Extreme Curves (Dangerous Curves Book 7) (17 page)

In the silence following Liam’s words, Ace heard nothing but his own heartbeat. He stared at the ceiling, felt the burn of tears in his remaining eye, and he wondered just what miraculous, magical thing he could possibly have ever done in his life to deserve the man kneeling next to him.

“Erm.” Ace cleared his throat, then asked the only question that he could see as the obstacle to this insane proposal. “What about your café?”

“I’m giving Mirrie a controlling interest in it, and handing it over to her to run,” Liam said promptly. “I’ll still be on the papers, and will get an automatic thirty percent of any profits, but to all intents and purposes, it’s Mirrie’s now.”

“You
what
?” Ace was aghast. “You’re just… just handing it over? Not asking her to buy you out?”

“Nope.” Liam smiled. “It’s a wedding gift, you see. Mac and Mirrie just got engaged yesterday.”

“They
did
?” Ace was delighted, which was the normal response to this kind of news, of course – except for the small fact that Ace and the Fallen Angels had once gone
way
out of their way to keep Mac and Mirrie from each other. He felt nothing but fierce joy that these two had overcome all the bullshit, and found their ways back to each other again. “That’s great. No, that’s
amazing
.”

And really, if Mac and Mirrie could find ways to make it work despite the danger being held over their heads, and had the courage to make a go of things, then why couldn’t he?

Well… why can’t I?

Ace had no way of knowing what was coming; he couldn’t predict the future. He didn’t know where he was going to be in six months; he didn’t know how many years he had on the earth. He
did
know that for whatever time he had, wherever he spent it, there was only one person that he wanted to be with.

And that person was here
now
. Here with him.

For now, Ace could be grateful for that much. It was where they were in this moment, it was a starting point, it was the beginning of something new for him and Liam. Something that – for the very first time – they were free to
choose
.

The world was open to them. Wide open. No limits but their own fears.

Fuck fear
.

“So,” Ace said, his voice gruff. “Alaska it is. I like snow and cold-weather clothes.”

“Ummmmmm,” Liam said. “I don’t think so, handsome.
Hawaii
it is. I like water and beaches and shorts.”

“Urgh, no. I don’t want to live anyplace where I’m expected to wander around topless ninety percent of the time.”

“Oh, right.” Liam looked horrified at his insensitivity. “I’m sorry… I didn’t think…”

“It’s OK, sweetheart.” Ace shut his eyes as pain suddenly sliced through his chest, hot and sharp. “Ahhhh,
shit
.”

“Doctor?”

“Drugs,” Ace said through gritted teeth. “
Lots
of them.”

Liam rushed to the door, calling for help, then hurried back to Ace. He gripped his free hand as hard as he dared, tried to smile.

“Maybe we can meet halfway?” Ace managed to say with a huge effort. “Move to someplace in Europe where it gets damn cold but still has summer?”

“Mountains for you, beaches for me?” Liam said.

“Yeah.” Ace was finding it harder to stay conscious now. “Mountains for me, beaches for you.”

“Yeah.” Liam stroked Ace’s hair back off his sweating forehead. “Maybe, babe.”

Their eyes met and held, and as always when this happened, time just stood still, melted away, became fluid and almost meaningless. This exact moment between them could have been ten years ago in a biker bar, it could have been under a starry sky next to a campfire, it could have been curled up in a farmhouse bed looking out over an open field. It could have been ten seconds ago, or it could have been ten years into the future. And with a bit of luck and love, Ace
would
be doing this exact same thing ten years into the future… twenty years… forty years. He smiled, loving Liam so much, feeling like he was flying through space and time.

“Maybe, huh?” Ace said. “
Maybe
with you is the best thing that I’ve heard in forever.”

Chapter Sixteen
One year later

Ace turned around slowly when he heard the front door of the cabin close. With a bit of an effort, he reached out his right arm, wincing at the now-familiar tug-and-pull as the new skin stretched, and turned off the element on the stove. He gave the pan’s simmering contents one last quick stir, then he leaned back against the counter and picked up his glass of white wine.

