Vandal

I haven’t cut myself or had a drink in five months. If Gram is right and Katie’s watching over me, I want her to see a good man that deserves her. No matter what, I will always be her father and I want Katie’s dad to be someone she would look up to, not be ashamed of. And I want to be a man that Tabi could spend her life with.

The sun is warm on my face and birds are chirping in the trees, and I hope that wherever my little girl is, it’s as pretty as it is here today.

“Hey.”

Looking around, disoriented, I see her leaning against the big oak tree. My tree. Oh, God. She’s here.

I stand and brush the leaves off my legs, blinking to make sure I’m not daydreaming. She’s still there. Slowly I walk over to her, trying to think of something to say to break the ice, but my mind is a total blank. I stop in front of her and just look at her, taking her in. She looks even more beautiful, her hair a little bit longer and a little bit blonder, with just a touch of tan on her perfect skin. Her eyes are bright and happy, and she’s not as boney. She’s wearing jeans and a black T-shirt with the sleeves and neck cut, and my heart stops when I see the red slashy writing on it.

Got Vandalized!

I let out a little laugh. “You’re wearing one of my shirts, but it’s got a typo.”

“Evie had it made for me. I felt it was appropriate.” She smiles shyly up at me, the sun dazzling in her eyes. If she’s been talking to Evie and Ivy, that means she’s still staying close. She hasn’t cut ties. I have to believe she’s staying close to them for a reason. My pulse quickens when I see she’s still wearing the necklace I gave her.

“You never took it off?” I ask, my eyes on her throat.

She tilts her head. “How could I? You’ve got the key.”

“It’s in my pocket. I always have it with me.” I meet her blue gaze. Shit. Please don’t ask for it. “Did you track me down to take it off?” I ask, silently praying the answer is no.

“Nope,” she says simply.

“Why are you here?” I touch her cheek and she leans into my palm, her eyes fluttering closed.

“For closure,” she answers, and my heart sinks.

I swallow. “With me?”

She shakes her head no and I nod, understanding. Hope rises in my chest and spreads a smile across my lips.

“This isn’t going to be easy, Vandal,” she says softly. “We have a lot of baggage.” I nod in agreement, afraid to speak. “It’s going to take a lot of work for us to clean up the mess we made … but it’s our mess. I’m okay with there still being some D/s in our relationship, but I need a little more from you. A little less caveman, okay?” she asks. I nod again. “I need you to show me your emotions. You can’t just use sex and control all the time.”

“You’re right,” I agree. “I can work on that.” I take a deep breath. “I miss you so much, Tabi. But I’ve been so good while you’ve been gone. If you came back, I wanted you to come back to something better, something you deserved.”

She smiles and reaches for my hand. “I’m better, too. I don’t need you anymore,” she says. “But, I do want you.”

“I want you, too,” I say pulling her closer. “And I love you. We’ll take it slow. You can teach me how to date, and I’ll teach you how to cook.” She giggles. “I’m in this for the long haul, baby. Good and bad, up and down, and everything in between.”

She goes up on her toes and kisses my lips very softy. “I am too.”

“You wanna go for a ride?” I whisper, stroking my thumb across her cheek.

“Yes,” she finally says quietly, nodding a little. “Take me away from here.”

That’s all I need to hear.

I lean down and kiss her lips, loving the taste of her again, and pull her against me where she fits perfectly. She wraps her arms around my neck tightly, as if she never wants to let go, and nothing has ever felt so good to me. I kiss her deeper, our tongues dancing, breath quickening. Pulling away from her mouth just a tiny bit, I look into the eyes I’m going to be looking at for a very long time.

“I love you, Tabicat. For fuckin’ ever.”

Her smile is brighter than the sun. “I love you, too. So much.”

Tabitha

Vandal Valentine. Just the name makes my heart soar, and my body tingle. Our relationship was born in lies and deceit. He thinks meeting me was his plan, his deceit.

But it wasn’t. It was really mine.

Him seeing me at the cemetery that day was my carefully devised plan. I knew he would be there, because I had been watching him for weeks, because a little old lady told me he would be there. She told me her grandson was grieving the loss of his child and accidentally killing two other people. It’s as if she wanted me to look for him and console him. However, my hatred for the man that killed my husband drove me to plot my revenge against him. How dare this long-haired, sexy, rich rocker be allowed to walk away from the pain and agony he caused me, Nick’s family, and that other woman’s family? He killed a child, for God’s sake.

I didn’t expect him to approach me, saving me the trouble of going over to him at his child’s grave. I planned to scream at him, slap him, gut him with vicious words there amongst the graves. Then I would wait a little while and go to him again, apologize for my crazy, befriend him, gain his trust. Then I would seduce him, and make him fall in love with me. Then, finally, I would rip his heart out and destroy him just like he did to me.

But instead, he touched my tears, and held his hand out to me.

He completely threw my plan off its axis, but I went with it anyway because he intrigued me. I fell into those black eyes of his and I couldn’t crawl back out. The truth is, I didn’t want to.

My plan grew many cracks and fell apart. This man was not a man who loved. He was not one to be easily seduced. He took the control that I thought I had and soon I was spiraling into a dark, sensual hole with him. The problem is, it was I who fell in love with him. I ached for him. I needed him. I wanted him more than I had ever wanted anything or anyone. I loved his control over me. I saw layers of him I never expected to see or uncover. I felt his care, his love, his intense desire, his sadness, and his regret. I felt his resolution.

And then I saw the glimmer of hope in his eyes, and I felt it in the way his touch changed. The power shifted. He fell in love with me too.

I hated lying to him, and the acts I had to put on. All the feelings were real for me; I can’t deny any of that, as much as I struggled with it. I did hate him at times, and I was devastated that he would deceive me for so long. I wanted him to just tell the truth. Many times I tried to push him to do so. I was no better than him, though. We both set out to get to each other for our own twisted reasons, and somewhere in that tangled mess, we found love. We found ourselves in each other.

Why did I leave him when I did? To punish both of us. Especially myself, for being so weak. I fell in love with Vandal way too fast. I submitted to him way too willingly. I found happiness much too soon. I didn’t deserve to start over and have a new life when Nick’s was ripped away from him. Vandal was offering me everything I always dreamed of, a life that would make me really happy and let me be myself. A life that even Nick couldn’t have given me, and I beat myself up over it. How could I let the man that took him away, give me everything?

Our love will never be pretty. It will always be tarnished by the past and we will carry those scars forever. Those ghosts will always haunt us. We are both so damaged by our pasts, by ourselves, by each other.

They say a relationship cannot last if it was built on lies, but I refuse to believe that. We crumbled and came out stronger. We came out together.

And to me, at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.

He is mine, and I am his.

I am his heart. He is my armor.

THE END