Creed

Chapter Nine You Can’t Breathe without Me

Present day, four days later…

My eyes opened and all I could see was Creed’s tattooed back in front of me.

The last four days I woke up alone to Creed making breakfast in the kitchen. Clearly, he was an early riser. I was not but did it for Charlene, though I got up at the last possible second.

Last night, though, we went out. I got a shade past tipsy and when we came home, I attacked. It had been energetic, or more energetic than usual. It had lasted a long time, or even longer than normal. And it only stopped when we both passed out, or when I did.

I must have done him in. Now, he was out.

Sleep slowly leaving me, recent memories moved through my head.

These were mostly about working and spending time with Creed. Learning he wasn’t good at his job, he was very good. He was a good partner, communicative, amusing, alert, sharp. Working with him was a lot like working with Ron, my dead partner. I could trust him because he knew what he was doing. We worked shit through, planned our moves, broke stuff down and when we did, he listened to me. I wasn’t just another gun, someone he was putting up with or a liability. I was a colleague. He treated me with respect, wasn’t overly protective and never acted like I was a girl.

A couple of nights ago, he’d shared in my back room over beers, takeout cheeseburgers and onion rings that he’d had more experience than me, falling into the work within months of moving to Michigan. I’d shared that I’d started my training with Ron when I met him at a gun shop and range when I was buying my first gun about a week after I moved to Denver. I also shared that Ron offered to teach me how to shoot and, shortly after that, he took me on, we became partners and he’d taught me everything I knew.

I further learned about Creed that, whatever happened sixteen years ago, he was a decent guy or good at playing one.

He went with me every day to Charlene’s, even over the weekend, and there were no more donuts or Cocoa Puffs. Eggs and bacon that he made. Pancakes. Oatmeal. He was good with the kids and especially Adam.

I knew this when, two days before, Adam had broken a figurine, kinda went weird about it and before Charlene or I could wade in, Creed did, calming Adam and then going so far as cleaning up the figurine.

He also took them to lunch on Sunday then to the park while I went to Ron’s grave giving Charlene the house to herself to clean and then relax. It was a cool thing to do. They had to be a hand full but they came back excited and intact and Charlene called me that night to say they all were dead to the world within seconds of their heads hitting the pillows.

With all this, and more, it was coming clear there was a lot to this new Tucker Creed.

He did dishes. Put his towel on the towel rail. Rinsed out beer bottles before he recycled them and not only took out the trash but asked when trash day was and hauled the bins to the curb. He even went beyond the call of duty and, Saturday, took time out to mow mine and Charlene’s lawns.

Truth be told, I was a little worried about this. Worried Charlene would get used to the extra help and then Creed would go to Arizona and there’d be no one to fix her car or mow her lawn.

If I admitted it to myself, which I didn’t, I also worried about the fact that I really liked working with him and more, I liked having him around. And, needless to say, I freaking hated mowing my lawn so I liked not having to do that.

I missed Ron. I didn’t mind working jobs alone but there was no denying it was better to work them with someone else. It wasn’t the additional brainpower and firepower, it was the company. Knowing you weren’t in it alone even when you were separated. I missed that. I’d been alone a long time and the only times since Creed left I didn’t feel alone had been when I was working with Ron or spending time with Knight or Charlene. It was cool to wake up knowing your day would include someone else in a way that was integral to life.

Creed read all my open case files, sat down with me, made suggestions, we planned and we worked my shit together as well as Knight’s. Work got done and it shifted easily from me on my own to us working together. Life fell naturally into an order that was solid, comfortable. It was good. Too good.

Last, it was also good getting it steady and abundantly and it was better since that “it” was so fucking great.

I liked sex once it was about what I wanted and not what someone was taking from me. I lost myself in it. I was able to move total concentration to the good shit my body was feeling which meant I had no space to concentrate on the bad shit that was always at the edge of my mind.

It was better with Creed.

I couldn’t get enough of him. He couldn’t get enough of me. We jumped each other frequently, sometimes to fuck, sometimes to grope, sometimes just to kiss… and hard. He didn’t leave my presence, not even the room, without hooking me behind my neck, pulling my mouth to his and kissing me deep. I returned the favor. We’d done it on the couch in the back room (again), on the floor of the hall, in the shower and in my bed.

