Sketch: A Steel Paragons MC Novel (The Coast: Book 12) Read online

  “Then why are you trying to sabotage something before you give it a chance?”

  I shrugged at his words. I didn’t have an answer and I wasn’t all that sure that was what I was thinking. But maybe it was. Maybe there was something in the back of my head that wanted to tear this thing apart before I gave it a chance.

  “She’s smart. Got class. She don’t need someone like me dragging her down.” I shrugged again. “She just got free of a shitty relationship and she deserves someone she can, like, make a life with and shit.”

  “And she can’t do that with you?”

  “You’re starting to sound like Iron,” I said and tried to laugh. “Nah, what do I have to offer her? I’m a street kid. Don’t got no education. I’m covered in ink.”

  “What does that matter?”

  “Did you not hear the classy part?! She needs someone that can take her out to a fancy restaurant and not instantly turn into the center of attention because it’s clear one of them don’t fit there.” I started to get hot and I felt like I was ready to fucking blow at any second. “She needs a man that can talk about shit, not someone whose first word was probably ho. And was saying shit like ‘where’s my money, bitch?’ before they knew what any of that means.”

  I could feel him rolling his eyes at me but despite the information I’d let slip about myself, he didn’t say anything. He didn’t push for more and thank fuck, he didn’t pity me.

  “The things I’ve done. The shit I’ve been through. The… fucked up crap I got going on in my head. She doesn’t need to deal with that.”

  “I don’t know exactly what you’ve been through, but what I can see is that you survived,” he said rather calmly. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. “Not only that, but you helped other people who were in the same situation as you without expecting anything in return. Just seeing the way Claire looks at you, it’s clear how grateful she is for you. You took her in and gave her something she probably wouldn’t have gotten anywhere else given the circumstances.”

  “Nah, I was just there pulling her down into that dark and ugly world. And look what I did to her. Left her behind because I wanted a better life. What did that get her, huh?” I was getting worked up. Thinking of all that shit always did it to me. It made me hate myself more than anyone should probably hate themselves. Made me feel like I didn’t deserve any of the good shit I had in my life.

  “What I see is a boy who did the best he could in an impossible situation.” He held up his hand when I opened my mouth. “She doesn’t blame you. If anything, Claire is happy to still have you in her life. And she’s happy with her life now.”

  “Don’t try to give me some bullshit line about how it all worked out for the best. Fuck that. The shit we had to go through— the shit she had to go through— nah, just because we got it good now doesn’t mean that shit just goes away.”

  “It will always be a part of you,” he said, his eyes doing a slow blink which told me he got it a little more than I might have been aware of. “But doesn’t mean that is you. Let your past be part of you but not define you.”

  With that, he walked away from my room.

  I didn’t want to think about his words because I wasn’t in a place where I could admit he coulda been a little bit right. Even if he was, where the hell did I begin sorting all that shit? How did I move on from who I was… who I had been?

  I believed there were just some things you couldn’t come back from. Some memories you couldn’t break free of.

  And even if he was right, the person I was now still wasn’t good enough for a woman like Melissa. I was rough around the edges. That was something that wouldn’t change. I didn’t think I even want it to. I was a damn outlaw and I wouldn’t leave my club for anything. This was my family. This was my home. And yeah, might have been my first and only, but to have that first experience come at the age of seventeen, you bet your ass I wasn’t letting it go. Not because I felt like I owed them, but because I didn’t want to. I shouldn’t have to.

  I looked back down at the sketch and let out a long breath.

  I realized then that I didn’t want to give Melissa up either.

  But just because I didn’t want to, didn’t mean that I was good enough to get what I wanted.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Melissa

  He’d shown up here just hours before with a look on his face that made my heart ache. The sadness. The despair. The swirl in his eyes like he was about to give up the one thing he’d always wanted but never thought he deserved to have.

  I knew little about Sketch. I wanted to say that I only had myself to blame for that but deep down, I knew he wouldn’t open up to me. I knew that if I pushed him too soon to talk he would lock up and run. I kept waiting for the right moment but it never seemed to come. Then again, he had kept me rather busy and when he was done, I was too sated and wrung out to even form thoughts, let alone words.

  Tonight hadn’t been about talking. There were no words I could say would erase that look in his eyes. So I did the only thing I could think to do, I showed him.

  After we made love for hours, he finally seemed to be at rest. I wasn’t sure if he’d be accepting of calling it that— making love— but that was what it had been. He’d taken his time with me. He’d traced every inch of my body with his fingers and then his lips. And while he’d done that to me before tonight, the thing that was different was that he’d let me do the same to him. I traced all the lines of his ink as it led my fingers like a map over his skin. It wasn’t about seeing each piece individually, or trying to figure out the story they wove me through. It was about taking in every part of him and letting him feel what I felt.

