“Can’t!” was the only answer I received as she started moving. Up slow, down fast, ending each thrust with a grind of her hips. Her fantastic tits bouncing in my face, I moved my hand up and popped the remaining buttons of her dress, leaning down a little to suckle her hard pink nipple.

“Mace, baby, I need to go harder, faster. I need you,” she moaned.

Scarlett rode me harder, faster, reflecting back just as much need as I was feeling.

“Mine!” I ground out. “You’re mine, babe. Tell me.”

My head came up. Hand down I reached between us and flicked her clit ring, tearing a gasp from her throat. The same second, a groan ripped from my chest as her muscles tightened around me. “Yours. I’m yours, Mace,” she whimpered.

“Come for me, baby. Come on me,” I growled against her lips before I took her mouth. Grinding against me, she came undone, taking me right along with her.

“Mace, oh God, Mace! Ohhhh!”

“Fuck, Scarlett!” I roared.

Her head against my chest, my face leaning on the top of her head, our breaths slowly returned to normal. At that moment, something occurred to me. I wasn’t waiting anymore. I wasn’t letting another day go by without knowing she was mine for life. Not another second was I going to be without her.

“I want you to be mine,” I whispered against her hair.

“Told you I’m yours.” I felt her lips smiling against my skin.

“No. I want you to be mine for the rest of my life. I want you to be my wife,” I clarified. I felt Scar tense and go still in my arms. A moment of doubt formed in my mind. What if she said no? I was still hard inside her heat, now probably wasn’t the best time to ask such an important question. Or maybe it was? I couldn’t get any closer to her if I tried. Right now, we were two parts of a whole.

“Babe?” I prompted, getting a little worried she hadn’t answered me.

“Did you just ask me to marry you? While you’re inside me?”

“Yeah, you gonna put me outta my misery and answer me?” I whispered, scared shitless she’d tell me to go fuck myself.

“Yes,” she whispered, burying her face further into my chest.

Panic set in. “’Yes’, you’ll marry me or ‘yes’ you’ll put me outta my misery?” I rambled.

“Yes, I’ll marry you,” she said, her voice but a whisper.

“Think you can look at me and tell me, baby?” I asked, relief washing through me. But wariness and concern travelled through me. I just needed her to look at me. Why was she hiding?

“No, I don’t wanna do the girl thing and cry. You’re makin me feel all squishy and shit,” she mumbled against my skin. That was it for me. I burst out laughing. Her head snapped up and she slapped my chest lightly.

“Don’t laugh at me! It’s not funny. I don’t do squishy,” she pouted.

“I’m not, I swear,” I chuckled. “You are the only woman I know that would be worried about crying in front of her soon to be husband”

“Shut up and kiss me, you fool,” she smiled.

“My pleasure, baby.” I took her mouth as her hips started to move slowly. Me making love to her mouth, while she made love to me. What felt like hours later, we collapsed on the sofa sweaty and satisfied. An overwhelming contentment filled my chest.

“You really gonna marry me?”

“Yep, I may be a shitty wife though,” she said with a smirk.

“I may be a shitty husband, but we’ll pull each other up and I’ll love you just the same.”

“You might regret this,” she whispered.

Bringing my lips down on hers, kissing her whisper soft, I said, “One thing I will never regret in my life is you, Scarlett.”

“Best day of my life when you walked into my shop,” she mumbled against my lips.

Being with Scar had healed me. She took what I was and made it better. What we had in this moment, it was more. This was my love, her love—torn, damaged, broken, ripped apart and put back together. This was our tattered love.

Epilogue

“Scotch on the rocks,” I told the bartender before turning back to the party. Doing a quick sweep of the room, I took in all the crap hanging from the ceiling; streamers, paper bells and bird-shaped shit, the confetti and champagne glasses strewn across every surface. It looked like cupid had walked in and puked on the place. The lovey dovey shit was for the birds.

My eyes fell on Mace and Scarlett holding each other on the dance floor. Scarlett looking up at Mace like he hung the stars and moon, Mace looking down at her like she was God’s gift, made just for him. The way they were with each other made me wanna poke my eyeballs out with a fork. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy for them. There weren’t two people I knew who deserved to be as happy as those two were, but the thought of being with one person for the rest of my life made me nauseous and claustrophobic.

Turning back to the bar, I picked up my glass and downed it in one hit. I’d need a good bit of booze to get me through the night, to deal with all the sweet-cutesy crap.

I scanned the room, again my gaze landing on Teeny sitting quietly on her own in a corner, smiling sadly at the happily-engaged couple. As somber as she looked, she was still a knock out, and she still wasn’t speaking to me. Not nicely anyway. One night of stupid drunken decisions, and I’d royally screwed up years of carefully constructed friendship.

