Wild Like the Wind (Chaos #5)(77)

He wanted to get to the real of this?

Well, we’d do just that.

“If his bones could talk, Hound, they’d tell you about the visit I took to them right before I showed at your apartment that first time and shared with him right at his gravestone that he was going to have to suck it up and let you have me because I wanted you, and he had to let me be free.”

That was when Hound clamped his mouth shut.

“So yeah, that last scene at your place …” I nodded. “Yeah. It was time to totally let go. But that was more about my boys being twenty-one and nineteen, almost twenty-two and twenty, and finally getting what was their due from their father. I can’t say it didn’t have to do with that shit that went down with you. What I can say is it would have come earlier, except I was spending so much time trying to get through to you, I didn’t have time to do that. When we were done, I took that time. And now it’s done. All of it.”

“We’re not done,” he growled.

“You made the call, Hound. I just answered it.”

“I found her.”

“Yeah you did,” I purred, leaning back suggestively, then leaned forward and bit, “And you lost her.”

“I’m not talkin’ about you, Keely. I found Jean dead.”

I shut up.

“Would only ever be me and I thanked fuck she had me or who knows how long she’d be lyin’ dead in her bed before someone found her,” he shared.

Okay.

Shit.

God.

He’d found her.

I hadn’t thought of that but of course he did.

God.

“Hound—”

“My head was messed up with you and I know for a goddamned, fuckin’ fact if I hadn’t lost Jean and it hadn’t been me that found her, spent the day with paramedics, at the hospital, callin’ her rabbi, sortin’ shit out ’cause Jews try to get their own put in the ground as soon as they can, I woulda listened. I was in no mood to listen. And you might not think that’s an excuse, babe. But I loved her, and I held her cold dead hand and I knew she’d died right beyond a damned wall from where I was, died all alone, so you’d be wrong.”

I would.

He was right.

I was wrong.

It was an excuse.

“Now,” he kept at me, “you say you can’t forgive I put him between us, you didn’t put the shit out there you needed to put out there even knowin’ I had that shit messin’ with my head. And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talkin’ about. You gave it to me earlier standin’ by me on my bike. You didn’t tell me your goals with comin’ to me and you knew I’d put him right there between us. And you touched your mouth to him on my body and you knew then I lost it about that and you still didn’t say dick. So I blew my stack and I fucked up huge. But you played a game with massive stakes not lettin’ me in on what would be the ultimate prize and life kicked me right in the balls in the middle of shit takin’ us to where we’d hammer it all out, and I fucked up. I did it huge. You laid it out. And I’m here. So, where we goin’ now, Keely? You gonna hold on and cut me out and die alone one day? Or are we gonna find our way past this and figure out what’s next with the boys, with the brothers, and fight our way to the other side?”

There was a lot about that I could argue.

But in that second, I wondered what was the point.

Because I wanted to fight my way to the other side with Hound.

I had no idea what I should say to communicate that, I just needed to say something.

It came out, “Hound—”

But that was all that got out.

He lifted up a hand, palm my way.

“Before you say dick, first, I’m fuckin’ Shep to you and second, even when I was still pissed at you, convinced you’d played me for my cock, I couldn’t sleep remembering the way I put my hands on you. So I’m standing here giving you my vow that will never happen again. Never, Keely. Whatever comes of this, we work it out, whatever comes our way, you never have to fear that from me again. Not ever. If you give me nothing from makin’ that ride from the Compound to here to have this out, I gotta beg you to give me that.”

I gotta beg you to give me that.

“I knew that was about Jean,” I whispered.

He stared at me half a beat before he closed his eyes and turned his head away.

Oh yeah.

Even ticked at me, thinking what he thought of me, that’s what had him sleepless.

He could have done worse, a big guy like him, absolutely.

But what he’d done to me, I wondered, even though I’d forgiven him, if that was something he could forgive in himself.

“I already forgave you for that,” I told him.

He opened his eyes and looked at me.

Hope.

Oh my God.

His eyes, Hound’s eyes, that crazy-cool, bright lapis blue, were shining with hope.

He really, totally fucked up.

But he really, totally loved me.

“The boys know about us,” I shared. “You having the recruits clean it then clear it out and you got new stuff, Jag came around to check it out. Saw my car at your place. I think both of them did. My guess, repeatedly. Jag even came up and heard us in your apartment together.”

The hope fled and aggravation took its place.