Love Thief: The Greystone Family: Stolen Hearts

Chapter 4

Chapter

Four

He rains kisses down onto me as we lay together looking up at the night sky.

After lying silently side by side for what feels like forever but could be mere moments, he nudges me. “We used to do this as kids.”

“I know. We watched the sky go from black to blue velvet many times, watched meteor showers, we must have been crazy,” I laugh.

“Out all night in the cold, the colder the better for me. I loved it when you wanted to get warm and would climb inside my coat. I could smell you for days. I prayed for frost, even in the summer.” He looks down at me and smiles. “I want to carry on with this, us. You make me happy when we’re like this.”

I grin cheekily up at him. “What? Hitting each other with riding crops?”

“Well not just that, no, us together. I want it to be like this. A couple. Let me try, Kitten. I want it with you.” He turns to me, touching my face and tracing his fingers over it. “I used to dream of you like this, in the dark on cold winter nights, for years. In my dreams, you were next to me, as we were in Bowman”s lodge, in furry covers, me buried inside you. Asleep with you, waking with you. I’d dream it, and wake with a hard-on as big as a totem pole, wanting to come, and being disappointed every time you weren’t there. Well, now you are. Be with me, please, be with me.” His eyes are fixed on mine, pleading with me to say yes. “I’ve always loved you, Kitten. I never stopped. Please, let’s try.”

Am I really going to do this with him? My bees are swarming. I think about him, then and now, and this past year. Can I actually do this, for real? I look deeper into his beautiful green eyes, and his feelings for me are crystal clear. I nod, slowly, a ghost of a smile forming on my face. “I will. I will give it a try.”

Taking it all in, I change tact, trying a bit to lighten the tension, and my growing hysteria. “Only if you don’t press charges about the Ferrari. I’m sure there’s a law stopping you, anyway, as I am your wife. What’s yours is mine, right? But my Lambo is still way better than that Ferrari.”

“Well, mine’s flat, so, yeah, it is.”

“Act of God? For the insurance.”

“What? The God of War? Who the fuck drives over a Ferrari? A lunatic in flying goggles.” He taps at them, smirking. “I like them, by the way. Keep them on whilst we’re here.”

Not sure how they are still attached to me, but they are tangled up in my hair, I pull the goggles down over my eyes. “Better buckle up, buttercup, because I’m going in for the attack.”

I drop down his body, trailing my tongue over every dirty, bloody inch. Finally settling my hands on his balls and my mouth on the head of his cock, humming on his piercing, as he groans and tugs on my hair.

“Fuck, you are one crazy woman, and I love it. I fucking love you, Evie Russell.”

The words pour out of his mouth, effortlessly. I’m not sure he realises the magnitude of the name he’s just called me, coupled with the humongous sentimental attachment. But when he grins, and it gets wider and wider, I realise he does.

My heart stutters, I feel an internal pressure building in my gut. It feels alive, like it’s crying to escape. Should I say it back? Do I trust him enough with my heart? Do I love him?

Yes I do, always did. But to hand over my heart again…

I never got it back whole last time, and we’re playing for much bigger stakes now. A lifetime of love. A life living together. A family.

I feel as if I’ve been dashed against the rocks I was imagining him on. He always was dynamite, always wanted everything you had to give. Fed from it, feasted on it.

I’m fucking scared, to be honest. Of the situation I find myself in, but also to confess how I really feel about him. I’m not sure if it will make things better or worse. And I don’t know what to do about it. So I do nothing.

We stay in the field for hours. We watch the dawn, the sky lightening from black to navy through to pink. I’ll take the tractor home to the farm before dawn, he’ll take the truck back to Farm Cottage. He says they’ll expect him back, as he went to ‘murder the piece of shit who killed his car.’

He kisses me with a reverence I’ve not felt from him before. And as I get in the tractor, he whispers, “See you at home. Wife.”

Idrop off the tractor at Greystone Farm and hop on the motorbike Marshall gave me so I could take short cuts over the fields between the farms. The push bike I had didn’t manoeuvre over the wet terrain well, so he bought me what was really a trials bike. We spent some happy hours riding over fields and tracks getting used to it. I’d been nineteen at the time, which is when he gave me the goggles, too. And told me James, who had just learned to walk, would have a bike as soon as he could stand.

True to his word, James and then Bucky had been riding motorbikes around the farms, as well as horses, bikes, driving tractors, cars and any other type of transport Marshall felt they were old enough for, even if the law said otherwise.

I clean myself up and lay in bed, wide awake. I’ve come to a crossroads, and concluded I need to do something. Action has to be taken.

Scared or not, a decision needs to be made. Kell has dragged me back into his world—to him. I can’t keep moving forward only to take two steps back. I won’t do it. I’m in. I’m out. I shake it all about. It’s the Hokey Pokey of insane relationships. And it’s getting annoying. Hell, I’m annoying myself.

