Monster, стр. 53

I nodded. “Breaker says we're going somewhere cold and snowy where I have to wear lots of layers,” I informed him.

“Like fuck we are,” Shooter said, giving me a dazzling smile. “I have a week worth of skirt chasin' to catch up on. I ain't chasing around some fucking Eskimos. I want easy access. So we're doing warm and sunny and Breaker is just going to have to fucking live with it. Right, darlin'?”

I smiled at him, then turned to Breaker who gave me a look that very much implied he wasn't too happy with the idea of the two of us teaming up on him. And also, knowing it was likely to happen a lot in the future.

“Right,” I agreed, squealing when Breaker reached for me, but he was smiling.

Epilogue

Breaker

We didn't end up in a ski resort in Canada.

No.

We ended up on a beach in Mexico.

And Alex bought the fuckin' skimpiest bikini she could find.

To prove a point.

Which we fought about.

And I, apparently, lost.

Because there she was, sitting her pretty little ass on a huge red and white striped beach blanket, in the red bikini that showed off almost half her ass and barely covered her tits.

It wasn't that she didn't look good.

She looked good.

Way too fuckin' good.

And other men noticed.

And those other men noticing made me want to gouge their fuckin' eyes out for looking at what was mine.

It was stupid that I still felt angry at seeing it. We had been south of the border for nearly six months. And she had worn the god damn thing every single day for six months. Beneath the red barely-there swatches of fabric, I knew her skin was the pale, flawless white it had been before. Outside of the material though, she had surprised me by tanning to a shade of flawless copper that gave her, with her dark hair and dark eyes, an almost exotic look.

I couldn't decide which look I liked more.

But I was pretty fuckin' happy with either.

“Six months, man,” Shoot said, coming up to my side, holding out a bottle of cold beer to me.

“What?” I asked, taking a swig.

“Been with her six months. Day and night. Fightin' like an old fuckin' married couple about everything then fuckin' like newlyweds. Every day for six months,” he went on.

“The fuck you trying to say here?” I asked, looking away from Alex and at Shooter.

“I'm saying you love her. She loves you. Can't fucking imagine why you haven't told her that yet.”

My eyes slanted back to Alex. Her hair whipped to the side in a breeze, her profile in full view, smiling off at something further down the beach.

He wasn't wrong.

I did love her.

It took me longer than it would take a normal person to figure that out. Maybe because I didn't know much about the emotion. Because the only person who had showed me what it was died when I was barely old enough to remember.

There was the love I felt for Shoot and him for me. But it wasn't the same.

But he was right.

I loved her.

And I was pretty sure I had since the moment she asked me what kind of twisted porn I was into. And every single moment after that.

Sometimes love didn't spring up on you in a moment of blinding clarity. Sometimes it crept up on you on a Tuesday night while you were standing at the sink doing dishes, the feeling settling into your soul in a way that made it too heavy to ignore anymore.

That was how it was.

I had been fuckin' washing dishes on a Tuesday night. And Alex was in the other room singing her smiling song. But she wasn't doing it in the soft, sweet, melodic way she usually did. She was doing it loud, out of key, and obnoxious. Because she was pissed at me and she thought it would be ironic to sing a song about smiling when what she really wanted to do was charge back into the kitchen and hit me over the head with a frying pan because I told her that she was not, under any circumstances, making contact with Janie/Jstorm again. I didn't give a fuck how much she kept trying to reach out.

What can I say?

Alex was still stubborn.

I was still bossy.

And we weren't ever gonna' fuckin' change.

And I didn't want either of us to.

Because the only thing better than Alex being soft and sweet was Alex being loud and angry, spitting fire at me, then letting me fuck her hard and fast until we burned through the urge to fight.

We weren't traditional.

We weren't the couple next door with two-point-five kids, a dog, and a meet-cute story they liked to drag out at dinner parties.

We were dark and rough around the edges.

We fucked as hard as we fought.

We challenged and supported one another.

We loved with a love that was half-possession and half never wanting to tame the wildness in the other.

Shoot was right.

I couldn't imagine why I hadn't told her yet either.

–

Alex

I was getting really freaking sick of the beach.

Sure, it was nice for a while. Getting a tan. Sipping margaritas. Catching up on some books I had been meaning to read.

But it was getting boring.

And on top of that, I fucking hated the red bikini I had bought to spite Breaker.

Six months of slipping into it every day when I knew all it was going to do was ride up my ass and chafe my tits all damn day. But, well, it was the principle of the thing. He didn't like it. He told me not to wear it. I didn't like it either. But he sure as hell wasn't going to tell me what to wear. So I wore it. Despite the angry red burns it gave me under my boobs at night. Despite having to keep discreetly moving the waistband every few minutes so it would stop giving me a wedgie.

Such was life with Breaker.

Both of us standing our ground, too stubborn to give in. And both of us really, really liking that quality in the other one.

Okay. Well.

I actually loved that quality in Breaker.

In fact, I loved pretty much everything about Breaker. Even the things (maybe even especially the things) that pissed me off. Like his possessiveness. His borderline psychotic jealousy. His bossiness.

I loved the things, too, that made me go all melty inside.

Like how he said my name when he was holding me at night. Deep and soft. And how he taught me how to shoot a gun. And grapple. Never once so much as hinting that I was somehow less than a worthy opponent because I was female. Like how he took me to concerts and movies. How he taught me to snorkel and ride a surf board. How he attempted to show me how to cook. How he always remembered to buy me the puffed cheese curls and not the crunchy ones. How he gave me soft and sweet when I needed it and hard and rough when I wanted it.

How he brought me out of my shell and showed me a hundred thousand things worth living for.

The first night we made it to Mexico, I snuck out while Breaker was sleeping, grabbing the little baggie of heroin out of my boot and walking out onto the moonlit beach.