Lethal Temptations (Tempted #5)(36)

I was driven by my need to see him, to make sure he really was alive and that he didn’t leave me. I wanted to hold his hand, lace my fingers with his, and thank him. Not just for switching places with me but for every single time he’s been there for me, choosing my life over his.

I should’ve given his condition more thought, if I would’ve prepared myself maybe then my heart wouldn’t have stopped for the split second it did when I laid eyes on him. He looked so different lying there, powerless and at the mercy of the machines keeping him alive, so fragile. He didn’t look like the badass biker most men feared and woman tried to conquer, he wasn’t the hero sent to rescue me, or the poor widow who didn’t know how to grieve.

He was just a man.

A man who had been knocked off his chrome pedestal, a man flawed and fractured by the shitty hand dealt to him. He was Dominic Petra, not Blackie, not one of Satan’s Knights, not even the man I call Leather but, simply Dominic.

We weren’t Leather and Lace.

We were strangers.

It was that moment, with the steady hymn of his heart rate playing in the background, Dominic Petra and Lacey Parrish first met.

We were both stripped of everything we’ve come to know about each other.

We were the flawed characters of a story.

He was the addict who chose the wrong path.

And I was the mentally ill girl who loved him.

I’ve never admitted that to anyone.

That I think I’m ill.

Or that I love him.

I don’t know when it happened, if it was something that grew over time or what but, it felt as if I had been doing it my whole life…like I was born to love both Dominic Petra and the fractured soul of Blackie.

I walked to the side of his bed as my eyes swept over in him, taking in every machine, wire and tube attached to him, the one that breathed for him, the one that monitored his heart rate and the other half a dozen—I had no idea what their purpose was. I leaned over, gently I brought my fingertips to his cheek.

“Leather,” I whispered, as a tear escaped the corner of my eye.

As much as I wanted to know the man Blackie was before all the pain, the man in the photograph he kept in his room, I never wanted it to be like this.

Our timing has always been off.

An alarm sounded forcing me to drop my hand from his face and divert my frantic eyes to the machines as a nurse came into the room.

“What’s happening?”

“The I.V. finished,” she explained, disconnecting the empty bag from the pole and replacing it with a full one. My eyes followed the tube and saw it was plugged into a port in his bicep. She must’ve noticed I was staring at the port strangely because she explained.

“His veins were collapsing, so we had to put the port in his bicep,” she said, glancing back at the machine. “Everything is good. I’ll give you some privacy,” she added.

I nodded, waiting for her to leave the room before I lifted his hand, turning his arm over and stared at the bruises that angrily marked his skin. I bent my head, trailing my lips over the track marks.

I lifted my eyes, peering up at his face from under the fringe of my lashes, wishing to God he could hear me.

“Everybody deserves a rewrite,” I whispered. “Even you. Come back to me Blackie, let me help you this once, just like you’ve always helped me. We can rewrite our story together. I’ll help you silence your addiction the way you silence my mind,” I promised as I gently placed his hand back down beside him.

I brought my hand up to his head and touched the hair that hung shaggily around his face, brushing it back with my fingers.

“I remember the first time I saw you like it was yesterday. I thought you were the most handsome guy I ever laid eyes on,” I smiled, blinking away the tears that temporarily blinded me. “All these years later and it’s still true, no one else compares. You had me then Blackie, you had me at ten years old, you’ve always had me…and I want you—no, I need you to know you’ll always have me. I want you to stop pushing me away. I want you to accept that I’m a part of your life. Stop thinking it's wrong because nothing that feels this right can ever be wrong. There is a lot of wrong in your life, change that, or don’t but, leave what’s right, what’s good…leave us, let us be. I promise you we’re worth it. Give me a chance to make you smile like you used to in that picture you have in your room. I’m not asking you to forget about her, or change your past. I’m asking for you to let me help you rewrite the rest of your life. It doesn’t have to be like this. You don’t need to keep punishing yourself.”

You’re wasting your breath.

Once an addict, always an addict.

You’ll always be Jack’s daughter and nothing more.

I shook my head, not willing to allow my maker take control of my mind. I was in control and I needed to hang onto it with everything in me because today Blackie needed me. I didn’t have time to succumb to the lies my mind tried to make me believe.

I embraced the truth, the truth I’ve always known---Blackie needs me as much as I need him. He saw me long before that night I went to the clubhouse and asked him to look at me---the real me. He tries to deny it; he fights it but he feels it…the unexplainable connection between us.

They say everyone has a soulmate.

And his broken soul belongs to mine.