It was wild but not abandoned. This was because I sensed him letting me guide it. I didn’t explore the boundaries of this power he was willing to give me by making him do something he didn’t like, not again. He’d demonstrated he’d do that for me once, it touched me in a place I was denying so I didn’t push it because I was unwilling to go there again. That didn’t mean I didn’t feel him handing the reins over to me.

He took, absolutely. He flipped me when he wanted the top, he adjusted us when he was ready for a new position, he took my mouth when he wanted it. But there was always an underlying alertness and if I gave the barest indication something wasn’t working for me, he backed off and did something else.

It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t making love. It was fucking.

But, because of what Creed gave me, it was more. It skimmed the edge of making love because fucking was fucking but when you gave even a hint of more, which he did every time, it was something else.

And it was dangerous.

I knew it but I was powerless to stop it. This was not because it was Tucker Creed (or I was telling myself that). This was how I’d lived my life when I got free. I played with fire. I didn’t mind getting burned. It was a reminder that I was alive and it was a way to bury shit that, if it surfaced, would destroy me.

So as the days passed, I was finding it harder to hold him distant. I was finding it harder to convince myself he didn’t mean anything to me. I was finding it harder to deny that the new Tucker Creed wasn’t getting to me.

Right then, that tattoo nearly all I could see, my sleepy brain filled with all I’d experienced with him recently and waking up for the first time in my life beside him, I lost hold on all that. I lost control of my ability to separate the Creed that used to be from the Creed that was sleeping beside me. I lost the stranglehold I had on me.

I had my head on the pillow but my body was close to his, my side brushing his, my eyes level to his shoulder. His head was turned away from me.

We were both on our stomachs, his leg crooked, my leg crooked with his, the inside of my thigh resting on top of the back of his other leg which was straight. I had my arm curled around his back.

Yes, me cuddling Creed (kind of).

The sheets were over our legs and when I lifted my head slightly and looked down, I saw they were mostly over Creed’s ass but I could see the top of it wasn’t covered. None of mine was.

My eyes moved up, my arm shifting and I caught the flowered “Sylvie” in the dent of his lower spine.

Seeing my name inked in that vulnerable dent in his spine, a vulnerability surrounded by the power of his defined muscles, the beauty of the image of our place, my body moved before I told it to do so. My mouth hit his back at the lake then it glided down. His body twitched, shifted and I put my hands to him, one between his shoulders, one at his ass and pressed down lightly.

“Sylvie.” It came out as a sleepy growl and went straight between my legs.

My lips kept moving down his back, over his waist, soaking in the tat, soaking in our place, soaking in us. Then my lips moved up the curve of his ass. Pushing the sheet down, I bared my teeth and nipped his flesh.

“Fuck,” he whispered, his big, powerful body shifting again.

Against his skin, I murmured, “Stay still, baby.”

“Fuck,” he whispered again and I shoved my hand between his legs, curled it up and found his cock.

It was hard.

Yes. I loved that. I wanted it. Needed it. Already.

My mouth drifted up and there I was.

Sylvie.

In flowers.

On our pier.

Slow, so fucking slow, taking my time, my hand wrapped tight around his hard cock, I traced my flowered letters with my tongue.

I got to the “i” and Creed was done.

He rolled, disengaging me, knifed up, grabbed me, pulled me over him, his hand at his cock. He slammed me down, impaling me.

My head shot back.

Yes. Just what I needed.

Exactly what I needed.

His hands slid up my back, his fingers curling around my shoulders holding me down as his forearms pressed deep, holding me to him.

He felt good, hard, big, filling me.

I was gone. Seriously gone. Already close. I had to move.

I righted my head and looked at him. “Gotta move, Creed,” I whispered.

“What’d he take from you?” he whispered back.

His tattoo in my head, our place still on my lips, my name in his skin on my tongue, all I was learning that was him filling my head, his cock inside me, I worked against those odds and tried to bury it.

I failed.

Still, I breathed, “Don’t. Let me move.”

“Tell me what he took from you. I’m giving it back.”

Shit.

“Creed –”

His hips bucked up and my breath hitched.

God, that felt great.

“You wanna move, baby, tell me what he took from you.”

“Don’t wanna, gotta,” I whispered, pressing my breasts into his skin and dragging my nails lightly down his back, two things I knew, fucking Creed copiously the last few days, he liked. A lot.

It didn’t work.

“He held you down, Sylvie, I’m gonna hold you down. I’m gonna show you it’s good. You can trust it. You can enjoy it. I’m gonna give you that back.”