“Hey.” Liam was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, his handsome face pink from the chilly winter air. He set his lunchbox on the table, sniffed appreciatively. “Smells amazing, babe. What is it today?”

“Seafood paella.”

Liam’s face lit up. “No kidding?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Perlita’s recipe?”

“Yep. Our cooking classes continue.”

Liam nodded, amused as much as ever at the thought of his hulking, ex-badass-MC boyfriend standing next to their tiny, wizened, eighty-eight-year-old neighbor in her kitchen, being barked at in Spanish. Perlita was a holy terror, and
everyone
up here in the Pyrenees knew it, but she was also the first one to have accepted the two tattooed, pierced, gay foreigners. She’d fiercely and publicly denounced anyone who’d whispered about Liam and Ace, and she’d made her position crystal clear when she’d started inviting Ace over to teach him how to cook.

Ace had been trapped in the cabin all day, with nothing to do except his rehabilitation stretching and skin treatments and staring out the windows at the breathtaking mountain view, so he’d accepted Perlita’s invitation just to have a reason to get the hell out of the house, besides for follow-up doctor’s appointments. Truthfully, the thought of being taught traditional Spanish recipes by a woman who smoked a pipe and was half-deaf had struck Ace as a form of entertainment… but he’d been wrong.

Perlita didn’t speak any English – except to bellow ‘
no
!’ at Ace when he fucked something up royally – but that truly didn’t seem to matter, in the end. Ace was surprised at the relative ease that he picked up Spanish (well, Spanish related to food and cooking, at any rate), and he was astonished to discover that he actually
loved
cooking. Seeing as he’d never so much as boiled water in his life, this was nothing short of a revelation.

Just as good, maybe better: never once – not even for one second, not even the first time that Ace had worn a t-shirt in front of her – had Ace felt judged by those sharp gray eyes. Oh sure, Perlita had taken in the horrible, thick scarring covering Ace’s entire right arm, she’d seen the scarring around his collarbone… and she hadn’t uttered one word. But when he’d left that day, she’d gently touched his cheek, just under the eye-patch that he always wore (making him feel like a goddamn pirate), and whispered, “
Forte
.”

Strong
.

Ace had never been in love with a woman in his life – but he
may
have fallen in love with Perlita in that moment. Maybe just a bit. God knows, he sure as hell adored her.

So four times a week or so, after packing Liam’s lunch and sending him off to work in a local café that catered heavily to tourists, Ace trooped over to Perlita’s place next door. She set him to work chopping and slicing and boiling and rolling and anything else that she needed done, then she taught Ace a new dish. Sometimes two, if he wasn’t too tired.

Because he
still
tired easily, and he hated it. The doctors back in Denver had told him to expect at least eighteen months of rehab, some follow-up surgeries, and an even longer and slower climb back to a consistent energy level, so Ace couldn’t say that he hadn’t been prepared for the waves of exhaustion. But that didn’t mean that he liked them.

“White wine, huh?” Liam said now, eyeing his glass. “Since when?”

“Oh, hell.” Ace looked down, shrugged. “Perlita. Says that you
can’t
pair paella with beer. She was
very
clear about that.”

“I’ll just bet she was.” Liam came over to Ace now, stepped into his lover’s arms, gave him a slow, lingering kiss on the lips. “You doing OK?”

“Yeah, baby.”

“Tired?”

“Not today. Today I’m OK.”

“Truth?”

“Truth.”

“Good. Because I have something planned for after dinner.”

“Oh, yeah?” Ace perked up. “What is it?”

“Nuh-uh.” Liam shook his head and smiled. “
After
dinner.”

“OK, OK.” Ace untangled himself from Liam’s embrace, and took the plates down from the cupboard. “How fast can you eat?”

They sat at their tiny wooden kitchen table, looking out over the snowy mountains, eating and talking. At moments like this, Ace simply could not
believe
that he’d ended up
here
.

Here, up high in the Spanish mountains; here, in this tiny cabin with nothing but windows and warmth; here, living effectively as a house-husband, doing all the cooking and caring for the house; here, with the man that he loved curled up next to him in their bed every night.

This
was his life now, and even though he’d woken up to it every morning for the past three months since leaving Denver, a part of him
still
couldn’t believe it.

