Fragile Lives: A small-town, age-gap, brother’s best friend romance (Little Hope series Book 4)
Fragile Lives: Chapter 27

To say things begin moving fast would be a major understatement. And to say that I’m happy with that would be the same. I’m fucking ecstatic. And very scared that one day I’ll wake up and realize that all these positive feelings and fullness in my life have been a dream.

Every day since she’s come here, my head is brighter in the mornings, and my heart lighter every time it beats. I like to watch her sleep, like I’m doing right now. Her mouth is always ajar, and she makes cute noises while she sleeps. I tried telling her about that yesterday, but her nose scrunched while she tried to prove me wrong, her eyes full of horror as if making sounds at night is something shameful. It’s not, and she’s adorable.

This house feels more like a home than just the giant monstrosity it was before. All she did was throw her socks everywhere, and chip the new cup we bought, and the house suddenly became cozy. We go to some department store and buy cheap stuff that we definitely don’t need. She puts it everywhere, and the level of coziness increases before my very own eyes. She replaced my designer pillows with some bright plush ones, adds throw blankets to every chair, and bought fake house plants. She wanted the real deal, but I convinced her that the poor plants would die when I’m out of town. Even with everything out of place, it all works somehow. My designer, Josie, would have a stroke if she saw the house right now, but it’s never been cozier for me.

Maybe it’s her presence and not just the little things I notice everywhere now. Or maybe it’s both. Regardless, I’m in a state of constant terror every single minute of my life, terrified that it will be ripped away from me because someone out there will remember that I don’t deserve any of it.

She stirs and stretches her arm out, looking for me even in her sleep. I pull her into me and make her my small spoon. My dick stirs too, of course. How could it not when her plump, warm ass is pressing against it. I bury my nose into her hair and breathe her in. Her scent became so familiar and so calming. I’d be an idiot if I thought I could be cured from all the shit that’s been happening in my head in a week. The truth about the operation and my involvement in it hit hard, but it also relieved some of the guilt. Only some of it—I’m still here and they’re still not. But it’s easier to breathe now. I can say their names without reaching for a bottle and maybe, one day, I will be courageous enough to talk to their families.

Leila’s been here for a week, and I feel like it’s been a year. I don’t want her to ever leave my side. Kenneth called me yesterday, laughing that she hijacked his truck and asking if I’m ever planning on returning his car and his sister. I told him no. He called me a motherfucker and asked to take care of them both because it took him a hot minute to save up enough to get the truck, so he’s expecting it back, but I could keep the sister though—she’s for free. I know it’s a joke because he loves her to death, but his approval means more than I care to admit.

I know that it would be selfish to keep her all to myself—she’s young and she hasn’t seen the world yet. But she sure as fuck won’t see any other dick—I’ll make sure she’s so satisfied she can’t even think of sex. Especially, with someone other than me.

I don’t know how to do relationships, and it’s not because I’m some Casanova asshole like some people think I am, but because I’ve known for a long time that my life wouldn’t be long, and I didn’t want to put it on another person. So, I stayed alone and stuck to my one-night stands. I didn’t know what I was missing though. Now, I’m a different sort of addict, and I don’t think I can let her go.

“Mmm,” she mumbles and turns her face to kiss my forearm.

“Good morning, my queen.”

“Queen?” She giggles. “Since when are you calling me that?”

“Since now, I think. Because you’re my queen.”

She giggles again, tickling the hairs on my arm and wiggling her ass, completely waking up my cock.

“You’ve got some morning wood there.”

“I’ve been awake for a long time—it’s a ‘my queen’s ass is against my crotch situation.’” I reply, grouchy, even though I’m anything but. The morning is perfection.

“Do you need help with that?” She turns to face me. A playful light in her eyes makes my dick jump. “I take that as a yes.”

She sits up, the covers rolling off of her to reveal her gorgeous, naked body and fresh tattoo. Only my hand will ever ink her. Mine.

Then she slowly shifts toward my feet, and my breathing quickens.

“Hands under your head, soldier,” she orders in that tone of hers she’s mastered by now.

“I’m not—” I follow the delicious routine with a smile.

“You are what I say you are.” She bites her lips and rakes her nails over my thighs. My poor—happy—dick jolts again, weeping with precum.

She slowly moves her nails higher up my thighs and spreads her palms over my stomach. The muscles under her touch begin jerking, and a look of satisfaction sweeps across her face. Then she slowly lowers her head and gives it a long, torturous lick. And then another. Then her mouth ends up on the head, and she covers it with her wet, hot mouth. My balls draw, and I will them to stand the fuck down.

