Chapter 11
CROW
“Can we talk later?” Birdie’s rain-cloud eyes are half closed. Her lips are parted, her breath coming in small gasps. “I just want…this. You.”
All the plans in my head about what I was going to say, everything I was going to explain, fly out the window.
I slide my hands under her hair and weave my fingers through the silky strands.
As I touch her, I can smell the warm heat radiating off her body, her hair, a sweet scent of berry and vanilla.
My mouth waters, and I hold her head in my hands, searching her face.
“You want me?” I grunt, not wanting to believe it but desperately needing to. “This?”
I lower my lips to hers and try to memorize every second of this experience.
I haven’t been with a woman in so long, I know there’s no way I want to waste any part of it.
I release her hair and run my fingers over her lips, her chin, exploring the tender skin, the soft curves of the most beautiful face I’ve seen. Not just since before prison. Ever.
Birdie awakens something in me that no other woman has.
It’s primal and raw, the desire and the drive I have to protect her.
To be near her. To be part of whatever life this is she’s trying to make.
Flawed and funny and real. My blood sizzles through my veins, and I’m like a starving man set before a feast, but I refuse to dive in.
I need to take my time. This is a moment I didn’t realize I’ve been wanting, and now that it’s here, I’m going to make it last.
Birdie isn’t a meal. She’s nourishment, sustenance. I want to feed off this sweetness as long as I can.
I lower my head and claim her lips in light, fluttering kisses.
“So good,” I groan. “You taste so, so good. Feel so, so good.”
Her hands are on my back, tentative at first, but as I open my mouth and deepen the kiss, her fingers are searching, pulling me closer. Our hips are pressed together, the heat of our bodies forming a seal I don’t ever want to break.
I dip my tongue against hers, then go deeper, our teeth clacking as electricity makes my body tight and hard in all the right places.
I scrape my stubble against her chin, her cheeks, and pull back to kiss the tender pink skin of her neck.
She’s flushed with arousal, her eyes closed, her head thrown back.
I trace a line down her throat with my lips, but I stop when I reach the hollow of her neck.
I have to stop. My body is like an animal on the prowl, and I’ve got Birdie in my sights.
I want to claim her, own her, make her mine, but not like this.
Not today. Not when there’s so much she needs to understand.
I could fuck her and run, break the seal on seven long years of celibacy and isolation, but that’s not what I want from her.
She’s not a one-and-done woman. I don’t think I’m a one-and-done man anymore.
I’m different, and that makes this all the more important.
I don’t want things to go so far that neither one of us has taken the time to be sure this is where we want to be. I ease my head back and put the tiniest bit of space between us.
“You’re so…gorgeous,” I breathe, my fingertips worshipping her face, her cut eyebrow, her lips. “Birdie…”
She swallows hard. “Crow… What is this?”
I take in a deep breath of air, but it only brings her intoxicating scent deeper into my senses. If I could get drunk on this woman, I’d be trashed. It’s like my body is already wasted, but I’m insatiable, still wanting more.
I grab her hand and lead her out of the kitchen, away from the small space where our bodies are pressed dangerously close. We sit on the couch side by side, and she laces her fingers through mine.
“Crow, I’m—”
“Don’t,” I tell her. “You don’t have to say anything.”
“Please,” she says. “I’d like to say something. Ask you something, rather.”
I nod and tighten my hold on her hand.
“Will you tell me? About yourself? Not just about…that. I want to know who you are.” She’s looking at me with such openness and sincerity it about tears my heart in two.
I don’t know that I’ve had a woman ask me that, want to know who I am.
The fact that she’s asking me this, even though she’s fully aware that every word out of my mouth has the potential to disappoint her…
That what I tell her could put the pieces of my life together in such a way that I don’t turn out to be a man she could want…
It’s a risk I have to take. There can’t be any lies between us. There’s no sugarcoating this reality.
What I felt in her kitchen just now, I want that again.
I want more, so much more. I want her, everything about her, from her sore head to her stressed-out heart.
I can only hope what I tell her doesn’t stop her from ever wanting the same with me.
But like everything else I’ve lived through, there’s no way around it.
No shortcut. I have to face it and take the fallout, whatever it is.
