Unfinished Hero 02 Creed(89)

“It’s mine to have?” he whispered.

Oh my God!

Why wasn’t he listening to me?

I planted my hands on my hips again and felt my brows draw together. “Yes, it always was and always will be… until you take it, of course. Which, by the way, if it was up,” I leaned in, “to me,” I pointed behind me to the bed, “you could take it right now.” I leaned back and threw my arms out to the sides. “But nooooo, you say we wait until it’s legal. So that’s on you,” I pointed at him, “not me.”

“Baby, don’t tempt me like that.” Creed was still whispering, his eyes intense, burning through me. It didn’t feel like acid this time but a whole lot different.

But I was sick of waiting. I was sick of necking and feeling his hands over my clothes and not on me. Feeling his heat and his hard muscle through his clothes and him not allowing me to dip in, get skin and not feeling Creed. Feeling all he made me feel, sitting at his kitchenette eating his spaghetti or on his couch watching TV and just doing that, knowing I had most of what I wanted, what I needed, what I’d longed for what seemed like all my life but wanting everything.

I was sick of it. Sick to death of waiting.

“Warning, Creed, from here until my eighteenth birthday there’s going to be a lot of tempting,” I shot back. His body moved like he was going to take a step toward me but he halted, his big frame rocking and I watched his hands ball into fists.

“It burns,” he said low and the way he did, I held my breath. “Every time. Every time I walk you to your car and watch you drive away from me, it burns.”

I let out my breath in a whoosh and whispered, “Creed.”

“It burns, knowing you’re goin’ back to a Daddy who doesn’t give a shit. Goin’ back to your stepmom who’s a worse drunk than the woman sleepin’ across this house, she’s just better at hiding it. Goin’ back to listenin’ to him take his hands to her, still, fuckin’ still.”

He leaned forward on the last word then sucked in breath before he leaned back and went on.

“It burns that you gotta listen to them talk the way they do, cuttin’ each other to the quick, layin’ into each other until they bleed, daily. It burns I can’t protect you from that. I can’t protect you when I see you in town in a dress he wants you to wear, a dress that’s not my Sylvie. It burns so deep, the need to take you away, put you in my truck, deliver you from that shit and I can’t. All I got… all I got, Sylvie, is livin’ for the nights you’ll come to me. The nights I can make sure you got a decent meal in your belly because that bitch sure isn’t gonna fuckin’ feed you and your Daddy doesn’t care. The nights I can show you someone, one single person on this whole goddamned earth loves you, lives for you. Your Momma married that man, gave up on you, moved to California and now you get a fifty dollar check every birthday and Christmas and maybe a phone call, if you’re lucky. You got no one, like me. That’s the way it is, that’s the way it’s always been. So I live for the nights when I have you because I’m all you got, and baby, you’re all I got too. That’s the way it is, that’s the way it’s always been and that’s the way it always will be.”

“You protect me,” I told him softly.

“Not enough,” he retorted harshly.

“Creed –”

“So, baby, don’t,” he talked over me. “Don’t do anything to fuck this up. We got seven months. Seven months to wait it out then we’ll be free. Free of your Daddy. Free of my Ma. Free of this hellhole. Free to just be.”

“Okay,” I whispered instantly.

We stood, me in Creed’s room, Creed in the doorway, staring at each other.

“You protect me,” I repeated, still whispering.

“Not enough,” he repeated too, not whispering.

“If I didn’t have you –”

“You got me,” he clipped.

I took a step toward him, stopped and said, “I know. But if I didn’t have you, I don’t know where I’d be.”

“Right back at ‘cha, beautiful.”

I licked my lips then pressed them together before I unpressed them and said quietly, “You asked me not to date Jason again, I didn’t. And he didn’t get anything from me. I swear.”

I watched Creed’s chest expand with his breath then he crossed his arms on it and nodded.

“Can we stop fighting now? I don’t like it,” I whispered.

I saw his face get soft before Creed ordered gently, “Come here, Sylvie.”