Page 824 of The Tempted

Chapter Fifty

Three days feigning off the sadistic voice inside my head that tells me the long languid kiss Blackie gave me before he slipped out of our bed, was the very last one he’d ever give me, has left my heart in a million tiny shattered pieces. I did everything I was supposed to do. I woke up and routinely took my dose of lithium, replayed his promise over and over in my mind but nothing worked.

I’m coming back for you, girl.

In a last ditch effort to pull my sanity from the ruins Blackie’s departure left me in I went to my father’s house. My father knew I was being worked over by my treacherous mind the moment he opened the door. Either he spotted the familiar signs reflected in my eyes that he sees every time he glances in the mirror or I am more transparent than I thought. Whichever the case maybe he was trying his hardest to pull me from the depression dragging me down.

He didn’t need my stress added to the mountain sitting on his shoulders but he took it, anyway. He acted as if it wasn’t severing his soul that he wasn’t with his club or that they were on the road facing peril without him. And after he cooked me and Reina dinner he and I went upstairs and painted the nursery.

“He will come back, right?” I ask, rolling the green paint on the wall. I couldn’t avoid the question anymore. I know I’m not supposed to ask, that a better, wiser old lady would just sit idly and wait for her man to come home, but I couldn’t help myself.

He doesn’t answer me straight away and for a moment I wonder if he heard me, forgetting his ears were still on the mend. But my father heard my words, maybe not as loudly as I spoke them but he heard my question. He thought before he actually answered, not something Jack Parrish usually did. The man doesn’t have a filter.

He places the roller into the tray and turns to me taking a deep breath as I continue rolling the paint on the wall.

“Careful how you answer, Bulldog, wouldn’t want to make a liar out of you.”

The roller falls from my hand as that deep voice vibrates through me, awakening all the dormant parts of my body and finally ending the torment.

My dad’s face comes into view first, the cocky smile, wide and proud on his face. My eyes follow the direction of his and I see Blackie casually leaning against the frame of the door. His smile matches my fathers, arrogant and victorious. But everything else about him screams exhaustion, everything except his eyes. Those bad boys are feral, primal, outright hungry.

“Whatcha waiting for, girl?”

Pushing off the frame, he crooks his finger and beckons me.

“Jack, with all due respect, you might want to get your ass out of this room. Pipe’s downstairs waiting for you anyway,” he says, his long legs swallowing up the space between us.

“Wish I lost my fucking vision not my hearing,” my father grunts as he pats Blackie on the back and disappears out the door.

“Get over here,” Blackie whispers.

He doesn’t have to say it twice. Like so many times before, I jump straight into his waiting arms and throw mine around his neck. The familiar smell of gasoline assaults my senses and I bury my nose in his neck, breathing in his scent. My fingers slide over the leather covering his shoulders as his slide into the back pockets of my jeans and squeezes my ass.

Blackie’s back.

I lift my head from the crook of his neck and stare into his eyes.

“You kept your promise,” I whisper.

“I did,” he agrees, leaning his forehead against mine. “Now it’s time to keep all the others,” he says huskily as his gaze lowers to my mouth. “How quickly can you finish your degree?”

I open my mouth to question what he means, but he doesn’t give me a chance.

“Take another class, do whatever it takes, girl,” he murmurs against my mouth, softly sucking on my lower lip. “As soon as you get that degree I’m putting a ring on that finger and then you’re gonna get that tattoo you want so bad,” he rasps before covering my mouth with his.

I thread my fingers through his hair, pull on the ends and wait for him to say the words I’ve been waiting to hear.

“I’m back, girl.”

Yeah, Blackie’s back.

And he’ll keep coming back time and time again.

And these arms of mine will always be waiting.

Pipe’s standing in the kitchen, his hands braced against my counter, his eyes trained on the knife laying on top of it.

“Brother,” I say, jolting his gaze from the pocket knife. Beady, drained eyes stare back at me and the cockiness I felt upstairs when I saw Blackie alive and well disappears.

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