Written in the Scars(63)

“It’s true,” I say, cupping her ass cheeks in my hands. “I think I loved you from the minute I saw you. I know I was obsessed with you since then, but it just morphed into love as I grew older and could understand it.”

“Do you remember the time you got in a fight with the boy at my softball game in high school?” she laughs. “I was mortified!”

I shrug, watching her relive the memory. “He was flirting with you from the sidelines. And then he had his buddy come up to me and tell me he was going to f*ck you that weekend. I made sure to get the point across.”

“You did,” she says, shaking her head. “You were insane.”

“No, I was marking my territory. Besides, he shouldn’t have talked about you like that. I should’ve hit him harder.”

Her head tosses back as she laughs. I wait for her to settle, my hand falling off the side of the bed and beneath the mattress. Pulling out an envelope, I lay it on my chest.

“What’s this?” she asks.

“It’s something for you.”

She struggles to sit up and, with a heavy dose of anticipation, she takes the envelope and opens it. After reading the short letter from Mrs. Kruger, she looks inside the envelope again.

Her breath catches in her throat as she sees the check. “What is this?”

“It’s two thousand dollars.”

With wide, beautiful eyes, she looks at me. “Ty . . .”

“That’s why Nila called. She wanted to make sure I got it because they lost the tracking and sent it a week ago.”

Elin’s eyes light up, the stress of the situation evaporated.

“You can apologize now,” I chuckle.

“Two thousand dollars?” she asks, looking at the check again in disbelief.

“What can I say? I’m a hell of a worker, especially when I’m working for something specific.”

She eyes me curiously. I pick her up and sit her on top of me, so she’s straddling me.

“This will catch up on our bills,” she says. “It’s a godsend.”

“No.”

“No?” she laughs.

“No.” I look as deeply as I can into her eyes. “My paychecks from Blackwater Coal will catch up on our bills. This money is for you.”

Her throat moves as she forces as swallow. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I don’t want to wait to move on with our lives. We’ve wasted enough time stressing, saving money, waiting until the time is right.”

“You mean . . .”

“If you still think we need to see a fertility doctor, make the appointment. Use that money for the co-pays and whatever.”

“Really?” she gasps. “Are you sure? I don’t know if it’s logical, Ty. We could use it on other things right now.”

“It makes perfect sense if this is what you want.”

I rise up and palm the back of her head and bring her mouth to mine. She moans against my lips as I flip her to her back and hover above her.

“I want to put a baby inside you,” I whisper into her mouth. She shivers, arching her hips so her bare * brushes my cock.

“Do it,” she moans, reaching down and stroking my length.

I bite my lip as she squeezes my dick. “I’m so f*cking hard,” I say through gritted teeth.

Releasing me, I feel her hand beneath me. Looking down, I see her fingers gliding through her wetness.

Her eyes on me, she smiles devilishly as she brings her fingers to my lips. “I’m so wet for you it’s ridiculous,” she breathes, swiping the moisture over my bottom lip.

I suck her fingertips into my mouth and watch her eyes grow wide. My cock pulses against her opening so hard it hurts.

“How do you want it?” I ask, taking a nipple into my mouth. I suck it, rolling it with my tongue, as my other hand cups her other breast.

She moans at the contact, raising her hips to meet mine again. “Just give it to me,” she begs, arching her back further.

I flip her onto her belly and flatten my palm right above her *, raising her ass up in the air. She looks at me over her shoulder, a glimmer in her eye that goes straight to my cock.

“Hold on, baby,” I say, touching the tip of my dick against the opening of her *. “This is gonna be one helluva ride.”





TY


Pulling up to the Bath House, the little building miners use to change from street clothes to work clothes, I flip off the lights to the truck and sit in the spot marked “Second Shift Boss” without getting out.

My breath billows in front of me, hitting the quickly chilling windows and causing them to fog up.

There’s a sense of familiarity in the routine of doing this, my first day back to work. I’ve done it for years, after all. But the last time I saw this place I was being carted out in an ambulance. Even though I know it’ll be fine and I really do believe everything I said to Elin, it still has my stomach a little twisted.

I watch as a car pulls up a few spots down and Pettis climbs out. He walks in front of my truck, never looking up at me, and enters the House. The light streams out the door, cutting a slice of halogen-induced sunshine over the mine mud that saturates the ground.

“How’d I get so f*cking lucky?” I mutter to myself, grabbing my lunchbox off the passenger’s seat. I get out and lock up and head inside the Bath House. The atmosphere is somber as I enter, my twelve-man crew, counting me, all present.