“Please –”

“He tied you down. I’m gonna tie you to the bed, baby, and you’re gonna love it.”

Fuck.

I needed to move and his words, the heat behind them, the determination weren’t helping matters.

“Baby –”

“When I’m done, you will fear nothing. Never again. I’m gonna give that back to you. Now, what else did he take from you?”

“Creed –”

His hips bucked up and it pulsed through me.

“What did he take from you?”

I shoved my face in his neck and ground my hips into his.

“Sylvie –”

“My ass.”

His fingers at my shoulders dug in.

“He took your ass?” he growled.

“Yeah,” I breathed then, on a plea, “I need to move.”

“Didn’t make it good for you?”

“That shit’s not good, Creed.”

“That shit’s fuckin’ awesome, Sylvie,” he returned, his voice rumbling through me. “I get you ready, you’ll come so hard with me up your ass, you’ll think you’re comin’ out of your skin.”

Serious to God. I didn’t know how, that was not my gig but the way Creed was talking about it, it was not helping.

“I need to move, baby.”

“What else did he take?”

“Creed –”

His hips bucked up and I whimpered.

“What else did he take, Sylvie?”

“He hit me.”

Creed’s body stilled underneath me and it did this so completely it felt like all the air in the room stilled with him.

“What?” he asked.

“He hit me.”

“While he was fuckin’ you?”

His anger wasn’t slithering through the room and the room wasn’t stilled anymore.

It was vibrating with fury. Every fucking centimeter.

I lifted my head but before I could look at him and answer in the affirmative, I was on my back and Creed was pounding into me.

Finally!

I opened my mouth to speak but didn’t say a word because his slammed down on mine.

He fucked me hard and kissed me harder. Then he fucked me harder and I kissed him deep. Then I lifted my knees high, wrapped my calves around him and groaned down his throat as all he gave me washed over me.

He didn’t break the contact of our mouths even while I came, while he kept thrusting hard and deep or when his heavy grunts drove down my throat with his own release.

When he was done, coming down, he slammed up hard and planted himself so deep, I swear, it was like he wanted to fuse with me.

Then his mouth slid down my cheek to my ear and his voice was gruff with his orgasm and emotion when he whispered, “My tat means to you what it means to me.” I closed my eyes tight, mentally kicking myself for giving that away and moved my hands to his shoulders but he pressed his entire body into me, negating my shove before it even began. “Kept you close every day, every night, right with me and now you know it. You just don’t know what to do with it.”

Shit, how did I let this happen?

Shit. I just had to wake up to him and I was open, bare. Fuck!

“Get off me,” I whispered.

He lifted his head and his face, harsh and intense, looked down at me. “And you won’t know what to do with it until you talk to me.”

“Sex, work, food, beer then you’re back to Arizona, partner,” I reminded him.

“I’d move here. I’d move to the goddamned, fucking moon to wake up to you in my bed.”

Holy shit!

“Just came inside you, Sylvie, no condom. That was just you and me, nothing in between. Nothing. And you know exactly what I fuckin’ mean,” he remarked and I blinked.

Shit. How did that happen?

Shit!

He pulled out, rolled off and I closed my legs, turned to the side, curled my knees up and tried to sort out the ten thousand thoughts crashing in my head. The priority of which was Creed’s badass sperm, likely Olympic-class swimming with pinpoint accuracy, inside me and whether I was up-to-date on my birth control pills.

Fuck!

Letting my mind wander to heretofore, unknown unsafe sex was a mistake. I was doing that and therefore not processing the fact that he was prowling to my mirror. I also didn’t process the fact that he snatched a long scarf I had dangling on it and was prowling back, twisting it and doing something with it in his hands.

But I processed his knee hitting the bed and his hand capturing my arm.

I shot up and tried to pull away.

“What the fuck?” I clipped as he looped the scarf over my hand, it tightened at my wrist and, even as I pulled and struggled, before I knew it, he’d tied the other end to my headboard.

My eyes shot to him and rage shot through my system.

“You fucking fucker!” I screeched.

“Look at my hand, Sylvie,” he ordered, calm as could be, the fucking fucker!

“Fuck you!” I yelled, my other hand going toward my wrist tied to the bed but he batted it gently away. My eyes shot back to him. “Let me untie it!”

“Look at my goddamned hand, Sylvie,” he bit out, calm a fleeting memory.

