Page 17 of Scotch: Unraveled

The more I get worked up? Jesus, this woman’s going to be the death of me. None of that other shite matters now. We got a second chance here and we’re taking it. Don’t care if I gotta drag her along with me kicking and screaming. We’re taking it. “Yar mine.”

“I’m not.”

“Really?” I ask, raising my eyebrow at her in my ‘I’m not fucking around’ way she wouldn’t have forgotten. “I’ll give you a second to rethink that conclusion.”

“God, were you always this bossy?”

“If I wasn’t, then I should’ve been.”

Her gaze travels from my eyebrow to my lips and then she licks her lips nervously before she looks away. She was an active participant in the aftermath of when it happened a few minutes ago. It takes everything I’ve got to not let it go there again, but we can’t go there again until we get this bullshite hashed out. Though, our separation proves too much and I stand to walk around the bed, kneeling in front of her to put us at eye level—so she knows I mean business—and I grip her arms. “Frankie,” I say gently. “Yar mine, lass. Ya know it. The fact that ya showed here instead of heading home proves it.”

Frankie places a hand to each of my cheeks and looks me in the eyes. “Miscommunication or not, you broke my heart.” When I open my mouth to protest, she moves one hand over to cover my mouth. “Please, Rory. Let me finish. How I remember it, no matter if it’s right or wrong, is thatyoubrokemyheart. I’m scared to go back there with you. Mollie and Macie are so precious. The more I’m with them, the deeper I fall in love with them. What happens if we lose our way again? It’s not just us. You’ve got girls to think about. Girls who can’t be getting attached to every woman you bring around, only to have that woman ripped away from them, too.”

That’s unfair and pisses me off. “Francesca, I would never put those girls in the way of hurt, and ya damn well know it. I would never put you in the way of hurt, either. I’ll give ya time to get to know me again, but I’m never letting go. This is it, so ya best get used to the idea. Yar mine. Period.”

She closes her eyes to breathe in and out, slowly centering herself. And surprising the hell out of me, she bends in to kiss me. A sweet, tender press of her lips that reignites my love for her in spite of all this who-hurt-whom past crap, a love that might have settled to burning embers over the years we were apart but was never extinguished. Could never be extinguished. Not even someday when in death we do part.

Oh yeah, she’s definitely my old lady.

Frankie moves her lips away to search my face, running her thumb down the scar that cuts through my eyebrow. Something new since the last time we were together. The remnant of a bad decision made from a wild broken heart and the abandoning of senses to follow. When she left, I didn’t care what happened to me and I predictably found trouble.

Then she moves her fingers to the scars on my chest. “What did you get yourself into, Rory?” she asks, but she’s not really asking. More wondering out loud.

I have a few more of those. Bullet wounds. Life tumbled into a never-ending pit of booze, women, and hard living after she left. I’m not the same Rory she fell in love with the first time. Self-destructive Rory took over, leading me down a path that was sure to end my life if I hadn’t found the brothers. Sometimes I ran my mouth on drunken bravado, sometimes I took offense when someone else did. And some of those women weren’t exactly single.

Fuck, I’m not proud of that time in my life. I’m not in a hurry to let her know just how badly it tore me up when she left. That knowledge gives her power and despite how badly I want her again and know she’s mine, I’mnotready for her to wield that power over me.

“I’ll tell ya anything you want to know, but not right now,” I whisper and close my eyes, pressing my nose to her cheek. “Don’t want to scare you, lass.” She was right. As I calmed down, my accent rescinded.

A pained expression on her beautiful face, she bites down on her bottom lip this time, thankfully learning not to lick it. “You scare the hell out of me, Rory MacGregor.”

“But you still love me,” I tease, hoping to elicit a reaction, in the affirmative if being honest.

“What am I going to do with you?” she asks, bending in to take my mouth again. We press our foreheads together, then as she holds my face and she swallows. “I have to go to work.”

“But yar coming back here?” What is she thinking? God, I can’t lose her again.

“I’ll bring the girls with me.”

That’s not a fucking answer.

6.

Frankie

Rory and the girls arrive at my apartment complex first thing in the morning. It’s Saturday, the Saturday after he’d been arrested by that jerkwad Rodrick and I promised Rory a nursery. They get me because we need his truck to haul our bounty home and I certainly plan on hauling back a bounty. What can I say? I’m a woman. I love to shop. And what’s better to shop for than baby stuff?

Answer: Nothing.

There is nothing better. Not shoes. Purses. Clothing for ourselves.

He looks gorgeous sitting behind the wheel idling in the parking lot in front of my building, having texted me when they arrived so he didn’t have to unhook Mollie and Macie, and it was the right call. Through the windshield I can see he’s got on one of those skintight because his muscles are so big, thermal Henleys under his leather cut. It’s black, just like his cut and I’d be willing to bet that he’s got bootylicious black jeans on too. Rory tends to like his black clothing.

“Donuts?” he askes when I slid in the front seat next to him. I don’t even have the door closed yet, but my tummy answers for me in the form of a growl. I answer him anyway.

“Donuts sound amazing. I am so in the mood for Long Johns.”

“Ya do like your cream filling,” he jokes with me and I roll my eyes at his inference. Ever since I let him tackle my mouth with his tongue, he’s been trying to get me to recreate that morning. Though he won’t recrate it. I think he’s waiting on me, which I actually think is a super sweet gesture. I’m just not ready yet. Hopefully I’ll be ready sooner than later because Rory’s lips are magic. Pure unadulterated magic.

---