Hard Time (Hard as Nails #1) (21 page)

“I love you, too. I love you so much it’s scary.”

“I think that’s the point,” he says and lands another soft kiss against my forehead. “To love someone that much. But even though it’s scary, you’re the bravest person I know. You don’t run, lady, you face things head on, and that’s a lesson I’m going to learn eventually. I just need to be around the best teacher, and that’s you.”

I cup the back of his head and hold him in place as I gaze into his eyes. They’re dry now, the sorrow fading away. It warms my heart that I’m able to fix him when he’s broken, the way he fixes me. Before he came into my life, I was surviving, but I wasn’t truly living. I loved Riley and Dee, but I never thought I’d love a man again, not the way I love Street.

Living and loving isn’t easy. It’s a path riddled with obstacles and pain, but it’s a path worth walking.

“Come home with me,” I say through a hopeful smile.

He looks deep into my eyes and there’s still hesitation there.

“Come home
to
me,” I clarify.

“What about your daughter?”

“What about her?” I tilt my head and pet my finger against his flushed cheek. “I trust you completely. With me, and with Riley. You saved us, remember? From my crazy axe-wielding ex-boyfriend.”

“Yeah. You have horrible taste in men,” he deadpans.

There it is. That’s the Street I’ve missed. The Street that’s only been gone for a few days, but who seemed to have slipped away an eternity ago. I guess that’s what love is.

“Are you going to answer my question?” I ask, praying and hoping he answers it the way I want him to—with a resounding yes.

“I still don’t know if it’s a good idea.” He shrugs his shoulders before rising to his feet. “What if I say something wrong in front of your sister?”

“You won’t. And Dee’s not perfect. I’m not asking you to be. I’m going to mess up and so will you and so will she and so will Riley. The point is, we’ll love each other through all that.” I stand and lock my hand in his. “You saved us, now let me save you.”

“That’s really corny.” He chuckles. “Corny, but sweet.”

I raise my eyebrows at his choice of words. “Sweet?”

“Sweet and classy?” He pulls me close and places one hand on my cheek, and one hand firm against my waist, holding me in place while he kisses me.

This is my newest fantasy fulfilled. It’s not about lusting for a total stranger where communication is forbidden. It’s about lusting after what’s already yours.

He is mine.

And I am his.

Forever.

Epilogue

Street

The sun beats down on everyone—graduates, family and friends alike—currently sitting either in the bleachers or on the football field of Darsbury Community College. People are fanning themselves with their programs, a few of them complaining about the heat, but I keep my eyes focused on Katie. She looked so damn beautiful sitting with her classmates in front of the stage, but she looks even more beautiful as she walks across it to receive her diploma. Dee and I arrived with Riley in tow an hour early just so we could get good seats, and good seats we got. Now we’re whistling and shouting for all our worth as we cheer on our girl.

In my lap, two-year-old Riley is cheering and clapping her hands. At one point, she glances up at me and smiles and my heart melts.

She’s the happiest kid I’ve ever met and to my utter astonishment, she adored me from the minute she met me. Katie rolls her eyes about it, and so does Dee, but I know they secretly love the fact that when Riley’s upset, all I have to do is pick her up to make her stop crying, when nothing else in the world can, not even her mom or aunt.

Katie squeals with excitement as she crosses the platform to exit the stage. With her diploma in one hand, she turns to us with the biggest smile and waves. The diamond ring on her finger sparkles, reminding me that I’m the luckiest guy in the world because she’s mine.

Not that I’ll ever need reminding. I wake up every morning and go to bed each night with a whispered thanks to the universe.

Our relationship began from a distance, and with the loss of each inch between us, I quickly learned my fantasies couldn’t hold a flame to reality.

Katie hasn’t stopped telling me what a good man I am, and I’m finally starting to believe it, too. I’m not perfect, but I’m good, if only because Katie and Riley and even Dee deserve nothing less. She taught me that my past only matters in the context of how I choose to live my future.

I’m living my future for me, and that means I’m also living it for her. Because Katie owns me, body, heart and soul, and I need to make sure whatever she owns is the best it can be. Being the best I can be means I’m working at Nailed Garage with Jericho again. It means I’ve got my bike back, and Katie and I ride it almost every day. It means I’m taking business classes at night school, with the eventual goal of opening up a chain of garages.

That night after she brought me back to her, before I actually agreed to meet Riley, I told her everything. About my loyalty to Trevor. My friends. Thornbridge Orphanage and the mob man who’d run it, the same man who’d used a bunch of rebellious fucked-up kids to commit crimes but did it in such a way that by the time we left Thornbridge, we were convinced he loved us, especially because he was letting us walk away and start over clean.

Talk about Stockholm Syndrome.

