“You don’t need to know,” he repeated in a way I knew he wasn’t going to tel me and I knew, no matter what I tried, he wouldn’t tel me.
Then his hands started roaming and his head moved so his mouth was at my neck. I knew he was looking for a way to turn my mind to different, far more pleasant things but I pul ed my neck away and wrapped my fingers around one of his wrists to stop his hands from roaming.
“Eddie.”
“Shit, I know that ‘Eddie’,” he muttered into my neck with more than a little frustration. Eddie, by the way, had quickly become an expert in al the ways I could communicate by just saying his name, therefore, this time, he knew it was my turn to be serious. His head came up and he looked into my eyes.
“Is he okay?” I asked.
“No,” Eddie answered bluntly. “But he wil be, soon as this shit’s over and Stel a gives in.”
“Pardon?”
Eddie sighed then touched my mouth with his and dropped his forehead to mine, his thumb stroking my jaw.
When he spoke, he did it softly. “Lotta wounds don’t heal, Jet. Seein’ your sister’s head get blown off, I suspect, is one of ‘em. Havin’ a Dad, and not havin’ one, I’m thinkin’
you understand, is another. You got a good woman in your life, even though the wounds stay open, you move on, live life. The pain doesn’t go away but life has a different focus.
A better one.”
He was right. I had a Dad but didn’t have one most of my life. That wound had never healed. My Dad was an inveterate gambler. He was around a lot more now, getting his life sorted but he could fal off the wagon at any time. My sister and I lived with that knowledge and the fear that went with it and it was no fun.
Finding Eddie and believing in us had given my life a different focus.
A better one.
However, with the recent, newly acquired knowledge that my fiancé, Detective Eddie Badass Chavez, snowboarded and his innate understanding of Mace’s wounds, worried me.
My hands slid up the sleek, muscled skin of his back, one stopping at his shoulder blade, the other one sliding up his neck, my fingers sifting into his hair.
“Do you have a wound that won’t heal?” I asked quietly and braced myself for his answer.
He lifted his forehead from mine and his eyes dropped to my mouth.
“Lived a lucky life, mi pequeña, ” he muttered, his eyes coming back to mine and they were again liquid but this time also fil ed with tenderness and affection and I felt my heart skip a beat. “And, alabado sea Dios, it keeps gettin’
luckier.”
Then he was done talking and he kissed me, deep and wet and I was done talking too.
His mouth slid down my neck to my chest where he murmured, “You’re about to get lucky too.” Then his mouth slid down further then further then he spread my legs and his mouth was right there and, he was very right, I got lucky too.
After Eddie made me lucky with his talented mouth, he came up over me, slid inside me, pounded deep and he got even luckier (and so did I).
When we were done, he turned out the light, rol ed me so my back was to his front and he wrapped both arms around me. One went tight around my midriff; the other one went low, to cup me between my legs.
This was a new thing of Eddie’s; holding me this way after we’d made love. It started a few weeks ago after I agreed to marry him. It was intimate, possessive and somehow claiming even though I was already his.
I had to admit, I liked it.
“Chiquita?” Eddie cal ed when I was just about ready to fal asleep.
“Hmm?”
“It’s likely Stel a doesn’t know any of this shit.” My eyes opened.
Eddie went on, his voice holding a gentle warning, “It’s Mace’s to tel her.”