28 Viking
Viking
“She belongs with us,” Grip said after Ivy went to shower and get ready for bed.
We’d eaten dinner together, the three of us.
Then tried to watch some TV together, the three of us.
And that had been damn amusing. Ivy suggested reality shows about dating.
Grip wanted to watch something with explosions.
I didn’t really care, but that left me to be the deciding factor.
I hated that. But in the end—and what I meant by that was after an hour of going around and around and trying to find something the two of them agreed on—we finally started watching a show about firefighters.
It had crazy accidents to satisfy Grip, and some budding romance story lines that kept Ivy interested.
I kinda got sucked in, and after we binged on six episodes, I was hooked.
The episodes were actually decently written, and I was into the stories.
I would have kept going, but Ivy started yawning somethin’ fierce.
So we sent her off to get ready for bed.
Grip and I were alone on the couch, and I was trying not to freak out about what came next.
Where did we go from here? How were the sleeping arrangements going to work?
She’d been sleeping in Grip’s bed, I knew that much, but that was when he hadn’t been here.
So would she stay there? Would Grip sleep in there with her?
Would she move somewhere else… like my bed? And would I be in there with her?
Hell, maybe Grip was thinkin’ we’d head back to the clubhouse.
I didn’t get confused or insecure like this a lot, mostly because I tended to keep my life simple so I wouldn’t spiral. But there was no gettin’ away from this or making it simple.
Was there?
Was I being too dramatic and obsessive over this?
Probably. I imagined that if Grip could read my thoughts, he’d be doubled over laughing at me.
“So, here’s the deal,” Grip said, nearly startling me out of my spiral. “I’m gonna head out ’cause I have some shit I need to catch up on.” My brows furrowed. What the hell did he have to catch up on? “You stay and… have some time with Ivy.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I do. I mean, I want to. I had her while you were workin’ all those nights tryin’ to get that fucker whose name will never be unleashed in this house.”
I snorted and shook my head. An eye roll almost slipped out.
He stood, giving me a hard nod as if telling me that I had this. I wasn’t sure why I wouldn’t. Maybe I was a little nervous to be alone with her, but I was eighty percent sure I could handle it, and seventy percent sure nothing would go wrong.
“See you in the morning. I’ll grab breakfast,” he said, heading for the door.
“You could stay here,” I suggested. It felt like I was kicking him out of his own home. If this was going to work, we’d have to find a way for the three of us to live here. No one would be dancing around anyone else.
“I know, and I will next time.” He paused with his hand on the knob. Don’t know why I felt a spike of anxiety stab through me.
“You mean tomorrow?” I suggested with a raised brow. We had to make this a thing. Make this place not something we owned, but a real home. Something neither of us had really had in a long time. Hell, I’d never had it, and Grip… well, before the foster home, things had been rocky for him too.
“Yeah, fine.” He tossed a wave, then was out the door, alarming the system before he left. It felt weird, like Ivy and I were locked in here for the night without backup. Though that was fuckin’ silly.
I felt like we hadn’t truly settled anything, but what could I do?
I listened to the sound of Grip’s bike comin’ alive, then sighed when he went tearing down the long driveway. I sat there until Ivy came out, looking around like Grip had just up and disappeared.
“He’ll be back in the morning,” I said, then cleared my throat. “You can take his bed if you want.”
No clue why I’d said that. One, she’d been sleeping in his bed, so it wasn’t like I was telling her something new. And two, I didn’t want her to sleep in his bed. Not tonight. I wanted her next to me. But of course, my big, awkward ass didn’t know how to say shit like that.
Just say it. Just tell her, my brain cheered me on, but I still couldn’t open my mouth and get the words out.
“Oh, okay.” She hesitated at the entrance to the hall, shuffling her weight back and forth from foot to foot.
She looked cute in the new pajamas that Mama Marge must have gotten for her.
They weren’t anything special, just a pair of shorts and an oversized light blue cotton shirt.
She wasn’t sexy like the club girls were.
No, she seemed comfortable. Lookin’ at her brought a wave of something.
Like the feeling of home, or what it should be.
Home.
That damn word. The idea of it had plagued me my entire life. I’d never had it. Didn’t know a thing about it. But I wanted it. The stability of it, the feeling of it. Everything.
“But what if I wanted to sleep in your bed?” She blinked up at me, eyes wide and sweet.
“Okay,” tumbled out of my mouth before I even registered that I was the one talkin’. “Now?”
