them, there was no me.
I knew that sounded crazy, dependent to the max, and a shrink’s wet dream as they tried to figure me out, but I didn’t give a damn about any of that. Ink wasn’t the only one who’d stopped me from hurting myself. I needed Keys and Saint just as much. They all grounded me. Kept me sane. And maybe I shouldn’t need men to do that, maybe that was what Prozac was for, but hell, I’d take my guys over that any day of the week.
“I do,” he murmured, and those words sent tingles waving down my spine. His eyes didn’t darken with anger, his face didn’t even flicker with a frown as he spoke. No, he looked just as calm as ever. “You’re your mother’s daughter,” he teased, then he winced. “I just… I wasn’t sure if you wanted me too. Thought, maybe, I’d be too old.”
I didn’t particularly appreciate being compared to my momma, even if Lucie Steeler did kick butt, but heck, I’d take it. If it meant I didn’t have to fully flesh out why I needed all three of them, then I was happy. My momma did things her way. She’d been raised with the five men who were my daddies, had almost been parented by them to a certain extent. I hadn’t had that with Saint, Keys, and Ink. They hadn’t been like my daddies. They’d been my saviors. My guardians. The keepers of my sanity.
So, nope, I was more than okay for Ink to confuse the two.
What I wasn’t okay with?
Him not being sure I wanted him.
“I sneaked into your room so often I’m surprised you didn’t kick me out, Ink,” I whispered rawly, the memory of all those nights flipping through my mind like a picture book. All those miserable nights where I’d needed him to hold me, and he had.
No judgment.
No questioning.
Just acceptance.
Of course, I’d wanted more, but that he’d been willing to give me so much had been an act of mercy in and of itself. And, as he’d said, if anything had happened, he could be looking at a statutory rape charge… That wouldn’t exactly be proof of my gratitude, would it?
“You didn’t come on to me.” He shrugged. “I just thought you wanted comfort.”
I gaped at him. “I could have gone to my dads for that!” When he just crinkled his nose, I reached up and rubbed that crinkle. “I need you, Ink.”
He cleared his throat. “Liam.”
My lips curved at that. “Liam. You want me to call you that?”
“Think it’s only right,” he said, his tone staunch. Well, for Liam.
Shyly, I smiled at him, and sighed when he raised his arms and drew me into them. When I pressed against his chest, I could feel his heart beating, but even better? I felt his cock under my butt, felt its hardness and knew without a shadow of a doubt that that was as much mine as his heart was.
“I love you,” I whispered. “Have since I was a little girl, and over the years, it morphed, changed. At first, I loved you for saving me. But every year, that feeling evolved, deepened, until I couldn’t even think about seeing another day through without you in it.”
“Hey,” he rumbled, his hand moving so that he could tip my chin back. “I ain’t going nowhere.”
How had he heard that from what I’d said?
How had he sensed my biggest fear?
I gulped. “You promise?”
“I fucking swear it, baby girl.” The pad of his thumb settled into the slight peach-butt of my chin. He rubbed there slightly, then murmured, his words almost a parallel to my own, “I love you, too. Have for a long time.”
Twisting my head out of his hold, I buried my face in his throat and whispered, “I’m sorry for being a pussy.”
He snorted, and just like that, the emotional few moments broke as he chuckled at my words. “You have to be a pussy. You got one.”
“Momma ain’t a pussy,” I grumbled, but I was secretly pleased that he was laughing. I’d made things whiny and weird, overly emotional when I should have been trying to entice him into bed. But I’d always been able to make him laugh, and I liked his laughter almost as much as I liked his ass—trust me, the man’s ass was award-worthy.
“Nobody could accuse Lucie Steeler of being a pussy, that’s for sure,” he teased, “but hell, you ain’t your momma, Ama. You’re you. And I love you