I want so badly to dig my fingers into her gorgeous mane and move her head up and down, but I can’t. I’m bound by her order to keep my hands away. I like these games we play—I like to give up control occasionally, especially when she seems to like taking it so much.

Her mouth slowly moves down my cock, and the head hits the back of her throat. She gags and pulls away. Saliva drips from her chin. It’s so fucking dirty. It’s so fucking sexy.

She makes another attempt to take me in, but she can’t, and we both know why. I want to tell her that I’m happy with anything, even with her just looking at me, but then she tilts her head a little so she can see me. Her mouth is full of my dick, and I don’t think I need her to fucking go any further, because I’m going to come just from the view.

She does a few slow pumps while her hands move over my lower stomach, scratching my skin with her nails. She lets go of it with a pop, licking from the base to the tip while maintaining eye contact. And then she puts her mouth on it again, swallowing half of it until it hits her throat.

“Lei.” My voice is coarse. “Lei,” I try again as she keeps moving her head up and down. “Please, come here.” I’m not above the begging. Who the fuck cares if that works for the both of us?

She smiles with my cock still in her mouth and pulls away. She climbs on top of me, positioning my slick dick at the entrance of her pussy, and slides in.

That’s it, I’m in heaven.

After another round—we’re like rabbits, constantly fucking—we sit and eat the breakfast that she’s made from the groceries we bought like a real family and just chat. Then her face darkens, I prepare for the worst: she’ll tell me she’s had her fun, and it’s time to move on with our lives. But I don’t have a life aside from her anymore. I’m like a fucking psycho at this point, and I’m loving it.

“I need to go back to Little Hope, Stephan.” She stands up to pour us more coffee. “I’ve got things to do there. And Kenneth really needs his truck back—he can’t keep driving the police cruiser around.”

“Okay, I’ll go with you.” I shrug, dreading her answer.

“What about your business?” She sits back in her chair and taps her chin with her finger. “To think of it, I think we need to talk logistics. I’m there, and you’re here. I don’t know how we can work around that drive.”

“I can get a house there,” I suggest hopefully.

“Why would you need a house? I already have a place.”

My heart skips a beat in hope.

“Okay, then what’s the problem?”

She places her mug back on the table before speaking again. “How long can we do that? You know, live in a car, driving back and forth.” Her face turns sad.

“Do you want to move to Boston?”

She looks around. “I like Boston and I like your house, but Little Hope is where I’m supposed to be,” she says, so sure of herself, leaving no doubt that that’s exactly where she’s supposed to be, and she believes it.

“Then I’ll move to Little Hope and will come back here for business.”

“You can’t leave everything behind for me.” She looks around, uncomfortable, as if thinking I’ll miss this house and the city. Well, maybe I’ll miss the city a little, but who cares about that when she’ll be by my side every single day. “It’s not right.”

“Leila,” I take her hand in mine, “without you, there won’t be anything. You need to understand that. I’ll move anywhere for you.”

“What about your business?”

“I was thinking of asking TJ,” she gives me a questioning look, “Kayla’s old boss,” I explain, and she nods. “So, I was thinking to ask him if he wants to do business with me or something anyway. I forgot how much I love inking and how much I’ve missed it. And it’s about time I offer Cherry to be a partner, or someone will snatch her from me.”

Her face brightens at the news, and I ask, “You really like Cherry, huh?”

Her smile is sad and understanding. “She is your family, Stephan. No matter how you look at it, she’s been there for you, and I’m very grateful to her for taking care of you.”

That makes me pause. I guess if you look at the situation between me and Cherry like that, she’s been watching out for me.

“You have a very light hand. I didn’t feel any pain.”

“Liar,” I laugh.

“Maybe a little.” She winces and shows a tiny space between her thumb and pointing finger. “A bit. But I’ve seen your drawings, Stephan, you should do more of them. People need someone like you to express their feelings in art when they can’t do it themselves. I sure can’t, and you made the perfect thing for me.”

Yeah, since the moment they tricked me into inking Leila, I’ve been thinking about that. My hand’s been itching to take a pencil and draw. I can almost feel the vibration of iron in my fingers. I’ve missed it, and I’ve missed the feel of freedom that comes with it. It’s an unexplainable feeling when you leave a permanent mark on someone’s body. You transfer your energy to them. And that was one of the main reasons I stopped inking—I wasn’t enough of an asshole to transfer my shit on people. But now I feel that’s changed. That I can actually work with people without giving them my negativity. I need to talk to TJ about possibilities, if there are any. Hell, I’ll even be okay if he hires me as a guest artist for a day a week. I could totally open another shop under my own name there, but I don’t want to step on his turf—he’s spent years building his business there.

