Lethal Temptations (Tempted #5)(50)

“I get it, you know?” She whispered. “I know what it feels like to lose someone you love and how much it sucks being left behind.”

She dropped her hands to my chest.

“I was five years old when I watched my brother die. I’ve been told my whole life, I was just a kid, and I didn’t really know what was going on but it’s not true. It’s the one day of my life that has stuck with me and when I think about it I can’t help blaming myself. Yeah, I was a kid, and kids are supposed to be carefree but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t call for help when their little brother is running outside. I knew better, I knew that when I couldn’t get through to my dad I should’ve went next door to the neighbor’s house,” she said as her eyes filled with unshed tears. “I’ll live the rest of my life regretting I didn’t do something to help him. And when I think how undeserving of life I am, I remember that my parents have already lost one child and I tell myself that life goes on and I have to push forward because I have people that need me.”

I took her face in my hands, bending my knees to look into her eyes.

“This world needs you in it Lace, you make it beautiful,” I rasped, leaning in and pressing my lips to hers gently. “You’re the light that makes a man want to crawl out of the darkness he worships,” I added, leaving out I was the man and she was my light.

Her lashes lowered before she peered through the fringe and back at me.

“I know you miss her. I know you blame yourself still and I also know if you could go back in time you’d trade places with her,” she said, brushing the hair away from my face before laying her palm against my cheek. “But the world, my world, it would be black without you,” she whispered. “I don’t know how it happened, and I probably never will, but you’re a big part of my life and my only wish is that you start living life again.”

I watched as she cocked her head to the side, dropped her hand and smiled slightly.

“And that maybe you’d smile again,” she added. “And if I was granted three wishes the third would be that I was the one to make you smile.”

Then she winked at me and a single tear fell from the corner of her eye.

It was that image of her that would stick with me.

The one I remembered when I drew my final breath.

A plea from her to me.

To live.

To smile.

She made me want to.

“I’m going to go,” she said, wiping away the tear with the back of her hand. “Give you some privacy but I’ll see you at my dad’s.”

I nodded because speaking wasn’t an option. If I opened my mouth, I wouldn’t recognize my voice and the words I would say would bind me to a heaven I wasn’t sure I deserved but one I wanted to live in.

I wrapped my arm around her waist and stepped toward her, bending my head to cover her mouth with mine. A gentle kiss that did what I thought only my words could do…a kiss that took me to heaven.





Chapter Seventeen





Hope.

It wasn’t the right word, but the only one that came to mind as I rang Jack’s doorbell.

For the first time since Christine’s death I felt something and allowed myself to keep on feeling. I didn’t look for a quick hit to numb me. Instead, I embraced it and wondered if I could have more.

It was a foreign concept for me, to think there was a possibility of getting more out of life than what I planned.

To live and not merely exist.

I wondered if I was capable of looking forward to the future and if I could learn not to dread it.

I wondered if I could smile again.

And for no other reason than because Lacey asked me, and I didn’t want to deny her.

I didn’t want to deny her anything, least of all any of her wishes. I wanted to be the one that made them come true.

How crazy was that?

About as crazy as thinking I can.

The door opened and Jack greeted me, tucking a cigarette behind his ear.

“You’re late,” he observed with a smile, moving aside allowing me room to walk inside the house.

“Shut up and be happy I came,” I mocked, brushing past him. “Where is everybody?”

“Dining room,” he said, kicking the door close. “Reina said dinner would be done in a half hour, it’s been a f*cking hour,” he quipped, following me into the dining room. I stopped at the entryway and spotted Wolf, pulling the elastic band of his pants and snapping them back into place.

“You look ridiculous,” Pipe hissed.

“They’re my eating pants,” Wolf argued, diverting his eyes back to Jack who chuckled. Wolf pointed an accusing finger at him. “Laugh it up now, but when your jeans are digging into your gut, I’ll be the one laughing,” he said as he took a seat at the table and reached for the loaf of bread, tearing off a piece and handing it over to Pipe’s wife, Oksana.

“You need carbs, girl, or a f*cking cow or something,” he quipped, shaking his head as he passed her the stick of butter. He turned to Pipe. “She’s all tits, man. You need to put meat on those bones, man needs something to hang on to when he’s motor boating those bad boys,” he advised.

I turned to Jack.

“How long you think we have until Pipe flips the table and knocks Wolf on his ass?” I questioned.