“Fuck you!”

He moved. My eyes moved to where he moved and I saw his fingers tug at the end of the scarf, a slight yank and my wrist was instantly released.

I froze and stared.

Then I wasn’t frozen anymore but not because I moved. Because Creed’s hand wrapped around the back of my neck, he pulled me to him and both his arms closed around me, plastering me to his body.

“That’s how you do it,” he growled in my face. “You do it so, you get tweaked, you still got control and you can get yourself loose any fuckin’ time you want. You do it and you have a safe word so, it goes places you don’t like, you say it and it… fuckin’… stops. The guy who did that shit to you, Sylvie, he was a goddamned animal, takin’ from you what you didn’t want to give. Not all men are. In fact, most men aren’t. And I’m a man who’s not.”

“Let go of me,” I snapped.

“I gave it time. Your mouth on my tat, I’m done with givin’ it time. You’re not gonna dig deep, I’m diggin’ in there for you.”

“That is not gonna happen.”

“It is. You don’t wanna talk. I will. He promised me, Sylvie.”

My body went solid before I tried to jerk away but his arms only tightened so tight I could barely breathe.

His face got close and his voice got low. “He promised me. I would never, ever fuckin’ leave you to him unless he promised me.”

I glared into his eyes.

“He lied,” he whispered.

“We’re done,” I hissed. “You’re out. We partner but you’re gone. Outta my life. Outta my house. Outta my bed. Outta everything but the job.”

“No fuckin’ way and you know what?”

“I don’t care what,” I clipped.

He ignored me. “The way I know it’s no fuckin’ way is because you won’t be able to let me go. I can leave. I can be gone. You can try to make it just about the job but you won’t be able to do it. I know that because you didn’t kick my ass out, Sylvie, not completely. You’re keepin’ it about the job and that shit is not about Knight. It’s about finding a way to stay connected to me. You’re foolin’ yourself, baby, but you sure as hell aren’t foolin’ me. I been dead for sixteen fuckin’ years, suckin’ in air and not gettin’ any oxygen until I sat down with Knight Sebring and he told me the names of his team. Then, finally, fuckin’ finally I was breathin’ again. And you know, don’t fuckin’ bullshit me, you know you been dead until you woke up that morning, rolled off your bed and aimed your gun at me. Try to deny it, Sylvie, but your tongue traced your name on our pier on my skin because you needed that. You need me. You won’t stay away and you won’t let me go because, baby, you can’t breathe without me.”

Then he let me go. I fell to my hand in the bed and watched as he moved through the room, bending and tagging his shit before he walked right out.

I reached low and yanked the sheet up.

Shit. Fuck. Shit!

Okay, get my head together. Okay, see to Charlene and the kids. Get to Knight. Explain. Get to the airport. Get the fuck out of here.

My body jolted when Creed stormed back into the room wearing nothing but his jeans.

He stopped, planted his hands on his hips and demanded to know, “You know where he is?”

I stared at him, not keeping up before I asked, “Who?”

“Dixon,” he bit off.

My head jerked. “Who?”

He leaned forward, his face suffused with hard fury, “Jason fucking Dixon. The animal who did that to you.”

Cold washed through me. Ice cold.

Oh no. I didn’t like this.

I did not fucking like this.

And I didn’t like it because I had no freaking clue what he was talking about but he seemed to know.

Just whatever he knew was not right.

“What?” I whispered.

Creed ignored my question and asked his own. “He still in Kentucky? Or did you just get the fuck out and don’t know?”

“Jason Dixon married Peggy Linklater six months after you took off. By the time I left, they had two kids and she was pregnant with the third.”

It was the truth but it was the wrong thing to say. I knew this because it seemed every muscle in his body stood out in deep relief, such was the effort he was making not to move.

I got up on my knees holding the sheet to me. “Creed –”

“He wanted you,” he growled and that cold crept deep.

“I know,” I whispered.

“Dixon had a thing for you,” he told me.

“I know.”

“We fought about him,” he reminded me.

“I know,” I repeated.

“You told me it was only me.”

Oh God. Oh shit. What the fuck was this?

“It was only you.”

“You bled for me.”

Oh God. Oh shit. What the fuck was this?

“Creed –”

“Did he lie or was it you?”

I shook my head. “This is… we’re not going over this. This shit is history.”

“Can’t fake blood,” he told me. “You gave me your virginity.”