“Oh,” Ace said suddenly. “King sent me an e-mail today. He sent the money.”

“Oh, yeah?” Liam said, sipping his wine. “He found the rest of it in the old MC clubhouse?”

“Yep.” Ace sighed. “The feds finally gave King permission to enter and break down that wall, even though the clubhouse is still evidence in the trial. But he called in some favors, he said, and got the bag of cash that I’d stashed there. So we’ve got another forty-thousand-dollar cushion.”

Liam’s wine glass stopped halfway to his mouth, and he stared at Ace. “
That
much
?”

“Mmmm-hmmm.” Ace grinned. “So between what I still have in my account, plus your money from working, and now this, I’d say we’re good for a while longer, huh?”

“Uh,
yeah
.” Liam finished his wine, still shocked. “We’re more than good.We’re great.”

“So…” Ace ate the last shrimp, mentally made a note to add more lemon the next time he made this. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Not here,” Liam said, nodding towards the bedroom. “In there.”

Ace paused, cocked his head, felt a slow smile spread across his face. “In
there
?”

“Yep.”

“My favorite room,” Ace said huskily. “Am I wearing too many clothes for what you’ve got planned?”

“Mmmmm.” Liam’s eyes flashed. “Not yet. Maybe you will be soon.”

“OK.”

The men went into their bedroom and since there was literally nowhere else to sit, they sat on the bed. Not that Ace minded, of course, but it hadn’t always been like this. For the first six months after the attack, he’d been too horrified and ashamed to let Liam see him naked. Hell,
he
couldn’t even look at his chest, his arm, his empty eye socket. He was ugly, and he fucking knew it, no matter how many times Liam said that Ace was perfect to him.

Patiently, Liam had waited, and when Ace had finally declared himself ready, Liam had slowly, reverently, peeled off Ace’s long-sleeved shirt, and dropped it to the floor. Then he’d slipped off Ace’s jeans, left his boxers on. And he’d just stood there and looked at Ace, looked without saying a word.

Ace would
never
forget that feeling of total vulnerability as he had stood in front of the man that he loved. Physically, almost naked; emotionally, totally naked. No more hiding anything: not the damage, not his own terror of rejection, and most definitely not his need to be loved despite it all.

Ace had cried then, cried for the very first time since it had all happened. Still without a word, Liam had held Ace’s shaking body against his own. The sun had set over the mountains, the room had turned dark, the air had turned cold – and still Ace had wept, and still Liam had silently held him.

That had been the turning point, somehow. Ever since that night, Ace had been able to undress in front of Liam, and he was now OK with it. He didn’t feel anything
like
a Greek God, but he didn’t feel like The Hunchback of Notre Dame, either. He supposed he fell somewhere in between, and he also supposed that was progress.

There hadn’t been any sex, though, not for a year. At first, it had been because of Ace’s horrific injuries and then because of the almost-equally-painful surgeries and recovery. Then it had been due to deep and wide self-disgust and -loathing.

Now, though? Now, Ace was ready.

So,
so
ready.

He hoped that whatever Liam had to say, he’d say it damn fast, because Ace was seconds away from kissing him on his perfect, gorgeous mouth.

“So,” Liam said. “I want to tell you something.”

“OK.”

“I love you.”

Liam said this every day, said it many times a day – texted it, said it over the phone, whispered it in Ace’s ear – and Ace still smiled like a loon every time he heard it. The best part was, that Ace was finally free and unafraid to say it back, so that’s what he did now.

“I love you too.”

“Good. Because I want to marry you.”

“You –
what
?” Ace almost fell off the bed. “You – holy shit. Liam, if you’re about to pull out a diamond ring and get on your fucking knees…”

“Nope.”

“Thank
Christ
.” Ace could suddenly breathe again. “I don’t want an engagement ring.” He paused. “Wait. Do gay men get engagement rings?”

“Yep. Some of them are really nice, too.”

“Oh.” Now Ace was feeling a bit sad that he wasn’t going to get one. “I didn’t know that.”

Without a word, Liam pulled a ring out of his pocket and got to his knees. Now Ace
did
fall off the bed.

