Madeline Sheehan - Unbeloved

During his small moments of clarity, he tried to sort through the scrambled mess of his mind to pinpoint Dorothy, whether or not she was really here, that he hadn’t just imagined Deuce mentioning her presence. He would jerk at the sound of a soft feminine voice, or when he thought he saw a flash of red, only to realize himself unable to move, unable to blink through the cloudy haze, or speak anything resembling coherent words.

And through it all Hawk dreamed. He dreamed of his childhood and having the world at his fingertips, thinking his father was a king, thinking that someday he would be a king as well. And then of the death of his father, and his time spent on the streets, afraid for his life. He dreamed of Deuce, the night the man had found him, of the club and the boys. And then he dreamed of meeting Dorothy for the first time, her long red hair and bright green eyes, and how they’d both come together as a means of escaping the cruel reality of their lives, but how it had backfired on both of them.

He dreamed of the selfish young man he’d once been, thinking that the world had owed him something in return for all he’d lost.

And he dreamed of Christopher, who in a lot of ways had been the means to his end. The end of the man he’d once been, and the start of the man he’d become. A better man. A father.

He dreamed of the way things had been and the way thing were now, and he dreamed of how he wished they could have been, how he wished they were now.

Until the fever finally broke and he woke the fuck up.

**•

Blinking through the semidarkness, Hawk tried to focus on his surroundings, unable to discern a damn thing other than he was in a warm and comfortable bed, although he was anything but comfortable.

His throat was painfully dry, his head was throbbing, and his leg twice as bad. He tried to sit up and felt his leg scream in protest. Okay. Scratch that. Instead, he reached out with both hands, fumbling at his sides. His left hand found a tabletop and his right . . .

Damn.

He squeezed the soft flesh once, twice, and smiled. Yeah, sure as shit, that was definitely a breast. He reached farther, squeezing the other, his smile growing wider. He knew these breasts, had once been well acquainted with them. Perfect-sized mounds of malleable flesh covered in freckles, topped with nipples just a little too large. Nipples that would shrivel and peak beneath his fingers and mouth.

Despite his injuries, Hawk felt his body responding to his thoughts. He was considering trying to maneuver himself into a more accessible position to continue touching her when Dorothy let out a small sigh. He snatched his hand away just as she rolled toward him and into his body. Her leg nudged against his injured one, sending pain shooting through him. He breathed through it, not really caring about the pain, just wanting her to keep touching him. He’d been so long without her, without the touch of another human being that actually gave two shits about him, that whatever pain he was in didn’t fucking matter. As long as she kept touching him.

Her arm crept over his midsection as her cheek nuzzled his chest, and he pulled her even closer, running his hand down her back, over the curve of her ass, and then back up again and into her hair. Feeling the scar that lay beneath it, he softly grazed the raised and bumpy skin over and over again, feeling a wave of sadness wash over him. He should have been there. If he had been there, if he would have stayed and fought for Dorothy, this might not have happened.

It was something he’d never forgive himself for, something that would haunt him until the day he died. That his ego couldn’t handle another rejection from her, and because of that she’d been shot, and he’d nearly lost both her and their son.

But alongside his guilt, he felt something else, something he hadn’t felt in a very long time. Holding her, touching her, even after all this time, he marveled at how natural it felt. How right it felt.

Feeling content, he closed his eyes. As he started to drift off again, both his body and mind still exhausted from all he’d physically endured, he felt her shift.

“Hawk,” she whispered sleepily, her breath tickling his skin. “I love you.”

He didn’t respond, just closed his eyes and let those three stupid words sink inside him. She was still sound asleep, and he thought that maybe they’d had been the result of a dream, or caused by her worry for him. But regardless of why she’d said them, it was the first time he’d heard those words since his father had been killed.

And the pain that hearing them caused within his chest, the pain inside his heart, was very much the type of pain Hawk could get down with.

Fresh from my shower, wrapped in a large white towel and under the impression that Hawk was still riddled with fever and half delirious, I’d stepped out of the bathroom and into the bedroom.

He wasn’t. He was wide awake, had managed to sit himself up some, and was sloppily guzzling water from the pitcher I’d left beside the bed.

