Madeline Sheehan - Unattainable

He was shaking now, not out of fear but because he was crying. Because everything she’d just said had been everything he’d always wanted to hear, he just hadn’t realized it. Not until right now.

“Are you going to let me love you?” she whispered.

He swallowed hard. He couldn’t speak; if he tried, he would just end up sobbing, so he nodded instead and Ellie’s beautiful face, her eyes, her mouth, smiled at him in return.

• • •

Lying atop Dirty, Ellie traced the lines of his face. He looked so different when he was sleeping. Peaceful, not tormented. She would give anything to see him look that way while awake. Anything.

He was like a child in so many ways. Everything was new to him and so she’d gone out on a limb, hoping and praying it wouldn’t backfire, and took control much in the way a parent would an out-of-control child. She hadn’t realized it at the time, but while she was trying to save Dirty from himself, by taking control, she’d inadvertently taken back a little piece of what she’d lost at the hands of Daniel.

Kissing his lips softly, so as not to wake him, Ellie climbed off the couch and bent down to retrieve her clothes. As she dressed, she surveyed the apartment, full of her boxes waiting to be unpacked, and shook her head.

This wasn’t at all how she’d thought her life would go.

Not even close.

But she wouldn’t change a thing.

Not one damn thing.

She’d fallen so deep into his world, into him, that when he was hurting she felt that, deeply. She wasn’t even sure anymore where she began and he ended and to be honest, she didn’t want it any other way.

Dressed, she ventured into the bedroom to retrieve her phone from her purse and dialed her voice mail.

The first two were from work and the third…

Ellie, it’s Dad. Mom’s been taken to the hospital. Honey…it’s not good. You need to get here as soon as possible.

Grabbing her purse, Ellie rushed from the bedroom.

“Michael!” she cried and he shot up from the couch, his eyes wild.

“What?” he yelled.

She shook her head frantically. “My mom,” she said, her eyes filling. “She’s…I’ve got to go. She’s at the hospital.”

Dirty was up on his feet and zipping up his pants as he crossed the room. Grabbing her hand, he pulled her toward the door.

“Shoes,” he said, pointing to her flats as he snatched his keys off the end table.

Ellie hurried into her flats and then Dirty yanked her out of the apartment and into the hallway.

They climbed on his bike together, Ellie wrapped her body tightly around his, and then they shot off down the street.

• • •

Later, much later, after her mother had passed away, after she’d spent months grieving her loss, after she and Dirty had bought a house up in the mountains together, and after he’d surprised her with her very own motorcycle, a bike he’d built from the ground up, specifically for her, and after he’d finally felt comfortable enough to tell her he loved her…

Ellie would think back on that moment and remember that Dirty hadn’t so much as flinched when she’d touched him.

In fact, he’d never shied away from her touch again.

Not once, from that day forward.

As he exited the hospital elevator, Cage paused to lean up against the cool wall. He felt like a steaming pile of dog shit that hadn’t just been shit out and left behind to rot away, but had been lapped up by the same dog that had shit him out and then regurgitated. A few times over.

He hadn’t slept in days, he couldn’t eat without it coming right back up, he couldn’t even stay hard long enough to fuck his woman, and he was jonesing for a high something fierce. His heart was racing, his skin clammy, his body sluggish, he felt cold when he was sweating and crazy when he should feel happy. He needed something. Some blow, some pills, fucking anything at all. But he’d promised Tegen no more drugs and, to be perfectly honest, he hadn’t thought quitting the shit was going to be a problem until he’d sobered up and immediately wanted to be fucked-up again.

He’d tried hitting the bottle to take the edge off and all that did was get his ass kicked by Tegen. Not because he was drinking but because drinking had done nothing but worsen the cravings for something more. As well as cause him to think something more would be a really great idea, so he’d relapsed. Twice.

Which in turn caused Tegen to take his keys away, smash his cell phone to bits, and slap him in the face a few times.

It was fucking official. He was a goddamn junkie.

So yeah, it was a problem.

And because of all that bullshit, because he couldn’t trust his temper, he’d been putting off an important conversation that needed to be had.

With his motherfucking old man.

