Absentmindedly, I run my hand up my arm, over my hoodie. The scars have faded easier there than the ones on my palm and in my side.
Regardless, I’m not sure I mind any of them.
It’s a reminder of all the shit I survived. All the shit we endured to be right here.
“We should go,” Cort says, kissing my cheek. “I’ve got work in the morning.”
My chest tightens as I think about it. He quit school. Started working full-time in construction. A job his uncle helped him get with some connections.
I’m still in school with plans to finish, despite, or maybe because of, the baby.
Storm offered to babysit.
The thought makes me laugh a little.
Maybe.
“Okay, baby,” I tell him, twisting under his arms to look up at his gray eyes in the night.
He smiles, that lip ring tugging up as he does. “God, I love when you look at me like that.”
My heart skips a beat. “Like what?” I ask quietly.
He leans down close to me, his nose to mine. “Like you don’t wanna be anywhere else in the world but here in my arms.”
He tilts his head and his lips find mine.
I don’t answer him with words.
The kiss tells him everything he needs to know.
This is exactly where I want to be.
“Don’tyou dare fucking lift that.”
I roll my eyes, running my hands down my plaid shirt.Hisshirt. I dust them off on my jeans, straightening the box I’d been about to take from the bed of his truck. I tuck a lock of hair behind my ear, glaring at him as he grabs a box and walks backward, toward the door.
I see his muscles flex beneath his tight, black long-sleeved shirt.
West River Wolves,because of fucking course.
“You’re pissing me off,” I tell him. “I’m not a delicate flower.”
He grins, glancing at my throat, fresh bruises along my collarbone. I convinced him we could still have rough sex.
Thank God. He admitted he liked it always, but that he’d never want anything else with anyone but me ever again.
“I know,” he says, running his tongue over his lip ring.
“Just indulge him,” Storm says at my side, and I turn my head to meet his blue eyes as he pulls a box of my shit from the dorm to the edge of the truck. “He’s crazy about you, you know?”
I smile, my cheeks heating as I do, Storm giving me a rare smile of his own.
“I know,” I tell him.
“I’m taking a break!” I hear Sloane yell from inside the house.
“I’m getting high!” Van adds.