Unattainable (39 page)

Love.

She
had never shown him
love.

Ellie wasn’t her.

Ellie was not her.

Ellie was…love.

Not her.

Love.

Dirty tried again to focus on her and
when he did, when he really, truly looked at the big blue eyes
looking back at him, it was what he didn’t see that startled him
back into awareness.

He didn’t see lust. Or need. He didn’t
see the hungry gaze of a madwoman. He saw not one trace of pleasure
being derived from his pain.

All he saw was Ellie. His Ellie. With
tears in her eyes.

“
I’m not leaving,” she
said. “I’m going to unpack my books and put every single one of
them on your empty shelves. I’m going to unpack my clothes and hang
them up inside your empty closet. I’m going to fill up your
refrigerator with food and your cupboards with dishes and your
bathroom with feminine products and I’m going to buy
pretty-smelling candles and colorful sheets and curtains and I’m
definitely buying a carpet for this big ugly bare room…and I’m
going to make you breakfasts and dinners and I’m going to force you
to watch stupid movies with me and I’m going to cry and yell once a
month for no good reason and I’m going to sleep next to you every
night and wake up beside you every morning but most of all,
Michael, I’m going to love you. I’m sorry, but you’re just going to
have to deal with that, the fact that I need to love you. Because
I’m not going to stop, not ever. You did this, you made me love you
by just being you and, all my life, everything I’ve ever wanted, I
worked hard to get it, and now I want you and I want you to love me
and want you to want to be loved in return. Do you understand? I
want to love you, not hurt you, not ever hurt you.”

He was shaking now, not out of fear but
because he was crying. Because everything she’d just said had been
everything he’d always wanted to hear, he just hadn’t realized it.
Not until right now.

“
Are you going to let me
love you?” she whispered.

He swallowed hard. He couldn’t speak;
if he tried, he would just end up sobbing, so he nodded instead and
Ellie’s beautiful face, her eyes, her mouth, smiled at him in
return.

• • •

Lying atop Dirty, Ellie traced the
lines of his face. He looked so different when he was sleeping.
Peaceful, not tormented. She would give anything to see him look
that way while awake. Anything.

He was like a child in so many ways.
Everything was new to him and so she’d gone out on a limb, hoping
and praying it wouldn’t backfire, and took control much in the way
a parent would an out-of-control child. She hadn’t realized it at
the time, but while she was trying to save Dirty from himself, by
taking control, she’d inadvertently taken back a little piece of
what she’d lost at the hands of Daniel.

Kissing his lips softly, so as not to
wake him, Ellie climbed off the couch and bent down to retrieve her
clothes. As she dressed, she surveyed the apartment, full of her
boxes waiting to be unpacked, and shook her head.

This wasn’t at all how she’d thought
her life would go.

Not even close.

But she wouldn’t change a
thing.

Not one damn thing.

She’d fallen so deep into his world,
into him, that when he was hurting she felt that, deeply. She
wasn’t even sure anymore where she began and he ended and to be
honest, she didn’t want it any other way.

Dressed, she ventured into the bedroom
to retrieve her phone from her purse and dialed her voice
mail.

The first two were from work and the
third…

Ellie, it’s Dad. Mom’s been
taken to the hospital. Honey…it’s not good. You need to get here as
soon as possible.

Grabbing her purse, Ellie rushed from
the bedroom.

“
Michael!” she cried and
he shot up from the couch, his eyes wild.

“
What?” he
yelled.

She shook her head frantically. “My
mom,” she said, her eyes filling. “She’s…I’ve got to go. She’s at
the hospital.”

Dirty was up on his feet and zipping up
his pants as he crossed the room. Grabbing her hand, he pulled her
toward the door.

“
Shoes,” he said, pointing
to her flats as he snatched his keys off the end table.

Ellie hurried into her flats and then
Dirty yanked her out of the apartment and into the
hallway.

They climbed on his bike together,
Ellie wrapped her body tightly around his, and then they shot off
down the street.

• • •

Later, much later, after her mother had
passed away, after she’d spent months grieving her loss, after she
and Dirty had bought a house up in the mountains together, and
after he’d surprised her with her very own motorcycle, a bike he’d
built from the ground up, specifically for her, and after he’d
finally felt comfortable enough to tell her he loved
her…

Ellie would think back on that moment
and remember that Dirty hadn’t so much as flinched when she’d
touched him.

In fact, he’d never shied away from her
touch again.

Not once, from that day
forward.

As he exited the hospital elevator,
Cage paused to lean up against the cool wall. He felt like a
steaming pile of dog shit that hadn’t just been shit out and left
behind to rot away, but had been lapped up by the same dog that had
shit him out and then regurgitated. A few times over.

He hadn’t slept in days, he couldn’t
eat without it coming right back up, he couldn’t even stay hard
long enough to fuck his woman, and he was jonesing for a high
something fierce. His heart was racing, his skin clammy, his body
sluggish, he felt cold when he was sweating and crazy when he
should feel happy. He needed something. Some blow, some pills,
fucking anything at all. But he’d promised Tegen no more drugs and,
to be perfectly honest, he hadn’t thought quitting the shit was
going to be a problem until he’d sobered up and immediately wanted
to be fucked-up again.

He’d tried hitting the bottle to take
the edge off and all that did was get his ass kicked by Tegen. Not
because he was drinking but because drinking had done nothing but
worsen the cravings for something more. As well as cause him to
think something more would be a really great idea, so he’d
relapsed. Twice.

Which in turn caused Tegen to take his
keys away, smash his cell phone to bits, and slap him in the face a
few times.

It was fucking official. He was a
goddamn junkie.

So yeah, it was a problem.

