After the day he’d had, my kid scarfed down a cheeseburger, fries, and a chocolate milkshake, and crashed out on the couch in the middle of the third Avengers movie. Now he was in our bed, sleeping peacefully, but I couldn’t find it for myself.
“Sunshine,” Jensen said in a low voice. “He’s okay. Nothing’s gonna happen to him. He’s safe”
“I know,” I whispered back. “I just . . . I can’t stop looking at him.”
He reached across our boy and pressed his fingers beneath my chin so I’d look at him. “They’re never gonna hurt him again, baby. They’re both going away for a long time. And I swear to you, I’ll never let anything hurt him or you ever again.”
As it turned out, when I refused to help Cordelia, she’d taken to stalking my every move, trying to build up the courage to snatch my son in the hopes that she and Whitman could make it look like it had been someone else. Then they’d swoop in with a plan that would save the day, and Jensen would be so grateful, he’d drop the lawsuit. It was pure insanity, and now they were both fucked.
“I know,” I replied with a gentle smile. “Honey, I never doubted you for a second. I knew you’d bring him back to me. Just like I know you’ll protect us both with your life. I’m not worried about any of that.”
“Then what is it? What’s going on in that head of yours?”
“It was just a long time,” I answered, heaving a heavy sigh. “Those were the longest five hours of my life. I’m going to be okay. It’ll just take a little while. That’s all.”
“What can I do to help? What do you need from me?”
God, this man.
“This. I need exactly this. You, here with me and our son, loving us and protecting us for the rest of our lives.”
He leaned in, slipping his hand around the back of my neck and pulling me closer to speak against my lips. “You already have that, sunshine.”
“Then, like I said, I’m going to be just fine, because I have absolutely everything I need right here.”
Epilogue
Shane
Three months later
“For crying out loud. This is getting really old.”
At Farah’s declaration, I glanced in the direction she was looking, scanning the bar from where our group was sitting up by the pool tables.
It was one of my nights off, but Caroline and Scooter were watching Brantley for us so Jensen and I could have a night out with our friends. Most people would have balked at the thought of spending their night off at the place where they worked, but I wasn’t most people, and Bad Alibi was an awesome bar. To me, there was nothing better than sitting on my man’s lap, enjoying a few beers and a lot of laughs with the people I loved.
Letting out a sigh, I rolled my eyes and turned back to our group. Cannon was here with Farah—who was also enjoying a night off. Jase and Poppy were also here, along with Wynn, Stone, Holt, Clay, Gage, and Laeth—who’d wandered away several minutes ago when a brunette at the bar started giving him fuck-me eyes.
“I keep telling Darla and Buck to ban her for life, but they haven’t done it yet.” Rina let out a loud whoop and started gyrating faster from her place on top of the table a group of Iron Riders had camped out at a couple hours earlier. She hadn’t arrived with them, and from the looks on a lot of their faces—including the hottie from a few months back—they weren’t too happy that she’d crashed their party. She held her arms up in the air as she slithered down, dropping it low like she was dancing for singles in a strip club. The problem was, this wasn’t a strip club, and her skirt was obscenely short so everyone in the vicinity got a nice little crotch shot for their troubles. Let’s just hope she was wearing underwear. “Maybe after this they’ll actually listen to me.”
Just then the doors opened, bringing in a gust of fall wind that lifted the hair of the blonde who’d walked in. She stood just inside, scanning the crowd for less than a second before her gaze landed on Rina, then her eyes narrowed into unhappy slits.
I was struck by a pang of familiarity at the sight of the blonde, but I couldn’t place where I knew her from. Then she stormed over to the table Rina was dancing on, pushing her way through the big, burly bikers, and grabbed Rina by the wrist. That was when it hit me. “Oh shit,” I said below my breath on a gasp. All of a sudden the atmosphere around us shifted. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who’d figured out who the beautiful mystery blonde was because when I looked down the table, Clay’s eyes were pinned to her as a thick wall of something not at all pleasant radiated off of him and slammed into us.
Before anyone could say a word, he shoved his chair back, stood up, and exited the bar without a backward glance.
“Um, someone wanna fill me in on what just happened?” Jensen asked, looking around the table. I saw confused eyes and eyes of people like me who were in the know. Clay had been ahead of me in school, but there wasn’t a single person who’d lived in Redemption at the time it all went down that didn’t know about the failed love story of Clay and Lark.
“That’s Clay’s ex,” I answered. “She also happens to be Rina’s cousin.”
His eyes went wide as he looked back at her. “No shit?”
“No shit, bunny. And it’s not a pretty story. Believe me.”
“Hmm.” He looked out into the bar with a thoughtful expression on his face. “Maybe. But some of the best ones have a good bit of ugly in them.”
“Look at you,” I said on a giggle. “You fall in love and get all philosophical. My man’s rich and wise.”
His arm around me grew tighter and his fingers on my hip pressed deeper. “Just speaking from experience. We had more than our fair share of ugly and look how we turned out.”
Who was I to argue with such sound logic?
Leaning in, I gently brushed my lips against his and said, “You know, just when I think you can’t get any better, you go and prove me wrong.”
A low rumble slid up his throat. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?”
“I do. Because you’ve showed me every day since I was sixteen years old and you caught me standing in the middle of your bedroom. I might not have always known you were showing your love, but I eventually got with the program.”
“And thank God for that.”
As my man lapsed back into conversation with our friends, I took the time to think about everything that had happened over the past several months. It had been bittersweet when Jensen returned, that was for sure. But now that I had my happily ever after, the bitter was long gone.
Leaving behind nothing but sweet.
The End.
Read a BONUS EPILOGUE
of Bittersweet HERE
and keep a lookout for the next book in the Redemption series, coming early 2021
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