Fusion (2 page)

“So,” I said, walking towards her, wanting to kiss her so badly I knew I shouldn’t, “are you going to tell me what’s
really
bothering you?”

I waited for her answer. And waited some more. I knew me not including her in my quest to make myself a felon had upset her plenty, but it wasn’t what was still causing the skin between her eyes to line.

“When I have a tough time deciding where to begin, I find starting with the truth helpful,” I said, trying to be supportive, but I knew it could be taken as a remark coming from the mouth of an insufferable smartass.

Emma collapsed on the end of the bed. “I’ve lived twenty years without you, one month with you, and for one night‌—‌one fraction of a night‌—‌you’ve been mine. And now I’m losing you,” she whispered into her lap.

And I got it. Got to the heart of the problem. Now that I’d identified it, I could work towards fixing it.

“Emma, you are not losing me,” I said, kneeling in front of her. “I’m just going to spend a little time behind bars, maybe none since I have an attorney on my side that doesn’t know how to lose.” I took her hands in mine, focusing on the feeling, knowing there’d be more than a few nights I’d spend dreaming of this moment. “And I haven’t just been yours tonight. I was a lost cause the day you called me out on a perfect sun-tanning day.”

A corner of her mouth lifted in a sad smile. “It won’t matter how long you’re in there because you’re going to end up resenting me. You’ll blame me for being there, and you’ll be right to.” She looked at me, apology etched in her face. “Nobody would be in this mess if it wasn’t for me. And I know I’m not very good at relationships, given my colored history, but blame and resentment have a way of choking out anything good that might grow in a relationship.”

Why were women so adept at twisting things up into the worst possible conclusion? “You talk this crazy every Thursday night?” I asked, kissing her when I wanted to shake my head in frustration. Embrace the good at all costs, I’d heard someone say once, and I was going to do just that. “Listen to me, Emma,” I said against her mouth. “I love you. Nothing’s going to change that, a little jail time least of all, although no promises I won’t come out with facial tattoos and a bald head, looking ready to bench press a bus.”

She laughed, less sad this time. Something was finally getting through, but it was like trying to smash through a concrete barricade with a pencil. “But you’re going to lose everything you’ve worked for too. I try not to make it a habit of mingling with convicted felons,”‌—‌she lifted an eyebrow at me‌—‌”but it’s common knowledge that a mark like that stays on your record for awhile and makes employment difficult to ascertain.”

I wanted to shake my hands to the sky in exasperation. She was worried about me going away for all the wrong reasons. All I was worried about was not being able to kiss her until her, me, or both of us were senseless.

“The only thing I’m concerned about waiting for me outside of those exit gates is you,” I said, meaning it. My job didn’t require a clean record, Stanford could kick me out for all I cared,‌—‌I’d found exactly what I’d been looking for there‌—‌and I certainly didn’t need any more money. “Everything will be fine. Everything is fine now. Since I know you don’t believe it in your present state of woman crazy, can you just take my word for it?” It was asking a lot; trust wasn’t something that was easy to give away.

She touched my face, like perhaps she didn’t think it was real, until the trio of lines folded between her eyes smoothed. “Fine,” she said, blowing a chunk of hair off her forehead. “Now seems like a bad time to stop trusting you anyways, especially since I’m about to tell you I love you for the first time.”

I didn’t hear it right away. I mean, I heard it, I just didn’t process it. It was what put the surreal in life. Hearing someone loved you because they did, because they’d chosen to, not because they shared the same DNA as you, but because they’d observed, studied, and analyzed you, and they’d liked what they’d seen. They’d loved it.

“Do you think you could say that one more time?” I asked, turning my ear. “Just because I wasn’t expecting it and I really want to give myself over to the moment and this time I can at least brace myself for it?” I was rambling. Patrick Hayward was rambling like an idiot. And I didn’t care.

Looking at me, no,
seeing
me, Emma opened her mouth. “I love‌—‌”

I couldn’t wait for the third and final word. I was kissing her again, which felt a lot more like consuming, but it was a joint effort. Pressing against her, we took our kiss horizontal, the mattress molding around her while I held myself above her.

