Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 57355 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 287(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57355 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 287(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
I’d already done mine, finding a spot just above my heart that had room for it. An intertwining design with our names and the eternity symbol, with intricate flourishes that elevated it way beyond a simple ‘so-and-so and so-and-so forever’ type of tat. You had to look closely to see what the meaning was.
But we knew.
And we’d both wear it forever.
It was funny, but I’d never liked giving this kind of tat. I’d turned down the work eighty percent of the time. The couple shit seemed like bad voodoo to me. I’d thought it was all just a disaster waiting to happen. I’d expected every single customer to come back and ask me to ink over it a few years, or even a few months later. But now I knew why they wanted it.
I finally understood.
If I could tat her name on every inch of my skin, I would. She was so deep inside me, it was on the cellular level. She was already in my heart, so why not my skin? I felt better with her name on my flesh. Secure. She’d always be with me now, every second of every day.
“Okay, sweetheart. Here goes.”
I’d already iced her skin and dried it. Made her have a stiff drink. Everything I usually sneered at. But she was my woman, and I wanted this to hurt as little as possible. I’d do anything for my lady, dammit.
Even mark her. It was crazy but this felt inevitable. Like we’d been working our way up to this moment since the exact instant we met. It was sacred in a way. It felt ceremonial. It felt like a real commitment.
So I began.
To her credit, she didn’t make a sound. Not when I did the outline. Not when I started to fill in the details. Not even when I started the shading.
“Want to take a break? I’m nearly done.”
She shook her head. I knew she was in pain but she wanted me to finish. So I did.
Then I was cleaning her up, bandaging her carefully, and hauling her out of the chair to sit on my lap. Her tat wasn’t in the same place as mine. Hers was on her shoulder, where it would be easier to cover up if she needed to. For professional reasons, of course.
The rest of the time, she’d wear it with pride. She’d even teased me about only wearing muscle shirts and tank tops to show off her ink. I teased her that if she showed that much skin all the time, I’d have to run around town cracking skulls because everyone would be ogling her.
Mols told me she loved the new tat. She called it her ‘brand’ but it was more than that.
It’s a promise.
“You hungry?”
She nodded, curled up on my lap like a kitten.
“I thought we could swing by Mae’s and bring something to the home.”
I knew she meant for Tommy. We’d been back together for a couple of weeks and Tommy had been improving the whole time. The kid was amazing. Apparently, all the stuff Molly had done for him had worked. All that talking and singing and stimulation. She’d had the nurses play soft classical music when she wasn’t there, though not at night, obviously. She’d held his hand each and every day he’d been in the coma. Just her presence had helped. Her voice had kept his brain working enough to repair the damage.
He would be moving in with us soon. I was working around the clock to get the house ready. So were all the guys, even Jack. He’d put his own dream house on hold to get us in our home even faster. And damn if I didn’t love him even more for it.
I pressed a kiss to Molly’s head and set her on her feet. I wanted her, but there was time for that later. She belonged to me now and slept in my bed every night. I didn’t need to pounce on her when we had family to eat dinner with. But I would pounce on her after that.
Life was good. I had my woman and we were going to start a family together. We already were a family. The two of us would have been enough, but Tommy was the icing on the cake. A baby would be the cherry on top.
I was pretty sure I was the luckiest guy in the whole damn world.
Chapter Thirty
Molly
“Would you like some coleslaw, Bonnie?”
I smiled fondly at Tommy. He was so polite. He’d made fast friends with Bonnie, even though she was in the residential wing and he had been in critical care all this time. They also had a hospice section but that was in a separate building. Thankfully, none of our loved ones were there. Now he was in a new room in the ‘transitional’ wing. It was where they put people before they got a permanent room.