“I grew up in a military family,” I say.
“Dad got moved around a lot. Never in one place for long. Wish I could say my pops was a real American hero, but for him, the military was a job. A lifestyle that fit his rigid view of the world. Right was right, wrong was wrong. People were heroes or devils, and there wasn’t any in-between. ”
“He tried to raise us to be just like him, but…” I chuckle and look down at my arms. “The first time I saw a tattoo on a guy’s arm, my destiny changed course pretty quick.”
“Yeah?” She curls her feet beneath her and leans against my side. “How so?”
“I wanted ink. I wanted it so badly. To make my body look the way I wanted it to… It felt like an act of definition. I could be what I wanted to be. But my old man saw it as an act of defiance. Told me if I ever got one, I’d be out on the street the same day.”
“Did you get one anyway?” she asks, a sly grin on her face.
I nod. “It was a small one, and shit, did it suck.” I untangle our hands and lift the hem of my jeans and show her a tiny motorcycle on the inside of my left ankle.
The blue-black ink is faded now, but you can still make out what it is.
My first. “Dad didn’t see this for years.
I mean years. It wasn’t like he did full-body inspections, and I wasn’t exactly a guy who wore khaki shorts, if you know what I mean. ”
She giggles and runs her fingers along my hairy ankle, tracing the outline of the bike. “So, you’ve always wanted to ride?” she asks.
“I’ve always wanted to be free,” I tell her. “As fucking corny as it sounds, anything that put space between the oppressive shit my dad spouted off and me, I wanted. Craved. I didn’t care what it was—booze, babes, bikes. I wanted to live.”
“Babes,” she repeats, but she doesn’t sound jealous or upset. She’s looking at me and reaches a hand to stroke my chin. “I’ll bet you had so many girlfriends.”
I chuckle. “Not gonna lie. I did well with the ladies. Ironically, I think it’s because of how I was raised.
I was always honest with chicks. Maybe brutally so.
I wanted sex, I told them. If I wanted more, I was straight up about that too.
I learned at a young age that women aren’t as complicated as guys make them out to be.
Be honest with them. It really boils down to that.
They can take you or leave you, but only if they know the deal. ”
She nods. “God, yes. Relationships would be so much easier if men just told the truth.” I hear bitterness there that I’m sure she earned the hard way. Through experience.
“I didn’t mean to be dishonest with you, Birdie.” I clear my throat and rub at my face. “It’s not like I was holding something back intentionally.”
“Oh God, no, Crow. I didn’t mean you—”
“No, no. It’s okay. I’ve only been out a little over a month.
I was planning on saying something if you seemed in any way interested in me, but I just haven’t had much practice talking about this with people who don’t already know.
And with you having a kid and all…” I sigh.
“I wanted to get those stairs finished so I knew you’d be safe.
Just in case you never wanted to speak to me again. ”
“Crow…”
I take her face between my hands and look into her eyes. “I promise you this, Birdie. I was going to tell you. And I’d like to tell you now.”
She blinks, and I see a shimmer of tears in those slate-gray eyes. She nods. “Go ahead.”
I drop my hands into my lap and get it all out in a rush before I lose my nerve.
“I was at a bar. I was supposed to meet a chick, but she never showed. I was feeling ornery and drank a few more than I should have. Was just minding my own business, drowning my sorrows, when some guy who was clearly on something started harassing a couple kids playing pool. This was a real redneck hole-in-the-wall dive bar, and these two preppies…” I sigh.
“They stuck out like sore thumbs, Birdie. At first, I thought the guy was trying to hustle them, but I don’t really know what happened.
Things got out of hand fast, and before I knew what was happening, the guy was accusing the preppies of stealing his money. ”
I close my eyes. I can still picture the guy to this day.
It’s a face I’ve actively tried not to think about at times.
At other times, it’s the only face I see whether I’m awake or sleeping.
The beady, bloodshot eyes. The angry mouth, his stained teeth exposing too much of his gums. His dirty shirt and the way his hair was so greasy, I could smell it.
“I was never someone to back down from a fight, but stepping up to join one… That wasn’t me either. Maybe I was surly because I’d been stood up, or it was the extra couple drinks, but I got involved.”