Beard Up(43)

His eyes brightened.

"Is that why you wear those fucking leggings all the fucking time?" he growled.

I shrugged.

"Maybe."

He just shook his head.

"Those are not pants, Mina," He said. "Those are leggings. There is a difference."

I grinned.

"I noticed that they were leggings, but I don't see why they can't be pants, too," I teased him, then hissing in a breath when he swept his thumbs over my nipples.

He raised one low eyebrow at me as if to say, ‘what was that you were saying?'

I started to laugh, then.

That'd been a tactic he'd used a long time ago.

When I wanted to do something, and he didn't want me to do it, he'd distract me with sex.

"So you don't like the leggings?" I asked. "I have over forty pairs of them now."

His eyes darkened and I reached for his shirt.

He lifted his arms and hunched over, doing it automatically.

See, I was five foot nothing. I literally would have to climb him to get to his head. He'd learned how to compensate for my shortness, and did it now, even after six years, as if it was second nature.

My heart felt full. So freakin' full it almost hurt.

Almost.

"I didn't say I didn't like the leggings," he grumbled, his hand going to the waistband of my scrub bottoms. "I just think they're too revealing."

"I don't own a single pair of jeans anymore," I blurted. "Or, at least, none that are with me. I left them all in storage after you … died."

I wouldn't own another pair until I had a reason to have them.

His eyes softened. "You're gonna have to go get them out." He lifted his hand to my neck and pulled my closer, forgetting that he had a job to do involving my pants. "Because you're going to be on the back of my bike again, and you're not going to be wearing leggings when you do it."

And there was the reason.

Being on the back of his bike again sent a thrill through me that I couldn't hope to contain. I couldn't freakin' wait to get back there. Where I belonged.

"I know, baby," he growled. "I want you there, too."

I pushed my own pants down, then slipped off my shoes and socks before kicking the entire pile into the corner of the small bathroom.

"This works for a single person, but this wouldn't work for us for long," I told him as I walked to the shower and turned it on. "We take up too much space."

He laughed and pushed me into the shower before the water had warmed all the way, causing me to screech as the coolness hit my skin.

"Eeep!" I screeched. "Tunnel, you shit."

I turned my most fearsome glare on him, and he did nothing but laugh.

"Your hair tie is still in," he said without apology.

I continued to glare.

"Yeah," I said. "That was going to come out before I got into the shower."

He shrugged, then reached for my hair.

I bent my head forward, and came face to face with his scars once again, and sadness poured through me.


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"I wish I could've been there for you," I whispered as I raised my hand and ran it down the length of his chest. "I hate that you had to suffer alone."

"I don't wish you were there," he replied. "I wish that you were never subjected to my life. If it wasn't for my selfishness of taking you all those years ago, you would've been a whole lot safer. And you and our daughter wouldn't be in the middle of my shit tornado."

I bent forward and placed my lips on one scar in particular. "This one looks terrible. What happened here?"

I could tell he didn't want to tell me by the way his body locked, but I looked at him with a ‘you better tell me or else' look, and his mouth twitched.

"You sure?"

My stomach knotted.

"Yes," I murmured almost soundlessly.

He pushed me under the water, and I closed my eyes as he started to wet my hair down.

"It's not a happy story," he hesitated.

I opened my eyes and immediately got an eyeful of water.

"Keep ‘em closed, darlin'," he ordered, then reached for the shampoo.

That was another thing. My shampoo had already been here when I'd arrived. And the same exact brand of soap that I used.

"Should've realized the moment I arrived and there was sensitive skin soap everywhere that there was more to this than I realized," I murmured almost to myself.

His soft chuckle echoed off the tile walls, then he cleared his throat.

"I tried to escape when I was about four weeks post op for my lung transplant," he said.