in the swivel chair. “You’re so shallow. Had I known you were just with me for my hair…”
“Shut up.” She came to stand between my legs. “I’m not just with you for your looks or your body although…well, they’re a nice bonus. You’re still beautiful. It’s just…you look so different.”
I captured her hands in mine and tugged her closer. “Did you call me beautiful? I’m not a girl. I’m a man. Have a seat on my lap. I’ll show you I’m still the man I was before I got a haircut.”
She rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t hide the smile. “I need to get to work.” She put her hands on my shoulders and kissed me. “My boss will get angry if I slack off on the job.”
“Your boss might give you a spanking,” I murmured against her lips.
Her tentative fingers sifted through my hair. “Not much to hang onto.”
“I’ve got plenty of things to hang onto. You’re welcome to all of them.” I guided her hand to my crotch where, as usual, I was hard for her. “This is for you. All. The. Time.”
“Sounds like a problem. You should get that checked out.”
I swatted her butt. “Get to work before I lock the door and take you right here. Right now.”
“I’ll meet you back here at the end of the night,” she said, with a wink. Then she sashayed out of the office and left me wondering how I’d make it through the next nine hours with a raging hard-on. She was starting to feel like an addiction. Eden was my crack. Which got me thinking about Connor. Which got me out of the office and behind the bar where I could stay busy and not have to think about anything.