Page 85 of Damaged

“I’m such a fucking coward, Silver. I’m a coward and I’m selfish and I don’t know how to do any of this.” He waved his hand in the general direction of the house. “I’m afraid,” he admitted as he dropped his eyes. “I’m so fucking afraid.”

The admission was tearing him apart. Fortunately, I knew exactly what he was afraid of. It had nothing to do with his back or his addiction or being in a real relationship for the first time in his life. No, it was so much more than that.

“I’m not going anywhere. I know people have probably been promising you that most of your life, but I’m not people. I’m the man who loves you. I’m the man who loves your flaws as much as your strengths. I’m the man who will save you from the ugliness of this world.” I grabbed his face and slanted my mouth over his. I kept the kiss short because I needed Dalton to hear one more thing.

Truly hear it.

“I’m the man who will never leave you. Even if you try to scare me off, I will never leave you. Yell, scream, purge it all. I will be there. Be scared or angry or tired; I will be there. Love me or hate me; I will be there. Do you hear me, Dalton?”

He nodded slowly, keeping his eyes on mine. They weren’t empty anymore. There was no mask. There was only the real Dalton. The one who loved me even when I couldn’t love myself.

“I hear you,” he whispered and then he rolled us to our sides so we were facing each other like we always did before we fell asleep.

“I hear you, my love.”

Chapter 29

DALTON

Like I’d told Silver when he’d called me out on my behavior several nights earlier, I didn’t know how to do the whole family thing. I was used to staying out of the way, remaining silent unless directly spoken to, and accepting the fact that I’d never be treated as a real part of any family I was with whether they were kind or not.

Silver’s family was so different than anything I’d ever experienced. Silver and I had finally moved into a guest bedroom in the giant farmhouse so it would be easier for him to interact with his family in slightly larger groups. It was still just his parents, sister, and three older brothers who’d stuck around because their little brother had finally come home. The entire family got together for each meal, even lunch. The first morning when I’d woken up, Silver had been out of bed already. My immediate thought had been that he’d left me, but that had only lasted a few seconds. I’d gotten dressed but when I’d opened the bedroom door, I’d heard multiple voices coming from the kitchen. The smell of food had confirmed they were having breakfast. I’d closed the door and stayed in the room so I could study the strange string of numbers Silver had written down for me.

That had lasted for about five minutes. Then there’d been a knock on the door. I’d assumed it was Silver, but I hadn’t been sure why he’d felt the need to knock. I’d gotten my answer when the owner of the knock had turned out to be Silver’s mom. She’d heartily insisted that I join the family for breakfast. It had been on my tongue to say I was busy with something but then I’d thought about Silver. When he’d called me out on my cruel behavior the other night, his response had finally hit home for me.

We were going to be together forever. Whether that was with his family, near them or back in my house, it didn’t matter. It was like he’d said. We were each other’s home and that would never change.

So I’d nervously agreed and by the time I’d reached the table, I’d been a wreck. The table had been filled with a shit ton of all different kinds of food. I couldn’t remember a time that I’d had access to so much food at once nor so much company.

Silver had stood as I’d reached the table. He’d kissed me softly as I’d reached the spot on the bench that he’d saved for me. Neither Silver nor I had openly participated in the boisterous conversation but had responded when asked direct questions. The topic of Silver’s abduction hadn’t come up at all, but it had been strange to hear everyone call him Andrew.

It turned out that Silver’s mother wasn’t the kind of person who let her guests hide away in their room. On more than one occasion, she’d coaxed me into the kitchen to help prepare a meal or to sit and go through the dozens of scrapbooks she had that showcased her children. The only comments she ever made about the fact that I was in a relationship with her son were positive ones. Day by day, she’d started to make me understand what a real family was. It had been proof that Silver had been right. Family wasn’t about a place or about sharing blood. It was about people, and based on his mother’s scrapbooks, the Lockwood family had plenty of those.