His old man who’d not only fucked with Cage’s life, but had almost ended his own life because he was a stubborn old bastard with a bad temper who was so busy worrying about everyone else he hadn’t been taking care of himself.

“Cage?”

Cage lifted his head just enough to see Tegen standing beside him, her green eyes filled with concern. “Are you going to puke again?”

Yes. Yes, he was.

He tried to glare at her. “No,” he bit out. “And stop treatin’ me like a little fuckin’ girl.”

“Stop acting like one,” she snapped.

“You treat all sick people like fuckin’ shit?” he muttered. “Or just me?”

“I’ll admit,” she said, her tone laced with sarcasm, “that my bedside manner leaves much to be desired, but you, you fucker, are not sick. You are cracked out, tweaking, wishing you were high. There is a fucking difference and if you don’t stop looking like you’re plotting ways to lose me and run straight to your friendly neighborhood drug dealer slash underage hooker extraordinaire, I’m packing up my shit and going back to California.”

“She isn’t underage,” he hissed.

“Out of everything I just said!” she yelled, making him wince. “That’s what you’re focusing on?”

Shaking his head, he stood up straight and turned toward her. “I’m not havin’ this conversation again. Not inside a fuckin’ hospital, not when I’m about to go see my old man laid up in bed because he almost fuckin’ died less than fifty fuckin’ feet from me and I was too fucked-up to even know it was happenin’. Not fuckin’ now, Tegen.”

“Cage,” she shot back. “You’re stalling. Put on your big girl panties, stop acting like a little bitch, and get in that room and talk to your father. Otherwise, we are going back home and you are going back to bed, where you should be anyway!”

He wanted to yell at her. Fuck, he wanted to knock her out for talking to him the way she did. But instead of yelling at her or adding “beating on women” to his list of wrongdoings, he smiled at her.

Home. She’d called his house “home.”

If he didn’t feel like at any moment he was going to lose what little bile remained inside of his stomach, he would have grabbed her, thrown her up against the wall, and tongue-fucked her mouth until she goddamn choked on her bad attitude.

Fuck, he loved her. He fucking loved the shit out of her.

She was crazy. She was loud and demanding and meaner than hell sometimes. She didn’t listen to a damn thing he said, she did whatever she wanted whenever she wanted to do it, and the bitch loved to fight. All the damn time. Face slapping, shin kicking, balls to the wall, knock-down-and-drag-out fights.

But she fought like she loved. Hard. And he hadn’t ever been loved like this; he knew he wouldn’t ever be loved like this by anyone else.

She was his. She’d always been his, and if he’d taken half a second to look up from all that pussy he’d been eating, he would have realized way back when that he was hers. Always had been.

“Why are you smiling?” she demanded, narrowing her eyes. “Are you high? Did you get high while I was in the bathroom?”

His smile fell. “Shut up,” he muttered, turning away from her. “For two motherfuckin’ seconds.”

She was suddenly in front of him, sliding her arms up around his shoulders and pressing her body up against his.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, brushing her lips against his. “I’m just worried about you.”

Taking his bottom lip between her teeth, she sucked it inside her mouth and then darted her tongue in between his parted lips. Groaning, he wrapped his arms around her small waist, took an ass cheek in each of his hands and, despite how sick he felt, kissed her hard.

“Let’s go home,” he growled softly against her mouth. “I need inside of you.”

Beautiful green eyes, full of need and dancing with laughter, blinked up at him.

“You need to talk to him,” she said, giggling. “You haven’t seen him since…before…”

She stopped talking and grabbed him, held him close, and hugged him tight. “You need to talk to him, Cage,” she whispered. “Then we’ll go home.”

Yeah. He needed to talk to his old man. Only problem was, what the fuck was he supposed to say to a man who’d just had a massive heart attack? He couldn’t flip the fuck out like he wanted to, accuse him of destroying his relationship with the only woman who’d ever given a fuck about him…when it may very well throw the bastard into another heart attack.

Yeah, he might hate his old man, but he didn’t want him to die. Because maybe he still loved him too. Just a little.

The elevator doors beside them dinged and Ellie, her face streaked with tears, ran out into the hallway, Dirty following closely behind her.

“Hey,” he called out. Dirty stopped as Ellie kept walking.