Page 135 of Savage
I nod and scramble closer, throwing my arms around him. Tank flinches, his whole body going rigid as a board, and he bares his teeth in a grimace.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” I say, scurrying away from his injured side.
“Come ’ere,” he says, tilting his head in a gesture that implies that I should cuddle up to him. I smile pitifully and climb over his lap, carefully settling in on his opposite side. His arm slides around me, his cast gently resting on the curve of my naked hip. “Love you, babe.”
A contented laugh escapes me. “I know.”
I glance at my hand, wondering what it would look like with a wedding band on it. Alien would be my guess, and I’d likely have to start taking better care of my nails, which kind of sucks.
“We’ll get you a ring,” Tank says.
I shake my head. “I don’t care about that.”
“I care,” he says, and the look he gives me is warning enough not to argue. “It’s gonna be a really fuckin’ big ring that every motherfucker on the planet will see. I’m gonna get one so big that fuckin’ thing will be seen from space.”
I shake my head. I don’t want a big fuck-off diamond. I just want him. But if it’ll make him happy, I’ll wear whatever the hell he wants me to, and I’ll love every second of it. I cuddle into his side and wonder what our wedding will look like, what our life together will look like.
“Now, how about that blow job?”
I sit up and give him an incredulous look. “You’re a pig.”
“Yeah, but I’m your pig,” he says, grinning like a damn fool.
“Yes you are,” I say, and I slip down the bed and show him with my hands and lips and tongue just how happy that makes me.
Tank may not be the perfect man. He may be stubborn, demanding, infuriating, and an outright arsehole when he wants to be, but he’s mine. Just like this crazy fucked up life I’ve led is mine.
And I may make more stupid decisions along the way. I may always battle with my addiction. There may be times when I remember all that my father did, and I may be tempted to check out early.Who can say what the future will hold? It’s certainly been no fairy-tale so far.
I’m not a princess in a castle. There’s no extravagance in my past, nor is there likely to be any in my future. But there is love, and endurance, and the knowledge that I didn’t give up. I fought to be here.
I’m not a hero, I’ve never saved a life, but I saved my own, and that’s enough.
We’re enough.