“Yes,” I snapped. “What is this shit? Of course I did. You know that. Jason Dixon? What the fuck are you talking about?”

He didn’t answer. He asked, “Who did it to you?”

“You know. You told me you knew,” I reminded him.

“He told me it was Dixon.”

“It wasn’t Jason Dixon.”

“He told me it was Dixon,” he repeated.

Jesus, God, what was this?

“It wasn’t Jason Dixon.”

“Then who was it?” he demanded.

“We’re not doing this, Creed,” I fired back.

He leaned forward and roared, “Who did it to you, Sylvie?”

“Richard Scott did it to me!”

He stared at me a beat, two, three then he turned and I watched in fascination as the muscles worked in his back while he threw a powerhouse punch to the wall, his fist going clean through the paneling, the drywall, everything.

He pulled it out and twisted back to me as I deep breathed.

“Do not make me waste my fuckin’ time diggin’ for it,” he growled.

“It’s mine, not yours. You were gone. You left me to that.”

“I did fuckin’ not and you know it. How in the fuck did you go from me to Richard fuckin’ Scott? The only drug dealing pimp in the goddamned county.”

“You know.”

“I don’t fuckin’ know.”

“Maybe not then but you know now. I know you do. You looked into me.”

“Sylvie, I didn’t have time to dig that deep. I thought you hooked up with Dixon. I didn’t fuckin’ know about Scott so,” he leaned toward me again and thundered, “tell me!”

I shook my head. “Don’t bullshit me. You know. You know what I do for Knight and why. It’s about the girls.”

“Yeah, Sylvie, I know that because you’re you and watchin’ you for a month I know, as much as you shovel the bullshit, that hasn’t changed. You got a heart of gold. You always had a heart of gold. Somethin’ matters to you, you’ll do anything. Only difference now is, you do it with a gun clipped to your belt. Now, tell me how you got hooked up with fuckin’ Scott!” he shouted the last.

“Daddy owed him money, Creed,” I hissed. “That’s how.”

A muscle in his cheek jerked then he asked, “He pimp you?”

I shook my head. “He liked me all to himself.”

“How’d you get away?”

“I stuck him with a knife. His knife, incidentally. Luckily, they declared it self-defense because, before I did, he beat the fucking shit out of me. I survived, Creed. Richard didn’t.”

His chest heaved with his breathing. Mine did too. I felt it moving under my hand clutching the sheet to me.

“You’re talkin’, Sylvie, you ready to listen to me?” he asked tightly.

“No,” I answered firmly. “No. You wanna talk, you listen but I’m not gonna fucking listen, Creed. He sold me. Daddy sold me. You left me to that shit and I don’t give one fuck why you did it. You did it. I was a captive for six fucking years. I had a car. A home. But no freedom. He bought my clothes, made me wear them, I had no choice. He told me what I could eat. He fucked me. He held me down. He tied me down. He took my ass. He slapped me while he pounded inside me, all of it dry because he did nothing for me and that… shit… stings. And he beat me. Repeatedly. To get away, I had to kill him before he killed me. I can still feel his blood warm on my hands. God, so much blood. I had no idea a body had that much blood. It was all over the bed. All over him. All over me. He owned me until I took his life to get mine back. That’s why no one else gets me. I killed a man to get me back and I’m keeping me.”

“It was Scott,” he whispered.

“Yeah, it was Scott,” I confirmed.

“No, Sylvie,” he shook his head then lifted his hand and pointed to the scar on his face before he scored his finger through his hair along the streak of white. “It was Scott’s men, not your father’s, who did this to me and drove me away from you. Your Dad just was in on it.”

Oh my fucking God.

What was he talking about?

“You’re ready,” he went on, “you’ll get the story. Warning, it lasted a fuckuva lot less time but it was no less ugly.”

After he delivered that, he turned on his bare foot and prowled out.

I sat in my bed and shivered.

That was, I sat in bed and shivered until I heard the front door slam.

Then me and my sheet went to the kitchen and we got the bourbon. Then me and my sheet went to the back room and we got my cigs.

Then me and my sheet went back to bed.

“Sylvie.”

“Fuggov,” I slurred.

“Sylvie, babe, look at me.”

“Fug… ov!” I shouted, lurching toward the voice then collapsing in bed.

“He do this to you?” I heard growled as I blinked.

“Who?”

“Creed.”

“Scott.”