It’s also not really me. I make a decision and that’s it. Once made, end of one story, the start of a new chapter. Forward, only ever forward. It’s my mantra, always has been.

He’s asked me to be with him, and it’s time to put up or shut up. Though again, if I‘m honest with myself, I don’t really trust him. He says lots of things whilst having wild sex, half of which I don’t think he knows come out of his mouth.

He finally apologised for France, and to be honest, I was over it. I’ve dissected that conversation from the white tents in my mind over and over again. Added it to when Xander yelled at the house, denying he’d tried to have sex with me. And all the messages and pictures Xan sent afterwards along with paragraph after paragraph telling me how he felt.

Now Kellen’s claiming he didn’t want me to sleep with his band mates or anyone else. According to Xan, Kellen had wanted to have sex in public, but only with me. Well, that definitely wasn’t happening, But I didn’t intend to live with regrets either, and I feel that I would regret it if I turned him down. If I passed on the opportunity to be a ‘real couple’ married in the truest sense of the word.

Promises have been made that he won’t do it again, but I have my doubts. He’s an extrovert, exhibitionist, and loses the plot at times, but I still feel safe with him. At least physically.

After his declaration of love, and amending my surname, how he looked at me, kissed me, it was different. Tender, loving, his whole self in that kiss and those words. I’m not sure I’ll get out of this emotionally unharmed though. But regardless of my trepidation, I feel a gravitational pull towards the man. He’s worse than The Death Star.

I look up at the ceiling and smile at my Star Wars reference. And I can practically see Kellen roll his eyes at me. Even when he’s not physically next to me, he’s here.

If I want him, I need to make a statement and stamp out whatever was going on over at Farm Cottage. It’s time to stake my claim. Just as I had to on the boy I left behind so many years ago, I have to do the same on the man Kell is now.

He said he wouldn’t have sex with anyone else for three months and it’s been less than a week since the marriage. I don’t get the vibe that he’s broken his promise. To be honest, I don’t see when he would have had the time.

The boys kept him on the hop in London, sending pictures of him out of his depth whilst they wound him up. Making out they couldn’t cook, wash, shower, do their own laundry, or make any decisions without input, he’d lasted three days. I could practically hear them laughing when he finally kicked them out at Greystone House with their uncles and hightailed it back.

Decision made, I watch the sunrise moving steadily upwards over Fair Fryers Hill to the east. It’s another beautiful day.

Going into the kitchen, I find Marshall up already and Nikki starting to sort out breakfast. Marshall raises his eyebrows at my appearance.

“Back on with Russell then? I assume it was you who flattened his Ferrari, and smashed up your house?” He points a fork at me, and I sit, awaiting his verdict on my actions. “The lads have been having a field day in the pub with that tale. One even told me you ran over two cars, a Lambo and a Ferrari.” He’s holding his fingers up, counting up my misdemeanours. “By the end of the week, when I go to the horse sales, you’ll have flattened six cars and baseball batted another ten, along with the fifty women he’s got in his harem.” He’s got both hands now out in front of him, fingers splayed wide.

Then he grins, his homely grey-blue eyes lighting up my world, and I know I’m off the hook, as usual. “Does he look as good as you?” he chuckles.

“Worse actually, Marsh. I had the crop first.” I grin at him and he starts to laugh.

“It was the best thing I’ve ever seen,” Nikki says. “She was magnificent, Marshall. I knew she was going to do it when she put her goggles down, and that idiot woman called her names.”

“Who called you names, midarlin’?” Marshall is indignant.

I shrug. “One of the harem. You know what it’s like. If you don’t look like them or sound like them they insult you to make themselves feel better. Not sure it worked out well for her though. Think she got hit with a flying potato.”

We all start to laugh so hard tears are rolling down my face, with Nikki mimicking my baseball swing.

“Whose paying for the damage and cleaning crew?” Marshall finally gets out. Of course the money would still be on his mind. “I’ve sent them in. Are you picking up the bill?” He looks over his glasses at me and I shake my head.

“Send it to Kell, he can pay. He’s renting and didn’t spring for catered, the cheapskate. I checked. And keeping that in mind, I’m going to go over, Nikki. Can you do extra breakfast rolls and come with me? I feel a bit bad. I walloped him a bit hard at times.”

“I’m sure Kellen Russell can stand it.” Marshall smiles again and my heart blooms with love. He has embraced our situation and is running with it, putting me and the boys front and centre as he always does. Acceptance and love first and foremost.

“He’ll have to stand a lot worse I think,” adds Nikki and they laugh at each other.

I roll my eyes at their antics. But I know they’re right, because he definitely will.