Page 92 of Bittersweet Revenge
“Angle it down a little so I can see.”
“Shut up. I’m almost done.”
Now, it’s his turn to smile, and as cheesy as it sounds, he nearly steals my breath.
My hand has a mind of its own now, moving without direction from me, like somehow, it has its own obsession with him the way I do. Minutes tick by, but Tiernan is good about not moving, until finally I’m finished.
I lift up the sketchbook and hold it against my chest.
“Let me see. Show me what I look like through your eyes.”
That’s exactly what I tried to do, what he apparently needed me to do.
I hand him the sketchbook. Tiernan looks at it, studying it. With each passing second, I find it harder to breathe. He’s seen my artwork before. I showed it to him when I don’t do that with anyone, but I still feel more raw, more laid bare than I ever have.
Finally, he says, “My dick is bigger than that.”
A chuckle jumps from my mouth.
Tiernan sobers, tracing the lines of the artwork the way he did the first time I showed it to him. “It’s beautiful, Dean.”
“It’s only beautiful because you are.”
Tiernan’s breath hitches. I’m probably the hundredth person to tell him that in his life, but I doubt any of them elicited that sound. Just me. Just us.
“Sit against the headboard,” he instructs, and I do. A second later, Tiernan is between my legs, his back against my chest, using me for support. I know what this is. He’s giving himself to me, trusting me even more, using me to hold him up in a way he wouldn’t with anyone else.
And I don’t deserve it.
I run the fingers of one hand through his hair, the other dancing up and down his torso. Like that moment in the shower, a tear slips out because I know what I have to do…and I know it will make me lose him.
I kiss the top of his head. “The boy who used to color is me.”
Tiernan stiffens against me. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“He was me, Tiernan. We knew each other when we were young.”
He jerks away from me, the temperature in the room shooting up with him. “What the fuck does that mean, Dean? You better tell me right now.”
He has murder in his eyes, his breathing fast and hard, but I don’t move. Don’t try to put any distance between us to keep myself safe. If he doesn’t want me to walk out of this room alive tonight, I won’t put up a fight. I’ve always known it would be Tiernan who kills me. Maybe it’s just going to happen sooner than I thought.
“My father’s name was Liam Sullivan. He met your father when they were in high school. He became…enamored with him. Saw the power he already wielded, knew who his family was, and he wanted it too.”
Tiernan shoves off the bed, tugs on a pair of underwear, then lifts the bottle of whiskey from the bar and pours a glass.
“They became friends. He was in your father’s crew for years. He met my mom, and they fell in love. Neither had any family, and yours became that. They were alone, wanted something to hold on to in the world…” Just like me, isn’t it? They went looking for acceptance and connection in Tiernan’s family and found it, and while that wasn’t my plan, I’ve done the same. And just like my father, I’ll die because of it. What a sad stroke of irony. The difference is, for me it will be worth it because I had Tiernan.
“Our moms were really close. Even after everything went down, she said Fia was her best friend. She missed her. She loved her.”
Tiernan swallows everything in his glass, then runs a hand through his hair, pacing the room. “Keep talking.”
“After I was born, my mom started having second thoughts about their lifestyle. She worried about my father being killed or something happening to me. She was stressed and overwhelmed by it all every day. It consumed her. My father…he just loved her. Loved me. He wanted us to be happy. To be a family. When he saw what it was doing to my mom, he knew he had to get us out.”
Tiernan doesn’t speak, doesn’t stop moving, the anger rolling off him like steam.
“They weren’t going to steal anything. They would never have ratted. They just…needed a different life, or my mom was going to lose her mind. They planned to leave.”
“You don’t just fucking leave.”