Over the rim of the pitcher his eyes met mine, those unfathomably dark eyes growing even more opaque as he lowered his drink to focus on me.

“Hey,” he said, his voice hoarse and scratchy, then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Hawk’s voice, that lone word, caused icy-hot shivers to race along my skin, leaving trails of gooseflesh in their wake.

Feeling suddenly flustered and strangely embarrassed, I clutched my towel tighter around me and tried to smile. “Hey,” I said softly.

Glancing away from me and around the room, he cleared his throat. “Where are we?”

I surveyed the mostly barren room, containing only a bed, a nightstand, and the obligatory dresser. Cage and Tegen weren’t much for decorating or personal touches.

“Cage and Tegen’s,” I answered.

He nodded. “How long have I been out?”

I lifted my shoulder. “About four days. You had a pretty nasty infection. The doctor Deuce brought here had to open your leg back up and clean it out.”

Hawk’s gaze dropped to his bandaged leg. Propped atop several pillows, it was currently wrapped in an Aircast boot. Remembering the discolored skin, how severely infected the poorly stitched-up wound had become, I internally cringed. I had begged Deuce to take him to a hospital, but the man was exasperatingly adamant that Hawk would remain where he was. Thankfully for Hawk, the doctor had been legitimate.

“You should have a hard cast,” I continued. “But under the circumstances . . .” I trailed off, not knowing how to broach the subject of Hawk’s true identity. It still felt foreign to me, everything Deuce had told me and, although I knew it was the truth, it didn’t feel real to me. Hawk was, and to me always would be . . . Hawk.

This other life he’d once led, the son of a Russian mob boss who was gunned down, felt like some farfetched and contrived story, the stuff movies were made of, and not the former life of the man I shared a child with.

“Deuce didn’t think taking me to a hospital was a good idea,” he finished for me. “Bullet wounds tend to attract police. And if the police decide to dig . . .”

Hawk’s eyes were still downcast, glazed over, and looking past his leg at nothing. “Guess you probably got some questions for me,” he said quietly.

I did have questions for him, hundreds of them, yet standing here, looking at him, none seemed to come to mind. All that mattered for the moment was that he was home safe and he was healing from his injuries.

“They can wait,” I whispered. “You just need to get better.”

He let out a deep breath, and the lines creasing his face eased a bit. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought he was relieved, but the Hawk I knew didn’t much care what people thought of him.

Except this time, he seemed to care.

“I’m sorry I missed Christmas,” he said, lifting his eyes, stopping on my chest where the little heart pendant hung from the chain around my neck. My hand went immediately to it, my fingers curled around it, gripping it tightly until I could feel the sharp point of the heart digging into my palm.

Suddenly the pendant seemed to mean so much more than it had. As if it hadn’t just been a thoughtful gesture, hadn’t just been a father shopping for a gift for the mother of his child.

This little heart around my neck seemed to embody the man himself, full of secrets, hidden meanings, and so much more than met the eye.

“I never thought I’d see you or Christopher again,” he said quietly. “I never thought I’d be able to . . .”

He trailed off but kept his eyes on me. Locked on mine.

I didn’t say anything, didn’t know what to say. And it seemed to me that either did Hawk. He just continued to stare at me in that dark and assessing way of his, his shadowed eyes boring into me, holding me captive like a deer frozen in the face of blindingly bright headlights.

The world is full of untapped potential; everyone has experienced it. Glances across the room. Locked gazes. Secret smiles. Silent conversations. When it comes to lust, words are never needed. You feel something inside you stir, your body begins to warm, and you just know. You can feel something buried spring to life, and just like that a connection is born. You’re strangers, then suddenly you’re something more . . . kindred spirits, like-minded in your attraction for each other.

I’d had that with both Jase and Hawk.

But there was only one who could steal your soul, that untouchable, unreachable place inside you that existed only in your mind, that warmed and cooled, fluttered and shook without rhyme or reason, and make it theirs forever. Someone who could take your breath away with just one look, who makes all those past secret smiles and glances from afar pale in comparison to the way he looks at you.