Taking Shots (Assassins, #1)(112)

The tears started to fall and Shea reached for her hand. She took it, using her other hand to wipe her face. “And I did.” Shea noticed she was starting to look green when he looked over at her, but she just went on, so he assumed she was fine.

“Finally, I started to notice something wasn’t right. I was in school, something he said was a waste of time because when we got married I wouldn’t need to work since I would be taking care of the babies, which how we were gonna make those babies was beyond me since he never wanted to have sex with me, but whatever-” She stopped suddenly and Shea looked over. “Pull over,” he did as she asked, and she opened the door, puking her brains out. Her body shook violently as she threw up on the side of West End Ave. He ran his hand up and down her back, trying to move her hair out of the way as she expelled some of the beer and tequila she had consumed.

Shea had thought Grace was a talented drunk, nope, she had nothing on Elli. Right after she got done, she sat up, grabbed the bottle of water that sat in her consul, washed her mouth out and went on with her story.

He was amazed once more by her.

“So anyways, we weren’t having sex, and he had made me go to one of them stupid dinners through his daddy’s firm, when I stepped into that place in my plus size dress without him because he went earlier then me, no one looked at me, that’s when I knew that I was nothing.” Shea sat listening to her, not moving the truck, he wanted to hear her. Plus, in case she needed to puke, he was already pulled over. “The night went on, when he would introduce me to the women of the firm; they couldn’t even look me in the eye. That’s when I knew he was cheating on me.”

Shea’s heart hurt for her and it seemed with every word that came out of her mouth, it made him want to kill Justin Yates more and more. When her face turned green again, he was glad he was already pulled over so she could continue to throw up on the side of the street again. She repeated the rinsing of the mouth routine and then went on like she hadn’t been throwing her guts up on the side of the road. “So that night,” she let out an empty laugh, “he actually had the gall to climb on top of me. I got so mad that I pushed him off me. Oh, Shea, he got so mad. Called me everything in the book, smacked me up against the wall, telling me I was nothing and that no one would love me. I don’t know what got into me, it must have been him hitting me, but I swung back and hit him as hard as I could. He fell to the ground and I threw my ring at him, telling him I did not love him and I was leaving. And I finally did and he never came after me.”

Shea wanted to beat the living hell out of Justin. No man lays a hand on a woman. It was disgusting and Shea couldn’t believe that he let that man stand beside the bar with that smug look on his face. Let him see him out in the streets, Shea would beat him to a pulp.

“Why aren’t you driving?” Shea looked over at her, relaxing his hands from the steering wheel that he was squeezing so tightly his hands hurt.

“Oh, I thought you needed to throw up some more,” he said pulling the truck back onto the road when it was clear.

“No, I’m good. I’m tired now,” she said, before crossing her arms across her legs and laying down.

She was out before they even made it a mile. Her loud snores filled the truck and even though he was so pissed he could scream, he cracked a smile as he drove. Elli was the most beautiful, strongest, amazing woman he had ever met and he couldn’t love her more than he did at that moment.

When they got home, Shea carried Elli over his shoulder up the steps and into the condo as Adler bounced up and down around Shea’s legs.

“Adler, bud, sit,” Shea said as he tried to move by him. Adler listened and Shea made it to the bedroom with Elli drooling down his back.

He just prayed she didn’t throw up.

Shea laid her down on the bed and proceeded to take her clothes off. He thought about throwing her in the shower since she had makeup on and smelt like a bar, but she couldn’t even stand, so he discarded that thought and continued to pull her shirt off. It took a lot more force than he thought it would to get her cowboy boots off, but he finally got them off before pulling her pants off. He shook his head at her drunkenness, as he pulled her up in the bed, tucking her into the bed.

He loved learning new things about Elli, but he could have went on without knowing that Justin Yates was a * with a death wish and that Elli was the worst drunk ever, but even with knowing those things about her, he still loved her, probably always would.

Shea undressed before going into the bathroom to wash up and take out his contacts. When he came back into the bedroom, Elli was laying face first in her pillow with the blankets kicked off her. He laughed as he shut off the lights and crawled into bed with her. He looked over at her and smiled. How was she breathing with her face in the pillow like that?

“Baby, can you breathe?” She nodded and he laughed before saying, “Alright baby, goodnight,” he leaned over kissing her naked shoulder before saying, “I love you.”

When she didn’t say anything, like he knew she wouldn’t, he closed his eyes. But he opened them again when she said, “Good, because I need you.”

A grin cracked across his face and he closed his eyes.

She needed him.

That had to be one step closer to loving him.





Chapter 22


Shea learned another thing about Elli the next morning, and that was that she was very angry when she was hung over.