“What?”

“Richard Scott didid to me. Daddeh didid to me. Creed jus’ lef’ me.”

“Fuck,” I heard whispered then I felt my hair pulled gently away from my face and lips at my ear. “I knew this would shred you.”

“Go ‘way, Knide,” I mumbled into my pillow.

Knight didn’t go away. “Five days, you’re shredded.”

“Ah’ll be okay,” I muttered. “Ah always am.”

“You haven’t been okay for sixteen years.”

Fuck, that was the truth.

“Ah havin been okay for forever.”

I blinked and my hazy vision vanished.

This was because I passed out.

I put the cigarette to my lips, took a deep drag and blew out the smoke, my eyes trained out the window of my back room to the dark night.

I knew someone was there well before I heard Anya call from the door to the kitchen, “Sylvie?”

“Here,” I muttered.

Quiet.

Then, softly, “Knight sent me to check on you. He gave me the key.”

“That’s cool.”

“You okay?”

No, I fucking was not.

“Yup.”

She walked through the dark and I watched her shadow move and fold into the other chair across from me.

“How’s Kat?” I asked about their daughter.

“She’s good. Knight’s folks are here from Hawaii. They’re babysitting so I could have a rare night at Slade.”

“Have fun?” I asked.

“Yeah. Good night. Great night, actually.”

“Good,” I muttered.

She was silent.

Then she asked, “You still drinking?”

“I think drunk off my fucking ass, passed out by noon, missing helping out Charlene for the first time since Dan the Douchebag took off on her and seriously hanging by three is enough. I’m laying off the sauce.”

At least for the night.

“Charlene got worried. Came over. You were passed out. She had to get back to work so it was her that called Knight,” Anya told me.

I nodded to the window and took another drag from my cigarette, blowing the smoke out the screen.

“Sylvie, please talk to me,” she whispered.

I could trust her and it was time. I did it more because I could trust her and less because it was time. All I knew was, I had to unload this shit on somebody, she was available and, lucky me, I could trust her.

Therefore, I asked, “Knight tell you about me?”

“Will you be angry at Knight if I say yes?”

“No.”

“Then yes.”

I nodded, took another drag then reached to my side and crushed out the cigarette. “So he told you about Creed.”

“I’ll admit, I got the recent update.” Then quieter, “He was worried about you, Sylvie, and apparently, there was a reason for him to worry.”

“There’s about one thing Knight Sebring could do that would piss me off and that’s fucking you over so don’t worry about me being mad at him because you two talk. I’m not. That’s cool.”

She was silent.

I was, too.

I spent my silence fighting the urge to grab another cigarette. I was not a heavy smoker unless I was drinking. Casual. I should quit. But she wasn’t one. She’d even made Knight quit. So it was uncool for me to smoke around her even in my own house. She walked in on me having one, that was one thing. Another to chain smoke when she was four feet away.

When she remained silent, I took my mind off my need for another smoke and stopped being that way.

“He wants to talk. Tell me why he left me all those years ago,” I shared.

“Okay,” she whispered.

“Doesn’t turn back the years,” I told her.

“You’re right.”

“Doesn’t erase what happened to me,” I carried on.

“You’re right about that, too.”

I pulled in breath through my nose and stared at my dark yard.

Gun came into the room and I knew that because she jumped up on my chair. Then she shoved her way into the space between my thighs and my torso, which was snug since I had my body twisted sideways in the chair and my feet in the seat. Still, when she wanted something, she was determined and she got it. So she got it, curled up and started purring.

I started stroking.

Then I started talking again.

“He has a scar on his cheekbone, a streak of white through his hair where the knife went through. He said they were going for his brain through his eye and he moved. He also said when he got it, it had something to do with him leaving me.”

“Why don’t you find out?” she asked cautiously.

“They could have tortured me back then and I’d never leave him. Obviously, they did something like that and he left me.”

“You’re guessing. My advice, honey, you shouldn’t guess. You should know.”

“Doesn’t turn back the years,” I muttered.

“You’re right, it doesn’t.”

“Doesn’t erase what happened to me.”

“You’re right, Sylvie,” she whispered.

I fell silent.

Then I again broke the silence.

“He named his kids with another woman the names we chose for ours.” I heard her sharply indrawn breath. “Yeah,” I agreed. “That’s about what I thought before I attacked him and tried to beat the shit out of him. That didn’t work.”