“Yeah, now.” She smiled. It had a little mischievous edge to it.
My cheeks flamed hot. I liked that she was better at this than me, and that she didn’t hold back.
It helped make me feel more comfortable letting go around her.
It took everything in me earlier to tell her that I’d missed her when we came in the door.
But I’d been obsessing on it the whole ride here, and by the time I was standing in front of her, the words were ready to jump right out of my mouth.
And that they did. I wouldn’t have taken it back for the world.
I didn’t care how Grip was lookin’ at me.
I shut everything down and killed the lights. Then I led her back to my room, which was what she seemed to be waiting for. I knew the way, so I left her at the threshold as I maneuvered around the room in the dark, eventually clicking on the light beside the bed.
“Is there a side of the bed you like?” she asked as she moved to the bed and started dragging down the top cover.
“No. It doesn’t matter,” I told her, shedding my cut and hanging it on the closet doorknob.
I lost my jeans and boxer briefs. Then my shirt. I climbed into bed without another thought.
She laughed lightly before crawling in beside me. Her head automatically went to my chest, and I didn’t think twice about wrapping my arm around her. Then I kissed the top of her head, filling my nose with her coconut scent while I was there.
It smelled like summer. Like warmth and water. It reminded me that she was from Florida, and that I knew nothing about her life there.
“Did you go to the beach often?” I asked. The one thing I knew about Florida was that it was mostly surrounded by water. Really, I just wanted to get her talking. I wanted to know everything about her. “You know, when you were in Judgment?”
“The closest beach to Judgment is about an hour away. My dad was strict about where I went, and he wasn’t going to take me, so I didn’t get to go much. He’d let me go with my best friend sometimes, but that didn’t happen often.”
She grew quiet after that. It was the kind of quiet that even I could read the sadness hanging in it.
I wanted to ask her what was wrong, but held back. My gut told me so, and I listened. I just hoped that one day she’d feel close enough to me to open up. I wanted her happy times and her sad ones.
“Viking,” she said, rolling over on her stomach and raising up on her elbow.
My hand slid down to her lower back. My pinky brushed over a sliver of her exposed skin.
It was so soft and smooth. I snaked my whole hand under her shirt, wanting to touch every inch of her.
“I know you kind of got thrown into this, so I would understand if you change your mind. I appreciate you wanting to help me and protect me, but I don’t want to ruin your life. ”
How did I tell her that I couldn’t see a world where she could ruin my life?
I didn’t think she’d believe me if I told her that everythin’ had gotten better since she’d come into my life.
Besides, I was shit at words, so I wasn’t even sure how I’d say somethin’ like that.
How did I explain to her that Grip and I needed her in a way I didn’t think we even realized until tonight?
Maybe I couldn’t tell her, but I could show her.
“Kiss me,” I said. My voice was gruff and raw, but my tone was on the softer side.
She did, closing her eyes and giving herself over to me.
We kissed for a couple of minutes. I mostly let her lead.
Truth was, kissing was still new to me, and I didn’t want to do anythin’ wrong.
Sometimes it was okay to be hard and rough, but even a dumb brute like me could tell that this wasn’t one of those times.
“Not good with words,” I tried to explain, but I knew this shit wasn’t news to her.
She kissed my cheek. “I didn’t know love growing up.
Not from my parents and not from my family.
I didn’t have any friends ’cause I was the trash kid with meth-addicted parents and an uncle that people crossed the street to avoid.
Shit sucked, but that’s not my point.” I ran my free hand through her drying hair, tucking it behind her ear so I could see her eyes.
“I don’t know how to express it, but I do feel something when you look at me.
Feel it when I’m touching you. Still workin’ it out, but I’m in this.
All I ask is that you be patient with me. ”
“Always,” she said before brushing a kiss against my lips.
“I just want you, Ivy. I can’t say why. I don’t think we deserve you, but I can’t let you go now that I know you.”
Her eyes filled with tears, but she didn’t let them fall.
Damn, it broke my heart. Had I said something wrong? See, I wasn’t good at this shit, even when I tried really damn hard to be open and honest. Everything I’d told her was true. I wouldn’t take it back.
She kissed me again. I held onto her until she eventually broke away. She rolled over, plastering her back against my side, but she held onto my arm, like she didn’t want to let me go yet. I curled my body around hers, inhaling her scent as I closed my eyes.
I didn’t know what tomorrow held, but it didn’t matter. I had Ivy. We had Ivy. And I was convinced the three of us could handle anything.