Plus I didn’t like men around her, not even those I trust. Not yet anyway, not until I’d staked my claim and put my brand on her. Shit would be easier that way, might save a lot of unnecessary ass whippings.
Life was going to be a basket of fucking laughs from now on, because my place was always crawling with testosterone. I hadn’t worked out how I was going to deal with that shit, didn’t have to really.
I’d been planning to bring her home in another three days. That was about the time I was planning to tell them I had an old lady. Fuck they need prior warning for?
When I start explaining myself to anyone that’s the time I need to hang shit up. I’d done enough of that shit in the army, never a fucking gain.
Like I said, I’d had shit all worked out in my head for a few days down the road. But now some asshole had stepped out of fucking line in a big fucking way and I had to move shit up a couple days.
I was studiously avoiding thinking of the report I’d just received each time it teased the edges of my mind. That shit was only gonna cause me to wipe out on the highway, or end an asshole in a road rage situation.
And the only blood I wanted on my hands this night was the motherfucker’s who’d thought to touch what’s mine. Yeah, I felt my fingers beginning to get twitchy. Pull back Creed; take a deep breath.
I hit the road for the three-hour ride that was a straight shoot on I80. She had no idea I was coming, no idea that I had even been planning to come get her before this. I’d kept her in the dark too, because my mind was already made up and that was all that was needed.
I didn’t need anyone’s permission, not even hers. She was mine plain and simple, had always been. If anyone needed time to play catch up with that shit that was on them. I pretty much didn’t give a left nut about that shit.
She’d better be of sound mind and body when I get there though, or that little town was gonna go up in flames. I sped up a notch and let the wind propel me through the night, taking me to her, my destiny, my babygirl.
***
Jessie
I didn’t have to see him to know who was out there. Just the sudden wild beating of my heart and the tingle down my spine were enough. “Creed.”
His name was a whisper on my lips as I ran down the stairs just as the engine went dead outside. I was all but vibrating, hopping from foot to foot in my excitement.
Until I remembered that I was no longer a little girl and it was no longer appropriate for me to run and jump into his arms the way I did when I was little and cute.
That only dimmed my excitement for a half a sec. Somehow this time I couldn’t bring myself to care, he was here and that’s all that mattered. It had been so long…
He came through the door like he owned the place just as I reached the bottom stair. “Creed.” I couldn’t hold back the sigh of his name as my knees went weak. Still the same!
It’s as if he knew, the way he came in and just stood there watching me without saying a word. I don’t know how, but I felt it. And under that look, that stare that seemed to see right through me, my newfound confidence faltered.
I wanted so badly for the last three years to disappear, to be that same young girl who was still cute and adorable in the way she adored her ‘uncle Creed’. But I was afraid those days were long gone, and what made it worst, was that he knew it too.
I’d been careful to keep from giving myself away, but lately, the more I thought about it the more I was convinced that something had let my secret out of the bag.
How else could I explain the long absence? Or the fact that he’d just disappeared from my life with just phone calls between us instead of the visits I had so looked forward to in the past.
I wasn’t about to whine and moan to him though; he’d done so much for me already. I knew it was the greatest folly to expect more. But how I wish…
“Come.” That one word spoken in his sweet baritone, which still had the power to make me weak, was all that was needed to have the barriers come tumbling down and send me running towards him, as his arms opened to accept me.
I let myself enjoy, just suck in the enormity of the moment. It had been so long since he’d held me, since I’d inhaled his scent. Home, he felt like home and my poor young heart seized for what could never be.