“
Hey
!” he yelped from the floor. “You just
said
–”

“I said that I wasn’t going to pull out a
diamond
ring. I never said I wasn’t going to pull out
any
ring.”

“Fucking semantics,” Ace muttered.

“Will you take the ring?” Liam asked, his voice trembling. “If you do, I’ll think of it as a promise… a promise that you’ll marry me. Same-sex marriage is legal and recognized here in Spain, so we can do it whenever you’re ready. Or, we can just wear the rings and keep everything as a common-law marriage. But either way, Ace, if you take this ring, in my mind, we’re married. Through good and bad times, in sickness and in health, when we’re rich and when we’re poor, until time takes one of us from the other. In my mind,
only
time will end us, babe.”

Slowly, Ace extended his hand, and Liam put the cool, silver ring in his palm. Ace picked it up and looked at it closely, and what he saw made his heart stop.

“Is that a fingerprint?” he breathed. “
Your
fingerprint? Engraved
into
the ring?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, my God.” Ace didn’t have the words. “It’s – amazing.””

“I hoped that you’d like it.”

“Of course I do.” Ace slid the circle on his right hand ring finger, twisted it so that Liam’s fingerprint was facing up, so he could admire the swirls and whorls. “Do you want one too? With my fingerprint?”

“If you want to give one to me, I’ll take it happily.”

“Of course I do,” Ace repeated. “When can we go get it made? Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow works for me,” Liam said, clasping Ace’s fingers in his, his skin warm against the metal. “And I’ll wear it until the day I die.”

Ace felt an ache in his chest. “Liam –”

That was all that Ace could manage before he launched himself at Liam. Months and months of pent-up frustration and desire suddenly exploded, all at once, and he knew that if he didn’t make love with Liam now now
now
, he was really, totally, possibly literally, going to fucking
die
.

And thank
Christ
Liam didn’t resist or pull back, not even to ask if Ace was OK to do this. He knew that Ace was fine physically, that it had been his emotional state that had been uncertain. But over the past few days, Liam had noticed the way that Ace’s eyes had sparked when they’d met his own, and how they had looked Liam up and down, devouring him where he'd stood. Ace had just looked so damn
hungry
for him – and Liam had known that he was going to be ready soon.

Well. ‘Soon’ was ‘now’, and Liam was as eager as Ace. He’d missed this, missed
all
of this.

Slowly, clothing was removed and dropped to their bedroom floor, and somehow it was done with their lips on each other’s for pretty much the whole time. They barely came up for air, their hands stroked and caressed everywhere they could reach, and when they were both naked, Liam carefully pushed Ace down on his back, crawled between Ace’s strong legs.

“Liam…”

“Shhhh. Relax, babe.” Liam’s eyes were soft. “Let me take care of you, OK?”

Ace nodded, still a bit nervous, but trusting the man kneeling between his spread thighs more than he ever thought it was possible to hand himself over to anyone.

“Love you. Love you. Love you.” Tiny kisses were punctuated by these words, over and over, as Liam worked his way across Ace’s scarred chest, over his right shoulder, down his damaged arm. With his lips and words, Liam worshipped Ace’s body, all its perfections and perfect imperfections. “Love you so much.”

“God…” Ace gasped as Liam reached his erect cock and gave it a long, slow, teasing lick. “
God
… baby…”

"Feels good?" Liam murmured

"
Fuck
yes." Ace arched up into Liam's mouth, helplessly, as that tongue started to stroke more insistently. "Yes, yes, yes..."

"Then hang on, 'cause it's about to feel a
hell
of a lot better."

Liam's mouth opened and he pulled Ace's entire cock deep inside. Ace gave a moan, gave himself over to the hot, wet, perfect sucking. Liam knew what he liked, knew what he needed, and without breaking his slow, strong strokes, Liam reached for Ace's hands, and set them on the back of his own head. Ace growled, pushed Liam deeper and harder on his cock, made him take more, more again, and Liam smiled around the bulging, straining head that was already leaking pre-cum. He sped up, just a bit, then opened his throat, pulled Ace as deep as he could, and felt savage joy at Ace's answering long, low moan.