What a goddamn waste.
The silver lining? She’d said she loved him. Last night and again just now, in between something about beating up Jase and Deuce leaving, she’d sure as shit had said she’d loved him, as well as admitting her fear of losing him again. It was a surprising and not so surprising revelation. There had been times that he’d suspected her feelings had run deeper than she’d let on, but she’d never admitted it and so he hadn’t either.
But none of that shit mattered anymore. He was sick of living in the past, of living in a future going nowhere. And he didn’t want to look back anymore.
“Dorothy.”
She just kept talking.
“Dorothy!”
Still, she kept talking. And, goddamn it, if he didn’t love the shit out of this woman, he would most certainly kill her.
“DOROTHY!” His hand flew to his throat as he instantly regretting yelling. Although it seemed to do the trick; she was no longer babbling but instead staring at him.
“For fuck’s sake,” he rasped, rubbing his throat. “Shut up.”
“Shut up,” she whispered, her face crumpling. “Shut up? You’re seriously going to talk to me like—”
“Yes,” he gritted out, cutting her off. “I’m seriously goin’ to tell you to shut up and get your ass over here.” He attempted moving himself, wincing when the pain in his leg intensified, and decided to hold out his arm to her instead. “Just come here,” he said, gesturing with his hand. “Just shut up and come here.”
A long pause followed, and then she stammered, “I should get dressed.”
“No!” he yelled, growing increasingly frustrated with her and the fact that he couldn’t get off the damn bed to go get her himself. “Get the fuck over here!”
It was slow going, but eventually she put one foot in front of the other. He waited with his arm outstretched as she moved toward him at a snail’s pace, trying to maintain patience when he felt anything but.
She paused at the edge of the bed, her face still flushed and red from crying as she gripped the towel to her chest. Her gaze skittered up and down his body, then across the bed and even farther, toward the window as she looked anywhere but directly at him.
Realizing what was happening, that Dorothy was being her own worst enemy, he released a heavy sigh and let his arm drop to the mattress.
“Woman,” he said softly. “Stop fuckin’ thinkin’ so damn much.”
Her gaze lifted, meeting his, and they stared at each other, her green eyes filling with tears, his body itching with the need to bring her close to feel her against him.
And also with the need to pee. Christ, he had to piss. Great fucking timing too. He’d waited twenty years for her to admit she had feelings for him, and for almost eight just for the chance to touch her again, and he wasn’t going to let an untimely bodily function fuck this all up.
“I thought I was going to lose you,” she whispered tearfully. “I thought I’d never get another chance.”
“Thought you woulda figured this shit out by now,” he said. “That as long as I’m breathin’, I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
“I know that you were there . . . for Christopher,” she said, her voice small, unsure.
“For both of you,” he corrected her, dropping his gaze to the necklace. “I’ve always been there for both of you.”
With one hand still clutching her towel, she reached up with the other and again clutched the tiny pendant that hung from her neck.
Remembering Christopher’s attempts at trying to convince him that what she really wanted for Christmas was a new video game console, Hawk almost smiled. Almost. But knowing Dorothy, she would misconstrue his smile for something else entirely.
“I screwed up,” she said, shaking her head. “I was scared and I made the wrong choice. I’ll never forget the way you looked at me that night . . . like I’d betrayed you.”
“I screwed up,” he snapped, growing angry in the face of her infamous self-loathing, the one thing about her that he didn’t miss. “Me, Dorothy, get that through your thick head. I took somethin’ that wasn’t mine to take and expected . . . aw, fuck!”
He clenched his fists and his breathing grew heavy. “I don’t know what I expected,” he gritted out. “But none of that shit matters anymore. You said you loved me, you know I love you, so I’m not seein’ what the problem is and why you’re not gettin’ your ass over here so I can fuckin’ touch you.”
More tears, goddamn her never-ending tears, filled her eyes and overflowed.
“You still love me?” she whispered.
Jesus Christ, this woman, this silly fucking woman . . .
“Dorothy,” he said. “Yeah, I fuckin’ love you. Didn’t think I needed to say it. Figured you already knew.”
Once again she averted her eyes, and he knew she was doing what she did best. The wheels were spinning, she was overthinking every fucking thing, talking herself out of anything that could potentially serve to make her happy.
“It’s been so long,” she said with a shaky sigh. “We don’t even really know each other anymore.”
He wanted to laugh at her, maybe smack her a few times, or grab her by her foot and hang her upside down and shake all that fucking self-doubt straight out of her. Instead, he schooled his expression, maintaining the facade of calm that Dorothy had always needed from him when she was emotionally flailing.
“What’s there to know,” he said with a carefree shrug that caused every inch of the ravaged skin and injured muscle in his arms and chest to flare with pain. “My name is James Alexander Young. I was born and raised in New York. I was—”
He stopped talking the moment she started smiling.
“But that’s not who you are,” she said softly. “Not really.”
“Come here,” he said, crooking his finger and for once, surprising the shit out of him, she actually listened. Leaning down, using her hand to steady herself, she bent over the side of the bed. Still she was too far away, forcing him lean to the side, which caused him ungodly amounts of pain. And yet he persisted, keeping his struggle silent as he strained his body in her direction. When their heads nearly touched, he reached up and slid his hand over the smooth skin of her cheek and into her hair.
“Luca Polachev died a long fuckin’ time ago,” he said. “I am James Young, a member of the Hell’s Horsemen, one of Deuce’s boys, and the proud father of Christopher Kelley. That is who I am now, and those are the only parts that matter.”
Pressing her cheek into his hand, she gave him one of her sweet smiles, the same smile that had drawn her to him in the first place. It had made him want to take all that innocence, that inherent goodness that was Dorothy, and make it his own.
“You need a bath,” she whispered, wrinkling her nose.
“Yeah,” he whispered back. He needed a bath, a haircut, and a shave, as well as a couple dozen rounds with a toothbrush. He could probably use a new leg while he was at it, but most of all he needed to take a fucking piss.
But before any of that would happen, before she could say another goddamn word, he leaned as far as he possibly could without screaming out in pain, and laid waste to the remaining inch between them.
“You know what I always regretted?” he whispered. “Never puttin’ you on the back of my bike. Just me and you, out in the sun. No more fuckin’ hidin’.”
Dorothy had just enough time to suck in a small, surprised breath.
Then Hawk, despite feeling like anything he said or did could potentially break the tenuous connection between them, decided, Fuck it, and kissed her. Because when it came to Dorothy, he figured he didn’t have anything left to lose.
For the first time in almost eight long years, he kissed his woman.