Hold (Gentry Boys, #5)(4)

We’d grown up together, sort of. She lived in the one decent neighborhood of the shitty prison town of Emblem where my brothers and I struggled to survive on the desolate outskirts. I was a punk. All three of us were. Triplets born to a vicious scumbag of a father and a weak-willed junkie mother, we inflicted havoc on the town of Emblem and its daughters.

Back in those bleak times, Saylor wasn’t slutty enough to catch my attention, not until the day when I used her to settle a bet with my brothers. It was the worst thing I’d ever done and that’s really saying something, but it rattled me awake in a way. I didn’t want to be that guy, the callous scoundrel who trampled everything decent in his path. I didn’t want to be my father. Six years later when we ran into each other, Saylor had no reason on earth to trust that I was any better than I’d been at age sixteen. I’ll always be amazed that she gave me the chance to prove otherwise.

“Cordero. What are you thinking?” my wife whispered as she cradled my head against her bare skin.

I propped myself up on my elbows and covered her with my body, careful not to crush her with my weight. Her mouth tilted into a smile as she bent her head and kissed the place just beneath my collarbone where a line of Latin script was tattooed across my upper chest. I’ve got a total of nineteen tattoos at this point and some of them are pretty damn impressive works of art. But it was this one that always caught Saylor’s attention, the one she always sought out and smiled over. She might not even be aware that she does it.

In a blink I found myself tossed back in time exactly four years ago, to the night I sat beside her at the edge of a pool, my dick hard, my heart pounding, my head brooding over the question of whether I even had a right to look at Saylor McCann.

“Vincit qui se vincit,” she read aloud.

“Know what it means?”

Her nose wrinkled as she tried to puzzle it out. “Something about winning,” she guessed.

“Close. ‘He conquers who conquers himself.’”

Her face was inches away from mine. “Have you? Conquered yourself?”

“Sometimes,” I told her honestly.

“Cord?” Saylor asked gently and there was a hint of concern in her eyes as she touched my cheek.

I took her hand and kissed the smooth skin on the underside of her wrist, trailing my lips along the tattoo that she’d once gotten in answer to mine.

’Amor vincit omnia’.

Translation: Love conquers all.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

“I’m thinking about you. About our family. About the f*cking incredible roller coaster of life.”

Saylor’s smile would always be the thing I aspired to the most. She gave it to me now.

“How did I get so lucky?” she said.

I asked myself that question every time I opened my eyes and again before I closed them at night. I kissed her slow, ran my lips along her jaw and whispered in her ear. “You’re the dream, angel.”

“Make love to me,” she pleaded in a hushed gasp and opened her body to take me in. I was ready. I slid inside of her and took it slow, bringing her to the blissful edge twice more before letting myself go. It would never get old, not with her. Not even when we grew old.

Later, as Saylor slept serenely in my arms, my thoughts strayed back to Emblem, as they often did when the day was done and only darkness awaited. Memories were the reason I still had nightmares, although they weren’t as graphic or frequent as they once were. In those nightmares there was always the pain of hunger and the acrid taste of desert dirt. There was always a terrible villain more foul-breathed and violent than any fairy tale. I was always small there, always even more desperate to protect my brothers, Creed and Chase, than I was to protect myself. Sometimes as my mind shook itself free and I curled my arms more tightly around my sleeping wife, I would need to whisper ‘It’s over’ to myself before I could return to sleep.

But then the next day, sometimes I would remember the battles that still haunted me. And I would wonder if that was true, if the worst was really over.

Or if somewhere in the uncertain future loomed the fiercest fight yet.





CHAPTER TWO


CREED



They wanted blood tonight, or something even more personal. Right after my set I headed down the back hallway but a bunch of drunken ASU coeds were blocking the way. The two bouncers who were supposed to keep order back there were so busy trying to touch some tit they didn’t have time to be useful. I preferred the Scottsdale venues to these college crowds but the money was too good to pass up. I’ve been headlining on Thursday nights here at The Hole for about three years but lately the place has been getting too f*cking rowdy.

Or maybe I’m just getting too f*cking old.

“Creedence!” shrieked some tottering blonde I’d never seen before. She lurched around with a couple of other girls as they tried to keep each other upright. Then she clumsily flashed a pair of pert tits, her glittery scrap of a shirt getting bunched around her neck.

“Creedence!” she howled again and pointed to her chest just in case I missed seeing the offer.

“Jesus,” I muttered, shaking my head and feeling sorry for whoever raised that stupid girl. I just wanted to get myself and my guitar the hell out of there. You’d think the titanium band around my left ring finger would discourage the groupie crowd but either they didn’t notice or considered it a challenge. Whatever the case, they’re wasting their time, all of them.