Twisted and Tied (Marshals 4)

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

I heaved in a gulp of air. “We’re still gonna fight, and there’s still gonna be—”

“We’re still us,” he said, kissing my eyes, my cheek, and the line of my jaw. When he licked over my lips, I had to take hold of him so I wouldn’t fall down.

“Love.”

I jolted under his hands, flayed open today between this and the kids and then Kelson. I was needy and vulnerable, and I needed Ian to make my whole world balance out and make sense. “God, I’m sorry, you’re gonna be the guy putting me back together every night when I come home.”

“Yeah, maybe. And maybe you’ll be doing it for me. We work life-and-death jobs, and some days they’re gonna totally suck. We just gotta make sure we talk all the time. Nobody gets to go all silent and broody.”

I snorted. “But you look so hot when you brood.”

“Are you done?” The way he lifted one eyebrow and curled his lips, how his voice got all silvery and soft, nearly stopped my heart. He annihilated me always.

“Yeah, I—”

“Don’t leave me,” he said quickly, adamantly, kissing my jaw, the side of my neck, inhaling me. “Miro, honey, don’t ever leave me.”

I was lost, putty in his hands. “I thought—it’d be you.”

He stepped into me, hugging me tight, face down in my shoulder. “No, honey, I’m gonna stick right here with you.”

I gave him my weight, leaning, letting him shore me up as I soaked up his warmth, his strength, all of him, just Ian and that he belonged to me.

“Stop thinking I could ever leave you, all right, and I’ll stop thinking you’ll tell me to go.”

It was a powerful thing, taking for granted that the person you loved would simply be there through thick and thin, forever. It was faith and trust, neither of which I was any good at before Ian.

“That’s what our marriage is gonna be about, sticking it out because we love each other more than anything.”

I straightened up, leaned free, and looked at him.

“What?”

“That was very profound.”

“Oh yeah?” He grinned. “You like that?”

I nodded.

“Okay, so, we good?”

I needed these simple conversations that put the world under my feet, sky overhead, everything back in its place, and me no longer untethered. Ian made my life solid, and it sounded like I did the same for him. I hadn’t been giving myself enough credit. As much as I’d been worried about losing him, he was just as scared over the thought of being without me, and because the marriage was new, I’d been treating it like either one of us could simply walk away.

It was like when you moved into a new apartment but didn’t unpack your boxes because you weren’t sure how long you were going to be there. That’s how I’d felt, like I’d been waiting to see what would happen. My boxes were all still sealed.

“Miro?”

I leaned in, hugged him tight, and heard his low, seductive chuckle. “Yeah, we’re good.”

“It’s my fault. I was scared this morning before we went to work, and I was freaking out and—I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” I told him.

“Hey!”

We pulled apart slowly and looked down the street to Eli on the stairs.

“I’m starving, the dog’s starving. Can we make with the dinner, please?”

Ian grabbed my hand and tugged me after him. “We better go feed him. He gets whiney when he’s hungry.”

“He does, you’re right.”

“We should feed Chickie too,” Ian said, chuckling. “By the way, what’d you eat today?”

I was not about to tell him I was empty on the inside.

“I mean,” he said, turning to look at me, “that you kept down.”

“How did you know I was sick?”

“Oh, I dunno, maybe ’cause I know you and know that dealing with anything Hartley-related makes you barf.”

“You’re not wrong,” I agreed, letting go of his hand to move in closer, jostle up next to him so he could put his arm around my shoulders. I had to be closer to him, I’d missed him all day, worried all day, and so the contact was as necessary as breathing.

“Well, I’ll fix you up,” he promised. “I can’t wait to hear about your day.”

It was nice to know that although we didn’t work together anymore, the talks would be endless, and that was really something to look forward to.

Chapter 9

IAN MADE spaghetti with meat sauce, and as Eli looked at it, he realized the same thing I did the first time I ate it: “sauce” was a loose term, and it had a kick to it.

“Isn’t this supposed to pour?” Eli asked as he stood next to the soup pot with a ladle of sauce in his hand that would not come out of the spoon onto his plate.

“You have to really kinda fling it,” Ian suggested, taking a gulp of his beer from one of the frosted glasses I’d started keeping in the freezer.