Risk (Gentry Boys #2)(78)

“For what, Creed? I want to be here.”

His blue eyes were the same as his brothers’. They were the sharp, vivid color of a desert sky. They watched me with a tenderness I had never received from any other man. Words didn’t come easy to Creedence and it seemed like he was choosing them carefully.

“I’m sorry that I thought being in your bed every night told you everything important. Truly, you talk about how you feel and you tell me all the shit that matters to you. You don’t hold back and that’s not something I was able to give to you. But I swear I’m gonna try, honey.” Creed held my face in his hands. “I want to be the kind of man who deserves you.”

An ugly feeling swept over me as Creed stroked my hair and murmured words I’d waited my whole life to hear. He assumed I’d been nothing but honest with him all along, that there was nothing about me that was sordid, disreputable.

“I had a baby,” I whispered.

He kissed me. “What, honey?”

I pulled his hands off my face and looked straight at him. “I had a baby, Creedence. Four years ago. A girl, a daughter. I gave her away without even holding her once.” My hands covered my stomach, as they had a million times before. Beneath my clothes was the faded scar where she’d been ripped out of my body after the labor began to go badly. I gave him a bleak smile. “So you see I haven’t told you everything.”

Creed swallowed. “You don’t need to talk about it right now.”

“Yes, I do. I tell you a bunch of colorful childhood stories and you think you know everything about me.”

His eyes darkened with confusion. “What the hell are you talking about? I never said I knew everything about you.”

A tear rolled down my cheek. I couldn’t even make sense out of what I was saying. “But you think I’m good and pure somehow.”

Creed chuckled. “I knew you weren’t pure. I wouldn’t have come after you if you were.”

“Do you want to know who my baby’s father was?”

“No.”

I made him listen anyway. “He was my mother’s boyfriend. I let him f*ck me every which way about a hundred times and I didn’t care what I was risking or who he belonged to. And that was just the beginning for me. I let men use me, Creed. Quite a few of them.”

He was getting angry. He shifted and glared at me. “Lady, you want to hear details of every female I ever f*cked?”

I didn’t answer him. I looked away.

Creed took a handful of my hair and turned my head in his direction. “You want to hear about it, Truly? You want to know about the tightest pussies I ever stuck it to or all the times some bitch wrapped her mouth around my dick?”

“No,” I whispered.

He let go of me. “Then why the hell are you trying to tell me about every man you ever spread your legs for? Don’t you get it? I don’t f*cking care.”

I shut my eyes and exhaled. Creed grabbed my hand. He sighed.

“Truly Lee, who the hell ever told you that no man could find you worth caring about?”

“Nobody,” I answered. It was true. It was just what I had secretly told myself.

Without warning Declan opened up the curtain and poked his head inside. “Got a lead on that shit you asked me to take care of.”

“Thanks, Deck,” Creed answered as I climbed off the bed and smoothed out my clothes.

Declan looked from one of us to the other and then smiled. “Think I’ll go knock off somewhere tonight and then head out first thing in the morning.” He took two steps to Creed’s side and slapped him on the shoulder affectionately. He turned his head and winked at me. “This is a good girl you got here.”

“I know that,” Creed said quietly. “Seriously, thanks Deck. And don’t go getting swallowed up by that desert shithole. You’ve always got a home here with us, brother.”

Declan Gentry might be one of the toughest fellows I’d ever been in the same room with, but I swore he got a little misty eyed when Creedence called him ‘brother’.

“Take care, man,” he muttered and then was gone.

The sound of his boots had barely faded when the same nurse who had tried to bundle Creed into a hospital gown irritably flung the curtains open. “It’s time for your MRI, Mr. Gentry. However, I cannot wheel you through the hospital halls dressed like that.”

Creed winced as he sat all the way up. He looked down at himself. “What the hell do you mean? I’m not dressed at all.”

I picked up the gown and began to unfold it. “I’ll make sure Mr. Gentry cooperates.” The nurse retreated and I accidentally tore the gown in two. I threw it on the floor. “And they’ll likely charge you about six hundred bucks for that piece of garbage.”

“Hey,” Creed nudged me gently, taking my hand. “It’ll be hours before they let me out of here. You gonna hang around?”

I kissed his knuckles. “I should go. Let you get all medically tended to.”

Creed seemed disappointed in my answer. He gave me a faint smile though. “Well you damn well better come kiss me before you go.”

It was a struggle to pull away. I wanted to stay with him.

“This isn’t over,” Creed warned me and draped the paper gown around his neck. He was talking about our unfinished conversation.