“Then it’s settled.” I take her hand again, pull it to me, and kiss her wrist. “I’ll start building a house in Little Hope. I need to call my designer ASAP. It’ll take months, so it’s better to start earlier.”

Her brows shoot up. “Building a house, huh? You sure don’t waste time.”

“I’ve wasted enough,” I say seriously. “I don’t want to waste a minute. Plus, I don’t want you to change your mind.” I shoot her her favorite lopsided smile.

She laughs, shaking her head, as if the possibility of that is hilarious. I sure hope it is.

Today is Saint Valentine’s Day, and I’m going to propose. Yes, I’m very basic. Yes, I’m crazy—we haven’t been dating long, but it’s enough to know that I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I might need some liquid courage before since I’m sure there is a high chance she’ll say no. But I’ll keep trying.

We’ve been living in two cities for nearly a month, and it sure is difficult, especially for her. Her whole family is here, and I see how much she misses them. How often she talks on the phone with her mom, Aiden, and Kenneth while she’s in Boston; I guess they’re the closest to her. She mentioned that they talked with Alex since he detailed the story about our last mission in the Navy, but I haven’t seen her talking to him on the phone. Nor have I. He hasn’t made any attempts to reach out to me, and neither have I. After Leila’s story, I wanted to make sure I’m in the right state of mind when we talk—we have so many topics to discuss, the first one being him never raising his voice at my woman again.

I bought her a new car, a very large red SUV with the latest safety features since she’s so scared of the snow. It’s hilarious how tight she grips the steering wheel every time a snowflake shows up in the air. When I gave her the keys, she refused it. Of course. I expected that. But after a few hours of ‘tight convincing’ (ahem), she gave up and accepted it. I want to spoil my woman and will do just that, and even said woman can’t stop me from doing so.

We’ve been staying in her house for a couple of days, I love it, but it’s tiny. Plus, I want to give something to her, so as I planned, I spoke to my designer Josie about the new house. I didn’t tell her where I wanted to build as to not shock her—she lives in New York, and I’m sure she won’t be thrilled to spend months in a small town. She loves to oversee her projects, so she’ll want to oversee this one since I’m willing to put a lot of money into it—my woman deserves the best.

Speaking of said woman, she went to the tiny shop across the street to get some gifts for her family, because apparently, they gift some cute nonsense to each other on this holiday, while I go to get a coffee from Donna’s shop.

I’m carrying two to-go cups and step on the street when the hairs on the back of my head stand up. The air electrifies, and everything turns slow motion. I look around but don’t see a reason for any of it. Yet still, my instinct screams ‘danger.’ The same instincts that kept me alive during years in the Navy. And the feeling is exactly the same. Danger is nearby. The same feeling I had in the woods, but never since then. So I got sloppy, thinking it was a fluke and my paranoia talking.

I search for Leila and replace her walking out of the shop and striding toward me. A big happy smile on her. Her humongous puffy jacket swallows her whole as usual, strands of her wild, unruly hair poke from under her white beanie. She pulls the phone out of her pocket and looks at it. Her face changes instantly: it darkens, and her eyes shoot around.

My heart slows down. My head whips around, looking for danger.

And then I see him.

A man in a black jacket and a cap low on his eyes.

And everything clicks in place. All my feelings of being watched. Instincts screaming that someone had been at her house. Constant footsteps of never-ending deliveries in her yard.

He pulls a gun out. I don’t have time to take him down, nor do I have a weapon, so I lunge, praying to God and everyone who will listen that they’ll help me to get to her on time. Coffee splashing everywhere as the cups hit the asphalt.

“Leila, down!” I yell, hoping she’ll understand.

She doesn’t see him, but he sees her. His gun is trained on her.

Her scared eyes are wide open. She keeps listening to whatever is being said on the other side of the line. She doesn’t understand what’s happening around her but looks around in shock and fear when she sees me going crazy.

“Leila, duck down!” I yell again. “The gun!”

I’m ten feet away.

He fires. I jump. Another shot. The world stops. The sound of another gun shot.

I knock her down to the ground, covering her with my heavy body. Too heavy. I try to move and see where the attacker is, and it takes everything I have to move a bit to the side, so I don’t squash her with my weight while still covering her with my body in case he tries again.

My lungs burn. The taste of metal plagues my mouth. It’s hard to breathe. There’s a wheezing sound. Darkness overcomes…

I succumb to the tiredness and close my eyes, praying she is all right.