I even told Katie his name: Harvey Prince. Almost as bad as Edgar Rose, it’s a name I hadn’t spoken in well over a decade, partly because Harvey liked to be called King (as in, “Hell, I’m not a prince, I’m a fucking king”), and partly because I’d wanted to forget about him. But I can’t forget about my past and I can’t run from it. Not anymore. I have to deal with it head on, and with Katie’s help, it’s a skill I’m getting better at.

Basically, I told Katie every stupid mistake I’d ever made, beginning with pushing away well-meaning foster parents who tried to help me after my parents died and ending with me pushing
her
away, which she of course already knew. She’d listened. Then she’d taken my hand and asked when she was going to be able to meet my friends, because the members of Nailed MC sounded like even bigger bad asses than me.

Of course, I’d responded, “Challenge accepted” and swept her into my arms.

I still hate that my friends are once again shackled to King because of me, but together we’re working on wiping their debt free.

I watch Katie as she steps off the stage and I don’t take my eyes off of her as she returns to her chair with the rest of her graduating class. She catches my eye and blows me a kiss. I love it, but it’s not good enough. I check my watch, and exhale with impatience. I just want to see her up close, and congratulate her with a kiss.

I nudge Dee with my elbow. “Do you mind holding Riley for a sec?”

“Sure. Where are you going?” she questions as I kiss Riley’s forehead, making her giggle, then gently shift her onto Dee’s lap.

“I’m going to surprise Katie. Thanks, Sis.”

She hates it when I call her that, or at least she pretends to, but she feels like a sister to me now, so she’ll have to deal with it. I hunch over so I don’t block the view of the people behind me as I make my way to the end of the aisle.

* * *

Katie sits in the back row of her graduating class, and I’m not supposed to be over here, but what are they going to do? Take her diploma away? No. That won’t happen. They’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.

I crouch low as I approach her from behind. When I’m within touching distance, I peer over her shoulder and whisper in her ear, “Hey.”

She jumps in her seat, and the students on either side of her turn to see the commotion.

She smiles wide even as she whispers, “You scared me. What are you doing over here?”

In response, I hold out my hand, and my heart clenches at how quickly and easily she takes it.

She climbs out of her seat, and squeezes between her abandoned chair and the girl’s beside her. I guide her behind the bleachers like we’re high school kids sneaking off to make out.

“What are you doing?” she scolds me.

I turn to her with a mischievous grin, and she immediately knows what’s up. She plants her hands on her shapely hips. “Thomas?”

She doesn’t always call me Thomas. Usually she does it when she’s teasing or scolding me, but whether I’m Street or Thomas to her, I don’t care. I’m fucking hers no matter what she calls me.

“What?” I shrug and approach her, placing one palm on each side of her waist.

“Did you bring me here to kiss me?”

“Can I talk you into more?”

She giggles then wraps her arms around my neck. “Talk? No.”

I lean forward and kiss her. She’s wearing lipstick, and I can taste the cherry base on my own lips. I make it short and sweet before pulling away and smiling. “That’s all I wanted.”

She pouts. “Really? So you’re not going to try to talk me into more?”

I’m surprised, but I’m not an idiot. “Talk? No.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

God, I fucking love this girl.

Ten minutes later, after some serious making out and heavy petting, we emerge from under the bleachers. Her hair is mussed. Her lipstick gone. With a breathy whisper in my ear, which leaves me stunned, she gives me a final kiss then makes her way back to her seat. Once again, I’m lost in the way she moves. In the way she walks. In the way she can make my heart flutter faster than she can make my cock harden and throb.

I’m lost in the way I lust after a perfect happy ending, which means at least sixty years of married life followed by what I hope will be dying in our sleep in each other’s arms.

It won’t be easy. It hasn’t been easy thus far, but it’s a dream I can believe in. It’s a dream I have to believe in, because when it comes to life and love, she’s my only option.

She is my princess.

She’s my biggest fucking fantasy come true.

She and Riley.

And our baby in her belly she just told me about.

COMING NEXT IN THE HARD AS NAILS SERIES:

Hard Case
(Book 2)

Rich, smooth, and powerful.

Slate Rawlings keeps mobsters out of prison, but now he’s tasked with defending an innocent woman who makes him imagine all the naughty things he can do to her…

Slate battled his way to the top and now he’s the most successful lawyer in the city.

His clients have pasts even darker than his, so he avoids honest, decent women.

The moment he sees kindergarten teacher Rose, however, he’s overcome by desire. She has blue eyes, pale skin and legs made to wrap around his hips. He wants to

push her sweet body against the wall and f**k her until she cries out in complete surrender, but she deserves better than the monster hiding inside him.

Only Slate can’t leave Rose alone because he’s the only one who can save her.

And eventually he knows he won’t be able to resist temptation.

Blackened soul or not, he’s going to make Rose his in every way imaginable.

Hard Core
(Book 3)