“But that’s all you’ve ever known…” the words come out as a murmur.
“No. There’s something else I know,” he looks down at me with nothing but love. “Something I value more.”
“Dean--”
“I thought I could help you with the bar. I don’t need you to pay me, you can treat the money like a loan or a gift, whatever you want. I don’t need the money, I have enough on my own. I just want to be with you.”
Everything blurs around us as the silence passes. Time slows and I know I’ll remember this moment forever. I dreamed a thousand dreams over the years, wanting to confess, but he always wanted me to run away with him, like I wanted to do that first time I saw him, back when my father was still here and he would be there to take care of the bar. “Did you say you loved me?” I have no idea how the words manage to escape my lips in a whisper, or where they even came from.
For the first time that I can remember, Dean blushes. With his large hand running down the back of his neck, he grins at me, a boyish grin. “I might have. I might have said I love you so damn much it hurts.”
His grin falters slightly until I lift up onto my tip toes to press my lips against his and give him all of me in that one touch.
I don’t know when I gave my heart to him, but right now, I vow to give him all of me.
“I love you Dean.” I love him so damn much it hurts too. “You promise you’ll stay with me?”
Wrapping his arms around me and pulling me into his chest, he brings me back to bed. “I’ll stay with you Lysa. I’m here with you. I’m right here. And I’m not leaving anymore.”
He repeats, “I love you.”
MY SECRET
She’s my secret. Mine and mine alone.
SCARLET
I don’t pity the men and women who line the bar tonight. As the snow falls behind the paned windows, barely visible with the darkened sky, they lift their glasses. Alcohol drowns out the thoughts of family and friends they aren’t with during the holidays. The din of the bar is far from somber though, the occasional laugh ricochets off the paneled walls of this old place.
It may only be a rundown bar off the interstate in the tristate area, tucked away beneath the overpass, but it’s warm and feels like home to many. It’s my last name on that sign out front. My bar. My home.
It’s sure as hell home to me and the only thing I have left from my family. At that thought I peek over my shoulder, a rag in one hand wiping down the glass in the other, and peer at a black and white portrait. My grandfather always had a Coors Light in his hand and it’s there lifted in cheers at the grand opening of this very bar.
That photo, and the occasional postcard from my mother, are all that I have left of my family. She took off when I was five, came back when I was seventeen and my father passed suddenly, but she didn’t stay long.
So the sight of Jackson at the end of the bar, his phone always in his hand, and Mr. Richards at the other end, his thinned hair as white as the foam in his beer, feel like home to me. Even on Christmas Eve.
“You’re all dolled up tonight,” Chrissy comments, her voice is a bit raspy from years of smoking. The stool drags on the floor as she pulls it out to sidle up to her brother.
“This old thing,” I respond with a smirk. The deep red shift dress matches a shade of lipstick I put on hours ago. No doubt it’s faded by now, but he told me once he loved the color on me.
And I know he’ll be here tonight. He told me he would and he’s never lied to me. Never let me down.
Chrissy huffs a laugh and then elbows Teddy, saying something about getting out of there so she can hang lights on the tree for her grandkids.
Every minute that passes feels as if it drags for hours. Each beer that hits the bar, every clink of the glass and grinding of the stools against the floor is far too loud.
I’m waiting for one man to walk through that old heavy walnut door.
“Another?” Jackson calls out, lifting his mug in the air and I mindlessly follow suit although my eyes lift to the door at the sound of the chimes.
And there he is.
A warmth spreads through me although I don’t show it. My heart pounds and races, my blood heats at the sight of him.
The black flat cap is dusted with snow as he removes it, making his way to the far corner booth. He takes his time slipping off the black wool coat and I only watch him, my gaze shifting from the beer mug filling at the tap to his broad shoulders straining beneath the gray Henley.
In black boots and worn jeans, he sure as hell didn’t dress up tonight.
There’s a little dance of anxiousness that swells deep in my chest knowing I’m overdressed. “Here you go,” I tell Jackson, and don’t give him a second look or wait for a response as I make my way to him.
At least I’m in ballerina flats and not heels, but still, heat dances along my skin.
“Your usual?” I offer, my voice wavering as his pale blue gaze reaches mine. He pins me there, the world blurring behind him. Even the air bows down to this man. Dirty blonde hair and a ruggedness tell me he’s blue collar, but I know he’s more than that.
I’ve known it for years. He’s dangerous. He’s a man I once feared. Every instinct told me I should stay far away.
And I would have, I had decided I would.
Two years ago, when I first saw him and he ordered what he’ll order now, a gin and tonic, I swore I’d avoid him. It’s not just that he looks like a man who’s been through hell, that smirk on his lips and that charming smile whisper a secret: he proudly runs the place.
His gaze slips down my body, slowly and deliberately.
In this room that’s riddled with onlookers, it feels as if he undresses me. Heat creeps into my cheeks.
“I’ve missed you,” he whispers lowly in a deep baritone that triggers a primal need. It surprises me, he’s never said a thing like that until the place is closed up and everyone else is gone.
It’s what happens every time. I wait for him and he waits for the bar to close.
And then he takes me however he wants, which is exactly what I crave.
This dangerous man who could do whatever he wishes. He fucks me like I’ve always been his.
I’m not given a moment to answer, before he nods and raps his fingers on the old wood table. “The usual.”
With a nod, I turn my back to him, my fingers fiddling with themselves until I can grab a tumbler for a gin and tonic.
“You closing early tonight?” Jackson calls out loud enough for the bar to hear him.
With wide eyes, I stare back at him, still reeling from the comment: I’ve missed you.
I nod, without thinking twice, “thirty minutes or so,” I tell him. “Snow’s getting deep.”
The excuse raises Mr. Richard’s brow who glances over his shoulder at the devil himself. The man who brought that lie to my lips.
GRIM
The deep red hugs her curves and every inch of her soft skin I’ve been fantasizing about. It’s been over a month, the winter nights getting colder and lonelier without her warmth in my bed.
My cock aches, hard and straining against my zipper as she sways left and right, wiping down the bar.