Ride Steady(106)

He didn’t hesitate to give me that something else. “Fucked up.”

“How?” I asked.

“Shoulda taken you for a Blizzard.”

He remembered. He remembered me asking him to go to Dairy Queen the day he disappeared.

My eyes started stinging.

“Take me tonight,” I whispered.

He closed his eyes again but this time dropped his forehead so it rested on mine.

I slid my hand from his face to wrap my arm around his shoulders and did the same with my other arm around his back.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t recognize you.” He opened his eyes and lifted his head but he didn’t go very far. I took that as him not pulling away so I kept speaking. “I even knew it when you showed me your drawings. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.” I forced a smile, my eyes still stinging. “I got your sketch of me. I still have it. I even had it framed and I used to keep it in my bedroom. But when we got married, Aaron wouldn’t let me put it—”

“Stop talking.”

I again shut up.

Joker didn’t.

“It’s was always you. Only you. I was into you back then, Carissa, in a big f*ckin’ way.”

I felt a tear slide out the side of my eye.

Joker watched it before he looked back to me.

“And that hasn’t changed.”

Oh God.

I could take no more.

I burst into tears.

Joker gave me his weight for a moment so he could roll us to our sides and gather me close in his arms.

I held him back and did it tight as I shoved my face in his perfect chest and bawled my eyes out.

“I… I… c-can’t believe I didn’t recognize you!” I cried into his skin.

He held me with one arm and stroked my hair with his other hand, ordering, “You didn’t. The minute I looked like me you did. Get over it. I am.”

I tipped my head back and declared loudly, “I hurt you!”

“Just f*cked you, Butterfly, gonna do it again as soon as I can, so I think I’m over it.”

I blinked through my tears.

Then I slapped his arm. “We don’t f*ck,” I hissed, making it plain I did not like to be forced to use the f-word. “We make love.”

My breath stopped when his face all of a sudden was close and his voice dipped low to say, “Yeah. That’s what I just did to you. I’m glad you finally get that. And that’s what I’ll keep doin’ to you. But prepare, Carrie, ’cause I’m also gonna f*ck you and from what I just got outta you, I know you’re gonna like it.”

I started breathing, but erratically, and said nothing.

I apparently started breathing erratically and doing it visibly because he asked, “You want me to do that now?”

I totally did.

Unfortunately, I had to answer, “I’m moving today.”

He looked perplexed for a second like he forgot our plans for the day, which was cute and sweet. I’d never seen Joker be the former, and I liked it, but I had experienced him being the latter, and I’d always liked that.

Then his face cleared and he muttered, “Fuck.”

“Yes,” I agreed.

“We better do that,” he said.

I didn’t want to do that. My exhaustion had been swept away in the drama and lovemaking but now, especially after the drama, and most especially after the lovemaking, all I wanted to do was curl into his heat and go to sleep.

I couldn’t do that so I repeated, “Yeah, we better do that.”

He gave me a squeeze but didn’t let me go.

He looked deep into my eyes and said gently, “I should say I’m sorry I didn’t give you that after givin’ you a nice night out like you deserve. But I’m not sorry. Just in case shit twists for you, I wanna be sure it’s clear. I like that it went down in a way that I’ll never forget. I hope you’re over the shit that warped it for you because it’d mean a lot to me you feel the same.”

I closed my eyes, pressed closer, dipped my head, and pushed my face in his throat.

“I’m over that warped stuff,” I whispered there. “And I feel the same.”

“Good,” he murmured into the top of my hair. “Now, sucks, but we gotta move you.”

“Yes, it does suck.” I tipped my head back. “But then I’ll be moved. Travis and me will be safe and in a nice place. And that’ll be that.”