Slam touched my shoulder and I wanted to shake him away, but I didn’t.
“Babe, I’m telling you everything right now. Your father set me up through a fake witness. He screwed both of us. I got a hold of that witness and instead of killing him, I gave him to your father. A sign of power without violence. You’re the reason I made that decision to skip violence for once in my life. And I’m not done there yet. I meant what I said to you when you were drunk. If I wanted to do anything bad I could have right then. But seeing you in that position… fuck, Belle, it killed me a little.”
His hand eased down my back and touched my waist. He got closer to me, pressing his chest to my back.
“You rejected me,” I said. “When I was so vulnerable. And then you left me.”
“Shit, babe, I didn’t leave you. I made sure you were okay. Then I had to take care of some business.”
“When does that end? The business?”
“It doesn’t,” he said without hesitation. “This is what I do. The Reap controls this town and keeps it safe. I know you know that. Your father is learning that too. This isn’t about cops and criminals anymore, it goes way beyond that.”
“Meaning what?”
Slam put his cheek to mine. “I want you forever, Belle. I want you to be my family. The family I never had. The family that was ripped from my soul. I’m the one vulnerable right now, babe. You have every right to kick me in the balls and drive away. Shit, you can even run my ass over and I wouldn’t fault you. But I know in your heart there’s truth you haven’t faced. About your father, your life, this town, the Reap, and me. This will work because I want to protect you for the rest of my life. I want to hold you, make you fucking smile, and I want to trace miles of lines on your body with my fingers.”
“The fingers that have hurt so many people,” I whispered.
“Fingers that would never hurt you, babe.”
He was now killing me. His hands touching me. His breath everywhere. My toes curled in my shoes. I put my head back and hated myself for doing so. But I loved him. I had fallen so hard it was impossible to come back from.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
Slam laughed. “Auntie Ang called me.”
“No way.”
“You have no idea who that woman is. I can promise you that when we left that day, she called in favors to run checks on you. She knows more about you than I do probably. That’s just how she was raised to survive. She called to tell me she saw you on the rocks. Crazy ass woman. So I started to cruise your way, thinking you were trying something insane again. Then she called again to say you had left. So I pulled over to wait.”
“So you stood there and waited for…”
“For you,” he said. “For you, Belle. And I would stand right here for the rest of my life waiting for you.”
“I want to be pissed at you, Slam.”
“You should be.”
“But I’m not. You said it right… the truths I know.”
“I’m not lying about anything, babe. What you have right now is what you’ll have as long as you want it. I’m not going anywhere. Neither is the Reap.”
“I’m not going anywhere either, Slam. My life has been nothing short of a mess, even before I lost my mother. But then you came crashing into my life. You saved me, Slam. And that wasn’t part of a plan. I could feel that you were jealous.”
“I don’t get jealous.”
I looked back at him. “Yes you do. All the time. I love that about you.”
I forced myself to turn around. I faced Slam.
“Yeah, right,” Slam said. “I wanted to claim you, Belle. That I did. That had nothing to do with anyone else or any motives. I claimed you. I knew what I was doing all this time when we were together. I knew you were untouched. I knew you never experienced anything real in the bedroom. It drives me wild. And I didn’t reject you, babe. I wasn’t taking that opportunity at that time. Call it the right thing to do, I call it a sign of my love for you, Belle. You were drunk. You were so emotionally beat up. You needed to feel loved, so that’s what I did. Not physical, but inside your heart.”
“How romantic,” I said.
“I don’t mesh well with that word.”
“Did you really mean it?”
“What?”
“You really love me?”
“Yes, Belle, I really love you.”
“Then you’re going to do exactly what I say to do.”
I had this sudden burst of power shoot through my body. I couldn’t believe what there was racing through my mind. It was such a pivotal moment in my life. I was tired of waiting. It was all I’d been doing. Just waiting. No more.
I reached up and touched Slam’s face.
“Okay?”
“Anything you want,” he said to me.
“Do you love me?”
“I already said yes.”
“Good.” I stepped back until I hit the hood of the car. “Right now, Slam… fuck me.”