I was an asshole, but I’d warned her I was. In all fairness, I’d been upfront about my one night rule before I took advantage of a liquor fuelled situation. Still, I felt like I’d screwed shit up, Teen looked at me like she wanted to do bodily harm, gone was her usual happy-go-lucky sweet smile.

Mace and Scar broke away from their lip lock as Teeny stood up and made her way in my direction toward the bar. My eyes instantly dropping to her swelling cleavage and rounded hips. I’d never wanted to bang a chick more than once in my life; it was confusing. On one hand, I figured it was because she was in my life so much. I mean, of course I would want more, she was without a doubt the best lay I’d had, not to mention she was a great girl. On the other hand, perhaps I was just turning into a pussy.

Mace’s voice behind me drew me out of my thoughts “You gonna stare all night or do something about it?” he asked as he clapped me on the shoulder, leaned over the bar and ordered a beer.

My eyes still trained to Teeny’s short green dress. The shoes she was wearing made her legs look unbelievably long. Shrugging my shoulders was the only answer I had for Mace. I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do about the whole cockeyed situation.

“You look really happy. You’re one damn lucky bastard that woman said yes to your stupid ass,” I told him with a smile. “Though I still don’t understand why you’d wanna be all wifed up”

“Happy doesn’t even scratch the surface; Scar’s everything I’ll ever need. You’ll get it one day, little brother”. His face went from the soft expression he held when talking about Scar to a small smile. “Probably the day you can put your dick away for five minutes and look at what’s in front of you,” he answered, nodding his head toward an approaching Teeny.

“Don’t you fuckin start too, you sound like Ma. Teeny can’t stand me. Besides, I like my dick outta my pants; it finds all kinds of fun shit to do.” Mace adjusted his arm in his sling and took a step off to the side leaning against the bar facing the party. No doubt looking for Scar; those two were practically attached at the hip.

I ordered another scotch and a vodka tonic, pushing it in front of Teen as she stepped up to the bar. She looked down at it and sniffed. A look of disgust crossed her pretty face as she pushed the glass aside. “Can I have a ginger ale please?” she asked the bartender.

Sick of her testy attitude, I called her on it. “What the fuck did I do to you?”

She turned toward me, her face hardening and sneered, “You’ve done enough!”

“Oh, princess, I haven’t even started on what I want to do to you,” I told her, the honest answer leaving my mouth before my brain could filter it. Her face crumpled and she turned and raced toward the restrooms.

Fuck this shit.

I was gonna find out what her problem was with me if it killed me. I downed the last of my drink and pushed off from the bar. “Hold up, bud, I’ll walk with you. Scar’s takin too long.”

With a nod, we both made our way across the busy room, avoiding grabby aunties as we went.

The moment I stepped around the corner into the long walkway, I came to an abrupt halt. A mixture of emotions hit me all at once; jealousy, anger, protectiveness and something that made my chest tight.

Scar’s voice drifted to my ears, “The stress isn’t good for the baby, sweetie, you need to tell him.”

Teeny stood there, her back to us, Scarlett holding the tops of her arms. The second Scar lifted her gaze, her eyes flicked around and a whispered, “Oh shit!” escaped her lips.

Teeny spun around, tears marking her face with an audible gasp, her hand went to her stomach along with my gaze.

WHAT THE FUCK!

I hesitated to move closer, annoyed she hadn’t felt like she could tell me. I mean she wasn’t seeing anyone but the dude who knocked her up, he better step up and help her or I’d beat the crap outta him. A shadow of anger at the thought of her being in somebody else’s bed, having somebody else’s hands on her body, those lips around somebody else’s—I shook my head to clear my shitty and confusing train of thought.

I took a few big strides putting myself in front of her small frame and asked, “Whose is it?”

Teeny’s body went stiff, her face void of all emotion. Her hand pressed tighter to her stomach. She turned to walk away, but I reached out and gripped her free hand stopping her escape.

“Whose kid is it?” Mace’s hand connected with the back of my head. “What the hell, dude?”

“Dumbass!” he muttered, taking a step toward Scar and Teen. His insult rolled off my back; I didn’t care if I was being an ass. I wanted to make sure Teeny’s guy was gonna take care of her.

“Fuck you!” she whispered, not looking at me.

“I never pegged you for stupid, Trip.” This from Scar.

“Me stupid? Why? Wait—” My head was spinning, like I’d drunk an entire bottle of tequila. The air I was gulping wasn’t getting to my lungs. “Do you mean…?”