I didn’t want to brace my forearms on either side of her head, but the reminder of her bruised body stayed relatively in the front of my mind when nothing else did, so I held myself just above her, just barely against her.

Minutes passed, the kissing nowhere near cresting, when something that felt a lot like responsibility filtered its way through my male one track mindedness.

“Em?” I whispered, hoarse from our mouth marathon. “There’s one more thing I’m asking,
asking,
you to do,” I said, rolling onto my side next to her.

She rolled onto her elbow, pressing a peck to my mouth before replying, “What?”

“I need you to be strong,” I began, hoping I’d deliver this with as much strength as softness. “I need you to tell the cops everything. I need you to do what your mom didn’t. I need you to tell them everything Ty ever did to you, down to the last finger he laid on you.”

Against everything I’d prepared myself for, her face didn’t blanch white, her eyes didn’t fill with fear, her shoulders didn’t fall with doubt. Emma had found the strength I’d known was there the whole time.

“And there will probably be a trial, and you’ll have to tell the god-awful story all over again. And I know how hard it will be for you to relive, to admit to strangers you were abused by the person who should have loved you unconditionally, but you need to do this so the SOB gets locked away for awhile and gets a permanent mark on his record.” I ran my thumb down the side of her face, having to dodge bandages and stitches like it was an obstacle course. “So next time he’s raising his hand to the next girl who falls for his act, he’ll think twice. He’ll wonder if this girl is as strong as you are, able to stand up to him. To hold him accountable for his actions.” I kissed the tip of her nose, watching a tear fall on her cheek. I didn’t realize it was mine at first. “Lock him away, Emma. And then I swear to you, he’ll never hold any sway in your life again.”

Her hand slid into the curve of my neck and, somehow, I felt what she was going to say before she said it. “You didn’t need to ask, tell, or demand me to tell my story,” she said, peaceful like I’d never heard her. Peaceful like the silence after a thunder storm in the summer. “I gave Ty too much of my life, and I’m not going to give him any more. I’ll tell everyone on the face of the planet my story if that’s what it takes to be free of him. I don’t even care if he only serves a week. That’s one week he can’t hurt anyone else,” she said, inhaling. “I know if I’d had one week without having to live in fear of every moment alone with him, every word I said that could set him off, it would have been like paradise.”

I wanted to kiss her again, I wanted to do more than just kiss her, but I heard the sound I’d been listening for approaching at last. Ty hadn’t wasted any time telling his story, but I’d said what I needed to say and could face what was to come next with a ready heart.

“All right, Em,” I said, pulling her up with me so I could hold her one more time. “The cops are almost here.”

Turning her head, like she was trying to pick up the sirens, she said, “How do you know? I don’t hear a thing.”

“They’re a little over one mile away,” I said, opening Pandora’s box just a crack, just enough to plant the seed so that when I told her everything, that seed would have taken root and could be built upon.

“And you can hear them from a mile away?” There was nothing antagonistic about her voice, just curiosity. Asking for an explanation‌—‌one that I couldn’t give at this time of impending arrest.

“I can,” I said, moving right along to my closing point. “When they get here, don’t say a word. Okay? Once we’re gone, go to the nearest police station and make your report.”

“Since I’m a fan of efficiency and convenience, why can’t I just tell these cops, in the comfort of your home, what happened?” she asked, her fingers gripping into my back like she too was already experiencing the separation anxiety I was.

“These cops are coming to arrest a bad guy, not take a domestic violence report from a nice girl,” I said, steering us out of the bedroom because I didn’t want anyone busting down my front doors. “We need empathetic, non-biased cops on our side here, and I promise you the ones about to come through that door won’t be.”

She could hear the sirens now‌—‌her head whipped towards the door like she was ready for an invasion and tear gas. Ever so slightly, so much so I could barely detect it, she started to tremble.

“This is no time to lose your courage now, Em,” I said, squeezing her shoulders. “Be brave. I promised you everything will be all right and that’s a promise I made with no maybes, no conditions. That’s a promise I’ll go to my grave to keep.” I looked hard at her, kissing her lips for the last time in what would be a while. The cops were already power-walking up the driveway‌—‌three of them. “Okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered, bobbing her head.

