I grinned at him lazily. “Show me what?”
He stared at me a moment longer before unbuttoning the collar of his shirt. I gasped when he unveiled his chest.
My fingers trailed around the edge of the red skin of his pec. Tears blurred my vision as I stared at the skin covering his heart. At the fresh tattoo. It was beautiful. A watercolor lily that dripped with every color of the rainbow, my name scrawled underneath it. I remember the words he had uttered in this very room, almost four years ago.
“Tattoos are for life, apart from the club, I’ve never loved anything that much to commit to a lifelong reminder of it on my body.”
I looked closer and the breath got caught in my lungs. I tore my gaze up from his chest.
“Is this?” I choked out.
Asher’s eyes softened. “Yeah, babe, saw it when I was in her studio,” he told me gently
A single tear trailed down my cheek, and I moved my attention back to his chest. To the flower that my mom had painted. The one that was mounted on a wall in her studio.
“You’re my muse, baby girl. My beautiful Lily. The thing that lights up my life,” Mom had told me when I was twelve, right after we moved to Amber. It was the first thing she painted.
“Do you like it?” he asked, a strange kind of uncertainty in his voice.
“Like it?” I repeated. My eyes met his once more. “There aren’t words to describe how much this means to me. How perfect this is,” I whispered. “This is the greatest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
Asher smiled and wiped away my tear with his thumb. “Get used to this feeling, Lily. This is what you deserve. What I’m gonna give you,” he promised.
After today, I found myself believing him. Believing the worst might be behind me. And that we might ride away into the horizon to something better.
Hours later, we lay in bed in a beautiful room in “The Cottage.” It had been a surprise wedding gift from Mia and Bull. Mia, Bull’s wife managed it. I had the pleasure of meeting both her and her daughter Lexie a few months ago, and though they had been through drama that dwarfed mine, they were happy. Bull’s demons were gone and I was hopeful mine were going too.
We could hear the waves crashing through the French doors that opened onto a sea view balcony, the salt air clinging to our bodies. I didn’t even appreciate the beautiful surroundings. I was too busy being ravaged by my husband.
We had lain in beautiful silence, letting the sound of the waves wash over us. Asher’s hand trailed my back lazily.
“You got classes on Monday?” he asked quietly.
I didn’t move my head from his chest. “Yeah,” I sighed, not wanting to think about the work awaiting me.
“I don’t want to rush you, but have you thought about where you want to live?” he probed softly. “If you don’t want to be at your mom’s, we got options. Apart from shit for my bike, I don’t live an extravagant lifestyle, I’ve got a nest egg. A significant one. Enough to get us a house….” he paused. “I haven’t used it ‘cause I’ve never had a home, not since Benjamin. The place I grew up in was four walls that held pain, memories that were tainted with my father’s whiskey stained imprint.” He pushed the hair from my head. “The club was my home. I didn’t want four walls of my own until I was sure I wanted to share those walls with someone. Make memories with,” he stated.
I kissed his chest, his words making my heart soar and bleed at the same time. My neck craned so I could look at my husband.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “That you don’t have a place to remember him … Benjamin.”
He smiled a sad smile. “I do, babe,” he replied softly. He moved my hand and placed it lightly over the tattoo on his chest. “Right here, I got the memories I need.” He let that sink in a moment, the beauty of his sentiment, of his pain etching into my soul. “I don’t want to rush you, but you’re not going back to your apartment, and I’m not too crash hot on sharing our matrimonial bliss with my brothers,” he joked lightly.
He had already “talked” my landlord out of letting us out of our lease, and we were in the process of moving all of our things to Mom’s.
I regarded his tattoo, trailing my fingers around the red edges of healing skin. Asher was silent, giving me the time he knew I needed to think. I chewed over his words, what he said about Benjamin, about memories, about a home. When I thought of home, I thought of Mom’s little cottage by the sea. Of the heavily decorated rooms. The vibrancy that hit you the moment you walked through the door. The vibrancy that hit me when I walked in there for the first time since losing her. That’s what made it hard. Impossible. My house was missing the thing that made it a home. My mom.