He took my hands and rubbed his thumb over my knuckles. "Then what's wrong?"
"I just . . . " I shook my head, not sure where to start. So I blurted, "Reese was the first person I ever really loved, like, I actually care more about her than I do myself. I only want to see her happy."
"Okay." He nodded, following along with me so far and letting me know he was willing to listen.
"And then, I guess, in a lukewarm cousinly way, I love Mason too . . . because he's so good to Reese and he let me move in with them when he hated me."
That one made him scowl, so I rushed to add, "And I love Skylar. Almost as soon as I knew she existed, she wormed her way into my heart." I waved a hand. "I mean, after I was finished freaking out because I'd just found out I was going to have a baby. But yeah, I fell for her pretty much immediately. "
Pick smiled and tightened his fingers around mine.
"I love Julian too," I told him, "from, like, the first day I met him."
Drawing my hands to his mouth, Pick kissed my knuckles. "Thank you."
I nodded. "So, all this . . . love . . . it's really only happened within the last year. You'd think I'd be overwhelmed from it, right? I mean, I go from basically caring about no one but myself, and not even really about myself either, to completely loving four people. But I'm not overwhelmed. Not at all. In fact, I feel as if I have so much more room, because . . . " I looked up and met his beautiful brown gaze. "I love you, too."
His face filled with a dazed kind of shock and joy. Then he whispered, "Tinker Bell," before catching me by the back of the neck and hauling me against him.
Our mouths collided. I inhaled him as his lips crashed against mine. But even that wasn't enough. Not nearly enough. My fingers fumbled to grasp him, digging into the flesh at the back of his neck and over his shoulders, afraid to slow down because I needed to feel every inch of him before I lost my chance.
He was just as desperate, pulling me close, right up onto his lap. I straddled him and slid forward until I could feel his erection through his jeans as it ground against my core.
I'd never felt this carnal and delicious, as if my entire body had just become a vessel for pure pleasure. Or maybe that was Pick's feeling channeling into me, because I'd also never felt this connected to another human being before. He was me, and I was him, and we were just this beautiful twisted mass of all our hopes and dreams coming together and exploding into a dizzying array of euphoria.
"Please tell me I'm not dreaming," he broke away from my mouth to gasp, right before kissing his way down my throat and into the collar of my shirt.
"Stop reading my mind," I said and then bit his earlobe. "This feel like a dream to you?"
He groaned and threw his head back, "Fuck, yes. My favorite kind of dream."
I chuckled and decided to do to his neck what he'd done to mine. I licked my way over the tattoo of a tree root and then grew curious about the ink on his heart. Plus I wanted him shirtless.
"This is in my way."
"Then by all means." Pick was quick to grab the cloth at the back of his shirt and yank it over his head.
My vision went a little bit fuzzy at all that fine, tanned, toned naked flesh before me. I wanted all of it at once. Greedy, my fingers reached and immediately skimmed over the smooth, hard planes of his perfect canvas. And that nipple ring . . . ooh. I was going to have some fun with that. As Pick caught the hem of my shirt and started tugging it up, I finally focused on his one chest tattoo.
And that's pretty much when everything went to hell.
"What the . . . ?"
I pulled back so fast I started to tumble off his lap.
"Tink?" Pick caught me, but I batted his hand away as I scurried to the other end of the couch, unable to stop gaping in horror at the words inscribed on his chest.
"What's wrong, baby?"
He started to crawl toward me, his concern thick and wild. But I held up a hand to ward him off.
"You . . . your chest . . . names."
His eyes flared. "Oh, shit. I forgot." Slapping his hand over the mark, he closed his eyes and shook his head, cursing under his breath as he bowed his face.
"You forgot what?" I screeched. "That the name you call me is tattooed to your chest? That my daughter's name is . . . Oh my God. What the fuck is going on?"
His lashes parted. His eyes begged me to calm down even as he lifted his hands in a placating gesture. "Promise me you won't freak out."