And because of all that bullshit,
because he couldn’t trust his temper, he’d been putting off an
important conversation that needed to be had.

With his motherfucking old
man.

His old man who’d not only fucked with
Cage’s life, but had almost ended his own life because he was a
stubborn old bastard with a bad temper who was so busy worrying
about everyone else he hadn’t been taking care of
himself.

“
Cage?”

Cage lifted his head just enough to see
Tegen standing beside him, her green eyes filled with concern. “Are
you going to puke again?”

Yes. Yes, he was.

He tried to glare at her. “No,” he bit
out. “And stop treatin’ me like a little fuckin’ girl.”

“
Stop acting like one,”
she snapped.

“
You treat all sick people
like fuckin’ shit?” he muttered. “Or just me?”

“
I’ll admit,” she said,
her tone laced with sarcasm, “that my bedside manner leaves much to
be desired, but you, you fucker, are not sick. You are cracked out,
tweaking, wishing you were high. There is a fucking difference and
if you don’t stop looking like you’re plotting ways to lose me and
run straight to your friendly neighborhood drug dealer slash
underage hooker extraordinaire, I’m packing up my shit and going
back to California.”

“
She isn’t underage,” he
hissed.

“
Out of everything I just
said!” she yelled, making him wince. “That’s what you’re focusing
on?”

Shaking his head, he stood up straight
and turned toward her. “I’m not havin’ this conversation again. Not
inside a fuckin’ hospital, not when I’m about to go see my old man
laid up in bed because he almost fuckin’ died less than fifty
fuckin’ feet from me and I was too fucked-up to even know it was
happenin’. Not fuckin’ now, Tegen.”

“
Cage,” she shot back.
“You’re stalling. Put on your big girl panties, stop acting like a
little bitch, and get in that room and talk to your father.
Otherwise, we are going back home and you are going back to bed,
where you should be anyway!”

He wanted to yell at her. Fuck, he
wanted to knock her out for talking to him the way she did. But
instead of yelling at her or adding “beating on women” to his list
of wrongdoings, he smiled at her.

Home. She’d called his house
“home.”

If he didn’t feel like at any moment he
was going to lose what little bile remained inside of his stomach,
he would have grabbed her, thrown her up against the wall, and
tongue-fucked her mouth until she goddamn choked on her bad
attitude.

Fuck, he loved her. He fucking loved
the shit out of her.

She was crazy. She was loud and
demanding and meaner than hell sometimes. She didn’t listen to a
damn thing he said, she did whatever she wanted whenever she wanted
to do it, and the bitch loved to fight. All the damn time. Face
slapping, shin kicking, balls to the wall, knock-down-and-drag-out
fights.

But she fought like she loved. Hard.
And he hadn’t ever been loved like this; he knew he wouldn’t ever
be loved like this by anyone else.

She was his. She’d always been his, and
if he’d taken half a second to look up from all that pussy he’d
been eating, he would have realized way back when that he was hers.
Always had been.

“
Why are you smiling?” she
demanded, narrowing her eyes. “Are you high? Did you get high while
I was in the bathroom?”

His smile fell. “Shut up,” he muttered,
turning away from her. “For two motherfuckin’ seconds.”

She was suddenly in front of him,
sliding her arms up around his shoulders and pressing her body up
against his.

“
I’m sorry,” she
whispered, brushing her lips against his. “I’m just worried about
you.”

Taking his bottom lip between her
teeth, she sucked it inside her mouth and then darted her tongue in
between his parted lips. Groaning, he wrapped his arms around her
small waist, took an ass cheek in each of his hands and, despite
how sick he felt, kissed her hard.

“
Let’s go home,” he
growled softly against her mouth. “I need inside of
you.”

Beautiful green eyes, full of need and
dancing with laughter, blinked up at him.

“
You need to talk to him,”
she said, giggling. “You haven’t seen him since…before…”

She stopped talking and grabbed him,
held him close, and hugged him tight. “You need to talk to him,
Cage,” she whispered. “Then we’ll go home.”

Yeah. He needed to talk to his old man.
Only problem was, what the fuck was he supposed to say to a man
who’d just had a massive heart attack? He couldn’t flip the fuck
out like he wanted to, accuse him of destroying his relationship
with the only woman who’d ever given a fuck about him…when it may
very well throw the bastard into another heart attack.

Yeah, he might hate his old man, but he
didn’t want him to die. Because maybe he still loved him too. Just
a little.

The elevator doors beside them dinged
and Ellie, her face streaked with tears, ran out into the hallway,
Dirty following closely behind her.

“
Hey,” he called out.
Dirty stopped as Ellie kept walking.

He gave Dirty an inquisitive look.
“What’s up?”

The man shook his head. “It’s her mom,
brother,” he said. “It ain’t good.”

Cage nodded as he studied Dirty. “You
need anything, dude?”

Dirty shook his head again. “Just her,”
he said quietly and turned away.

Cage watched as he doubled his pace,
catching quickly up to Ellie. Dirty’s arm shot out and hooked
around her waist, and together they turned the corner and
disappeared out of sight.

“
I hate that you fucked
her,” Tegen snarled.

“
Once!” he yelled. “Years
ago! I barely even remember it!”

“
Whatever,” Tegen
muttered. “Is it just me or are they are so fucking weird together?
I mean, how in the hell did Ellie end up with
Dirty
?”

Cage laughed quietly. “Right. ’Cause
this right here,” he said, pointing between the two of them, “is
real motherfuckin’ normal.”

Tegen crossed her arms under her
breasts, causing his eyes to shoot straight to the small amount of
cleavage that popped up over the edge of her tank top. He loved
that she was gaining weight. Fucking loved it.

“
There isn’t anything
wrong with us,” she said.