He only had a sister he’d hurt who’d cut him outta her life in a way she might not even let him back, but that was the only hope he had left.
Hence the midnight chats.
“Wouldn’t be talkin’ to you if I didn’t get that, man. Our sisters, our responsibility. It’s somethin’ that doesn’t ever end.”
“No,” he agreed. “I’m guessin’ not.”
I hesitated, unsure if I wanted to give it to him. “We all make mistakes. I worry every fuckin’ day about the choices I make, knowin’ they’ll affect my woman. It’s the only reason she doesn’t have my ring on her finger yet. I’m as much to blame for her bein’ out in danger as you and William were, and I still put her in danger––as the fuckin’ PD proved today––just by bein’ with her. The trick of it is to make it worth it every day. Think if you want back in with her, you just gotta find a way to prove that you love her in a way that’ll never die, even if, ’cause of the men we are, the day might come where we unintentionally put her in a position where she might be without her brother or her man, or we might be without her.”
“So, you’re sayin’ make the danger of lovin’ a wild animal somehow appealing?” Lysander asked with a wry grin.
I chuckled, slappin’ a hand against his shoulder, then squeezin’ him in comradery. “Yeah, man, that’s exactly what I’m sayin’. Now, we ’bout done? I got a woman in bed I have to get back to.”
“Yeah.”
I moved back into the house, but before I could close the slidin’ door, Sander’s tattooed fingers curled around it to stop me. When I met his gaze, I realized for the first time that he had the same whiskey eyes as my woman.
“For the record, haven’t known her like I’d want to for the past four years, but I’ve never seen my sister happier than she is now with you. You want to marry her? Do it. If I know anythin’ about her anymore, it’s that she loved being a wife and would’a loved bein’ a mother. She was just doin’ it with the wrong guy.”
I swallowed the possessive pain in my throat that always cropped up when I thought of my Cress with that asshole, William, and nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
I hesitated in the doorframe of our bedroom after I’d locked up, unable to keep myself from admirin’ my woman in our bed. She lay sprawled across the length of it as if she’d been searching for me in her sleep. The light poolin’ in through the window like molten silver cast a shine on the sweep of her thick hair and turned her skin into hills and valleys of semi-precious metal. Our little cat, Shadow, had found his way onto the bed and curled up on her outstretched hand, eager for her warmth.
The sight of her like that comfortable and vulnerable in our bed hit me in the chest like a struck gong, the vibration of it echoin’ through my blood.
I loved her so much, it frequently took my breath away, but at that moment, somehow, it stunned me yet again.
When I got back to bed, skin cold against the incredible warmth of all Cressida’s bare flesh as I gently hauled her back over my body, I wondered about Sander and the part he’d played in our lives. He wasn’t a bad man, just a good man who’d gotten lost on his way and made some poor as fuck choices. I didn’t think he deserved to be cut out of our lives, not after helpin’ save Loulou, Bea, Harleigh Rose, and Mute from an ambush up at Zeus’s cabin three years ago, but it wasn’t my choice to make.
The only choice I did have to make was whether to get my head outta my ass and marry the woman of my dreams.
I’d always been the kinda man, even in the body of a boy, who knew what he wanted and fuckin’ took it. So why the hell was I acting like a scared little boy when I was faced with somethin’ that would make me happier than anythin’ ever had? The answer was obvious, that it meant more to me than anythin’ else ever had, but it didn’t make my hesitation any less cowardly.
When it came down to it, I had to trust her.
Last year when I’d been unsure what to do after graduation, it was my Cress who had suggested I prospect for The Fallen and combine my love of business with our family enterprises. I’d been shocked as fuck, but she’d only laughed her high, bell-like giggle and told me that it was about time I started on the path that had been my birthright.