“Why would he do that?” she asked. “Did he explain?”

“Yup,” I answered. “Said it was because he thought he’d never see me again. Said it was because he wanted to call the kids he loved the names we chose so he could remember me every time he did it. Fucking whacked and mean. His wife found out, divorced his ass and, seriously, I do not blame her.”

She fell silent for long moments before she broke it.

“That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.”

My head turned to stare at her shadow.

“What?” I breathed.

I watched her shadow lean toward me.

“Okay, maybe you won’t like me after I tell you this but if something happened to Knight and he was taken from me, I love our daughter enough to go on with life even though, in all honesty, huge important parts of mine would be over. Going on with life maybe would include having someone else in it but I know this. There is no one for me but Knight. I’d be honest and if the guy didn’t get it, he’d have to move on, but that’s the way it would be. I’d do everything in my power in some way to keep Knight alive, not only for Kat but for me. I’d need it so I’d do it. This would mean there probably wouldn’t be anyone else for me. But what happened to you happened a long time ago, Sylvie, you were young, he was young. He was just trying to keep living at the same time keep you alive and with him in some way and, well, that’s beautiful. You’re right. It’s also whacked and mean. But anything can be a lot of things and it might be whacked and mean, but it’s beautiful, too.”

I looked back to the night.

“This doesn’t matter,” I said softly. “I can know what happened for him to leave me. Hell, maybe I could even understand. But it wouldn’t matter. I am who I am now. No going back.”

“There’s never any going back. But you’re not talking about that. You’re talking about not moving forward.”

I shook my head.

“You are, Sylvie,” Anya stated firmly. “You’re digging in and staying there. This isn’t about history. This is about what could be.”

“Even if he could explain shit, it’ll always be between us.”

“Only if you let it be.”

I laughed without humor.

“You’re scared,” she whispered and I turned my head back to her shadow.

“Fuck yeah,” I whispered back.

“He left and your life unraveled.”

“Yup.”

“You can’t do that again.”

“Nope.”

She sat back and again fell silent.

I looked back to the night.

We remained quiet a long time.

I broke it this time.

“I’m being a bad hostess. You want a drink?”

She stood. “Some other time, honey. I should get home to my family.”

Her family.

She was a lucky bitch. Fortunately, she knew it.

“You mind if I don’t see you out?” I asked.

There was a smile in her voice when she replied, “Not at all.”

“Thanks for stopping by, Anya. Tell Knight I’m cool. All systems go tomorrow.”

“I’ll tell him.”

I watched her walk to the darkened kitchen doorway as I stroked Gun.

Her shadow didn’t disappear through it. It stopped and I knew she was turning back to me.

“One last thing, Sylvie. When I leave, I want you to think about your life right now. I know you like it. I know you’ve got people close to you. I know you have fun. But I want you to think of your happiest memory, the happiest in your whole life. Then I want you to compare it to the life you live now without Tucker Creed. My guess, your happiest memory includes him. My guess, even with that shit between you, you give it a shot, you’ll go from the life you live now, that you like, to something else. Something bigger, richer, better, happier. And you know it. You’re just scared to lose it because you lost it once. Then, after all that, think about what your life would be if he was never in it. You’d never met. He’d never touched it. Then, honey, ask yourself how you would feel if you didn’t have those moments. Last, I hope you’ll come to the realization that, this time around, you’re making the deliberate choice not to take a chance in order to have that beauty.”

I stared at the shadowed door long after her silhouette left it but I didn’t see dark shadows. I saw sunny days, the lake, the pier, blankets over grass, young bodies rolling on them, tangled, twin beds in dark rooms that barely fit two bodies, whispered conversations, holding close.

My hands curled around Gun as my legs uncurled from the chair. I set my feet on the floor as I cuddled her close and walked through my dark house to my bedroom. I didn’t bother with a light. I just dropped Gun gently on my bed and dug through my clothes on the floor until I found my jeans from last night.

I dug my phone out of the back pocket.

I flipped it open and the light from the screen made me wince.

I went to my phonebook, scrolled down and hit go.

I put it to my ear as my eyes went to the clock on my nightstand.

It was one seventeen in the morning.

The phone rang once.

“Sylvie,” Creed greeted, sounding alert but growly.

“I’m ready,” I whispered.

Silence.

Then, “I’ll be there in ten.”

Disconnect.

I flipped my phone shut.

Fuck.