A tear skates down her cheek, followed by another. “Is that…Is that what’s held you back? From moving in, I mean?”
“A little,” she admits.
“Why, Halfpint? I thought I’ve made myself pretty fucking clear how I felt.”
“But if you couldn’t say it, Jagger, then you weren’t really ready for it.”
I drop my forehead to hers. A soft, incredulous chuckle brushes across her lips. “Jesus Christ, Poppy.” Another scoff breaks free. “Just because I don’t say it doesn’t mean I don’t feel it. I try to show you because love…Poppy, that word doesn’t begin to describe how I feel about you. There are no words to describe it.”
More emotion rolls down her face, and I marvel at the sight. She cries so seldom that this moment, making those beautiful tears fall, is breathtaking. “You’re not just a want or need, Poppy. You’ve become everything. It’s cliché and crazy, but without you, there is no me.”
“Yes.” My heart thumps against my chest. You’d think she was accepting a proposal with how hard it hammers. “Now, fuck me until I can’t walk.”
I stand, stripping off my clothes in seconds. Her eyes blaze with desire, burning a path of need across my skin. “You already can’t walk,” I tease, gripping her good ankle and pulling her to me. She yelps when I flip her to her belly, leaving her legs hanging over the edge. “So how about I fuck you until you can’t move?”
“God, yes.”
I wrap up my dick and sink into her in a single thrust. Her needy cunt swallows me whole, wrapping around me like a fist.Taking her fingers in mine, I push them over her head and lean into her ear. “You’re mine, Poppy. Today. Tomorrow. Forever.”
I punish her dripping pussy, relentless and unyielding. When she screams as she pulsates around me, I flip her over and do it again. And again. I mark her, claim her, make sure she understands that I’m never letting her go.
Then I love her. Show her with my body how much she means to me. For hours, I take my time, unhurried, but just as powerfully, I let her feel what she means.
The sun is rising before we collapse, wrapped in each other. Her soft snores are my new favorite sound. A sound of peace. And for several minutes, I contemplate…life, deciding it’s time to remember what I have to be grateful for instead of the bad.
I’m thankful for the people that stumbled into my life over the years, no matter what shitty circumstances brought them to me.
An overbearing, perfect brother I could never live up to…who never expected me to. Who stayed by my side, even if from the shadows, no matter how hard I tried to push him away.
A sister that I never wanted. That might not be blood, but I’d move heaven and earth to make her smile. Her family that watched over me as much as they could. Because Henry and Liam have always been there if I needed them. And I should’ve asked them for help more.
People who didn’t have to care beyond what I could do for them. Maddox, Ryder, all of them…they didn’t have to get to know me once I set them up with Nichols. They didn’t have to remember my name, much less include me in their lives. Notice what’s going on in mine.
The little boy who looks at me like I walk on water. I didn’t plan for him. Wasn’t asked if I wanted him. The circumstances of his conception are ugly and something no one should ever go through, and I can’t say if it gave me him, I’d let it happen again. But it doesn’t lessen the love I have. It doesn’t change the fact that he is the absolute best of me, and his innocence is something I plan to hold on to for as long as possible.
And the girl at my side. The forbidden attraction turned to something consuming, obsessive, and probably toxic as fuck. But I will never let her go. She was meant to be mine. Call it coincidence or fate, but collision after collision, she embedded herself under my skin, into my marrow, and carved a half-pint-sized hole into my heart.
I’m hers, and she will always be my favorite painkiller.
Poppy
FIVE YEARS LATER
Sweat rolls down my temples. My heart races as I control my breathing. My focus remains on Jagger, watching the tension and frustration roll off him in waves despite the lust in his eyes.
Lily belts out the chorus of her newest song for the music award show audience, her husband, family, and friends, and then the instrumental break starts. I grin, knowing my husband’s jealousy is about to escalate.
From a rising platform, three shirtless guys appear—dancers for Lily, me, and the other girl performing with us—and their hands skim over our bodies. Perfectly in sync—after I made them rehearse until their feet were bruised, it better be perfect—we spin, facing the men. We waggle fingers in the air and shove them, gracefully of course, until they land on chairs, and our heeled feet come up to their chests.
The routine continues in front of the star-studded crowd with the seductive, empowering dance, Jagger’s eyes blazing from two rows away with a combination of desire and malice. Even Noah’s presence next to him doesn’t seem to calm him.
Don’t judge us. The show is PG, despite the wardrobe people trying to make it otherwise.
I hope these dancers remember what I told them about avoiding me after the show.
The final note hits and the lights drop in a single beat. The crowd erupts in applause, and the lights return just in time for me to get a final glimpse at the table.
Except Jagger’s not there.