Oh, that ship had sailed, buddy. "But you . . . you . . . Oh. My. God. That's not fresh ink, Pick. That's . . . This tattoo is old. It's like years old."
His brown eyes filled with worry as his gaze darted around my face. "Yeah."
"How the hell can you have my daughter's name tattooed to your heart for years when she's only a few months old? And Julian . . . and oh my God. Tinker Bell? There's another Tinker Bell in your life? All three names listed together like that is a mighty big coincidence. That cannot be a coincidence. The only name not freaking me out right now is Chloe, but I still hate her because she was obviously important to you."
"No, don't . . . I will tell you everything. I swear, Eva. But it's a . . . " He shook his head and blew out a breath. "It's a pretty crazy story, so please try to listen until the end. Okay?"
I folded my arms over my chest, and I'm sure he could tell just how upset I was. I'd pinched my mouth with displeasure and put up all kinds of walls to block him because I knew, I just knew, whatever he had to say was going to hurt. He had that panicked, apologetic look on his face as if he knew he'd fucked up big time. No bastard looked that way unless they knew they were about to majorly upset a woman's life.
When he just kept watching me, looking frightened, I rolled my eyes. "Okay." I waved my hand for him to start talking already.
"All right." He blew out a long breath and closed his eyes before saying, "Ten years ago, on November twentieth, Tristy tried to kill herself."
I shivered at the mention of my birthday, remembering how he had the date set as his cell phone's passcode, which only confused me more. Why the hell would a suicide attempt be such a noteworthy date? But I was a good girl and let him keep talking about how he visited the witch who'd upset Tristy, hoping to get revenge, and how he got stuck in some ankle trap she'd set up in her yard. He even hiked up his pant leg to show me the scars around the base of his foot. Then he started talking about glimpses, wedding dances, and immaculate backyards. I just stared at him, unable to-yeah, I was too dazed to say much of anything.
But in no way could I envision him as the freaky, weird kind of guy into witchcraft.
When he was done talking, he blew out another breath and said, "Well?"
I shook my head, stunned. "So, you had this glimpse thing when you were fourteen where saw me? You saw us get married and have three children together named Julian, Skylar, and Chloe?"
He nodded slowly. "Yeah. Well, basically. I mean, I thought they were my biological kids. They called me dad, and I . . . I felt like their father. I don't know how to describe it, exactly. It was just so real, like I was really living it, feeling it, tasting it. You smelled like lilacs, even then."
I lifted my hands to stop him because this was getting overwhelming. "Okay, just . . . slow down."
I think he was afraid to slow down, though, afraid I'd call him insane and leave his crazy ass. He kept talking. "Everything, I mean everything, has matched up so far. I was so pissed at Tristy for naming her kid Julian. But he's turning into my son, isn't he? And Skylar? How the hell could I predict you would name her that? Or that you'd be wearing Tinker Bell on your shirt the first night I met you? And that damn pink pig."
He motioned toward the stuffed animal I had sitting in the swing because we rarely used the swing anymore. "She was holding it in my vision, and then I saw it sitting in the hospital gift shop window the night she was born. That's not just a coincidence."
I covered my mouth with my hands as tears filled my eyes. "And you knew she'd have dark hair and a cowlick."
He nodded. "And in my vision, we dance to 'Baby Love' at our wedding reception, which just so happened to be the first song you played on the jukebox that night."
I couldn't listen to anymore. I popped to my feet and lit out of the living room as quick as I could.
Chapter 22
PICK
I was almost too scared to go check, but I walked down the hall toward our bedroom, anyway. I just knew she'd be in there, packing all her things, scooping up Skylar and preparing to leave me.
When I reached the doorway, though, all she was doing was standing at the crib and looking down at the babies sleeping together. Sensing me, she said, without turning around, "You just had to wait until I fell in love with him before you told me, didn't you?"