“I love you, Emma Scarlett,” I said, pressing my forehead against hers. “You make me every shade of crazy, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m coming back for you, and I better find you waiting for me because I don’t care what, why, or who it is, I’m not letting you go without a fight.”

A rapping thundered into the room and made both of us snap to attention, whipping our heads towards the door.

I slid her a reassuring smile before turning and walking towards the door, but she didn’t let me go alone. She wouldn’t let me face this without her at my side. She was just as much my protector as I was hers, and that made me feel every kind of good a man could feel.

Resting my hand on the handle, I exhaled. Sliding her hand over mine, she gave it a squeeze and helped me get this over with.

“Patrick Hayward?” the cop sporting a buzz cut, a mastiff sneer, and a pair of handcuffs boomed as soon as the door was open.

I nodded, spinning a one eighty, my hands crossing together over my back.

“You’re under arrest for the aggravated assault of Ty Steel. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney.”

I smirked at the floor; my attorney was going to kick their attorney’s ass.

And then I looked back up at Emma. At her anxious face, but still peaceful eyes. I was going to jail for a crime I didn’t commit for a woman I loved. And I’d do it all over again. I’d never been so bloody happy in my life before.

As officer bull mastiff started pulling on my freshly handcuffed wrists, I slid a smile into position, and I’d bet my fortune my eyes even twinkled. “Don’t worry about me, Em. No bars can keep me caged.”

CHAPTER ONE

Blackness still sweltered around me like an unwelcome house guest, but this time it had nothing to do with my mental fortitude, or decay thereof, and everything to do with it being lights out at my new bachelor pad. Also known as the prison that shall not be named.

Instead of spending the last few months wrapped in the glorious arms of the siren Emma Scarlett, I was gag reflex and hairnet deep in kitchen duty, slopping corned beef hash and other substances of a gelatinous form onto the trays of men wielding them like weapons.

In addition to being a jumpsuit wearing, slop-tossing maid, I showed the boys how a real game of street ball was played, bench pressed four hundred pounds just so every other bad ass behind bars would know I was the baddest ass of them all, and wrote enough love letters to keep the mailman busy. I also spent a good portion of my months behind bars losing myself in thought to pass the seemingly endless time.

Thoughts consumed all, every last one of the orange jump-suited felons with nothing to look forward to except tomorrow’s watered down cup of cheap coffee. Lucky for me, I had more than enough good ones to get me through the day‌—‌thoughts, that is. Ones that involved the woman I didn’t only love, but flippin’ worshipped. A woman who had as checkered of a past as myself; a woman who was honest enough to call me on my bull; and a woman I wouldn’t settle for anything less than spending the rest of her lifetime with.

So, yeah, to the ever growing list of attributes, verbs, adjectives, titles, and profanities prescribed to me, one could officially add felon. Nathanial was more than his usual shade of pissy self when Judge Stick-Up-His-Butt announced the verdict‌—‌not because his little brother was found guilty of aggravated assault and would be serving hard jail time, but because his perfect record of never losing a case had come to an end.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I’d let myself have a moment of vindication, doing an internal cartwheel that I was the one responsible for tarnishing a one hundred year winning streak, but then the fact I had a date with a sour-faced warden and hundreds of lonely, hardened criminals hit me full on as cold metal circled my wrists.

I didn’t even have a chance to grab her hard against me, bury my face into the bend of her neck, feel the breath moving in and out of her chest, before I was handcuffed. Watching her face fall apart as she mouthed my name while I was being all but drug out of the courtroom by the chain of a set of handcuffs was a worse punishment than the four month sentence I’d been given.

Emma gave her side of the story, like the pillar of strength I’d always known she was and she was just beginning to embrace, and it was convincing enough to lock the jailhouse bicycle formerly known as Ty Steele away for a year. I’d been so damn proud of her, hearing the run down of her testimony retold by William. I wanted nothing more than to fold her into my arms that night and fall asleep with her, putting her day in court, the past six years of domestic abuse, and the past twenty years of being abandoned by two parents in two very different ways behind us like a bad dream. I wanted to wake up with her the next morning and file those nightmares away forever and embrace the future together.