My attempt to maintain some distance from Silver’s family was pretty much impossible. The day after Silver’s breakdown on my boat, I’d referred to his parents by their surname. That had lasted all of five seconds before they’d insisted that I call them by their first names, Preston and Eloise.

Thankfully, I’d still been able to spend most of my time with Silver. It turned out that the wealthy Lockwoods were considered old money, meaning much of their wealth had been handed down by their British ancestors on Preston’s side of the family. Despite only having spent a few days with them, I’d gotten the impression that they didn’t flaunt their wealth. They had nice cars but not the kind that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even their boats, while definitely expensive, hadn’t been over the top.

Silver, for his part, was still struggling to find his own place within his family. Since he’d been so young when he’d been abducted, he couldn’t remember a lot of the things his family would talk about, but bits and pieces would come to him the more time he spent not only with his siblings and parents but exploring the house, barn, and surrounding property. We’d often walk down the long driveway so we could have some privacy while enjoying the different kinds of trees and flowers that lined it. We spent a considerable amount of time at the koi pond, too. Aggie had shown Silver how to hand feed the fish, which he’d loved. Not surprisingly, he was closest to his twin sister who also happened to be the only daughter in the family. She, like Silver, was also the youngest, which meant her big brothers were as protective of her as they were proving to be of Silver.

Since we’d been spending our nights in the house, Silver hadn’t wanted to make love with his parents’ room just a few dozen feet away. He hadn’t forgotten my comment about him being a screamer when we made love.

Which meant we were mostly limited to my boat when it came to any sexual activity, though as of this morning I’d taught Silver how good fucking against a tree felt. We’d been near the koi pond but still out of sight. Our rendezvous had nearly been discovered when Aggie had come to feed the fish but by then my dick had already been buried deep inside Silver’s ass. I’d slapped my hand over Silver’s mouth to cover his moans as I’d continued to fuck him slow and deep. By the time Aggie had left, we’d both been too far gone, and I’d driven my cock into him hard, fast, and deep, gliding over his prostate with each stroke. I’d come seconds after he had and by the time I’d pulled free of him and lowered him to his feet, he’d been furious with me for continuing to fuck him while his sister had been nearby. He’d quickly forgiven me when I’d dropped to my knees and sucked his wet dick into my mouth.

I was still caught up in that particular memory when Nick walked into the kitchen to get himself something to drink. I doubted Silver’s oldest brother and I would ever be best pals, but he had a few qualities that seemed to run through most of Silver’s siblings as well as Silver himself. For one, the Navy Seal didn’t hesitate to say what he thought. Silver had proven several times that he carried the same trait, despite the fact that he was a good six inches shorter than his eldest brother and Nick probably outweighed him by at least seventy-five pounds. Nick was protective, too. Another quality he shared with his brother.

“What are you working on?” Nick asked as he plopped down on the bench across from me. The Lockwood’s kitchen table was massive but instead of being surrounded by individual chairs, the long sides had rustic benches that looked hand-made with reclaimed wood. I’d admired the design the first time I’d seen it because my dream had been to use that kind of wood on the vintage boats I wanted to restore for a living.

I debated whether or not to tell the man. I’d been studying the long string of numbers that Silver had written down for me for more than a week and still hadn’t been able to find any kind of pattern. I’d been tempted to call Jace to see what he could find out, but he and the rest of his big-ass family had been dealing with the outcome of Aleks’s abduction. The young man was safe, but things had taken so many twists and turns that I didn’t want to take anyone’s attention away from the young man’s recovery.

Like Silver had said, the numbers were probably just the ramblings of a man whose mind had started to fail, but my gut wouldn’t stop gnawing at me about it, just like when we’d been followed by the Mercedes. That and the attempted break-in at my house had never really been something I’d been able to get off my mind.

I looked at Nick for several long seconds and then slid the piece of paper across the table. “I’m trying to find some kind of pattern to these numbers,” I admitted.

“Fuck, there’s gotta be a couple hundred of them,” Nick responded.

“Yeah,” I said tiredly.

“Where’d you get it?” Nick asked as he took a long drink from the can of soda he’d taken from the fridge.

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