  We kept each other on edge for what seemed like forever, and then when we finally came together, it had been explosive. I knew he felt it too because I could see the shock and beauty in his gaze as he looked into my eyes.

  It was stronger than anything I’d ever felt before. Yet, I couldn’t even begin to put a name to it. To explain it. I didn’t care, I just wanted to keep feeling it.

  I felt.

  And so did he.

  His walls crumbled before my very eyes and right before we collapsed into each other’s arms, I saw the acceptance fill his gaze as the resistance fled from his soul.

  Now our bodies were done but for some reason, sleep wouldn’t take us.

  He had me on my stomach and when he reached to pull a pen from the front pocket of his pants that were still crumpled on the floor, I gave in to whatever he had planned.

  As he made steady line after line on my skin, I smiled. I couldn’t see what he was drawing, but whatever it was, I knew it would be beautiful. I never imagined myself at nearly forty, laying in bed feeling like a teenager again. This simple act seemed a little immature and juvenile, reminding me of the days before I was old enough to get a tattoo. When I would use an ink pen to make images on my skin and wish they could be real. Testing the water in a way, I guess. Not like I ever had the guts to actually go through with it when I was of legal age. And besides, it wasn’t something Reginald would have been supportive of anyway. Tattoos were for criminals and the dregs of society, or at least that was how he saw it. Not that he really had any room to talk. Criminals were good enough to defend but they were still beneath him. But I had always seen tattoos as a way of expression. A way to tell the world that life was art and everything within it a canvas.

  I supposed it didn’t matter much now.

  A giggle escaped me as I felt the pen tip drag lightly along my side.

  “Tickle?” he asked and I didn’t have to look at him to know that he was smiling.

  “Just a little but don’t stop.” He went back to it and I held my breath trying to find the courage to go on. “So, is this why the club calls you Sketch?”

  Though I was going for smooth and subtle, I could tell by the way he froze for a long second I was anything but.

  When I felt the pen move again, I breathed a silent sigh of relief.


  “Nah,” he said and I turned my head so I could look at him. His eyes were on my back, but I knew he wasn’t watching the lines he was smoothly creating. “Never had a name.”

  I sucked in a shocked breath and instantly sensed him tense. I closed my gaping mouth and gave him a chance to go on. I desperately hoped he would.

  “My moms, well, she wasn’t mom material. I wasn’t born in a hospital. There weren’t any records of me. And she or anyone else around didn’t give a fuck to name me.”

  My heart broke a little more for him.

  I knew he’d had a rough life, it was clear as day once you saw past the cocksure smile and swagger.

  “My moms was a ho. Like for real, with a pimp and shit.” He wouldn’t look at me as he spoke but I didn’t mind. I’d take any piece of him no matter how he had to give it. “I guess you could say he raised me. He kept me alive, so that counts as somethin’, right?”

  He went silent, his hand came up to scratch his jaw before he went back to what he was doing.

  “No one gave me a name,” he said softly. “Boy. That was what everyone called me. What Ronnie— that was my mom’s pimp’s name— always yelled out when he wanted me or I was in the way. I learned to respond to just about anything at a young age.”

  I rolled over, losing the feeling of him resting on my body. Then I lifted up on one arm and reached for him. My hand landed lightly on his arm and I considered it a small victory when he didn’t flinch away from me.

  “Anyway, I ended up on my own when I was like twelve, I guess. I’d always liked to draw, even if it was with a stick in the dirt. These people I shifted around with noticed me doing it a lot and started calling me Sketch. Guess it stuck.”

  I decided to say to hell with it. I sat up and wrapped my arms around him not caring that he probably didn’t want it. I’d learned by now that what Sketch wanted and what he truly needed were two different things. Everything had suddenly become so clear. The distance. The walls. The act. It was all because he was afraid to let people close. He’d never had someone to just love him because he needed it. Because he deserved it.

  I shouldn’t have felt this way and I shouldn’t have been throwing myself further into these feelings. However, I thought I had fallen too far to even go back now.

  Sketch had done things to my body that no one had ever done before.

  But the things he did to my soul were so much more beautiful.

  I had fallen for the guy and right then and there, I gave into it. I let go of all my insecurities and negative thoughts of how this would never work. I gave myself to him.

  Not because he wanted it.

  Not even because he needed it.

  But because I wanted to spend the rest of my life making sure that he knew he was important. That he was not only loved, but that he was worthy of it.

  His arms wrapped around me, his fingers digging into my skin like he needed to hold on to me. I slowly dragged my fingers through his hair and simply held him tightly.

  I felt the hot tears drop onto my breasts but there was no sound with them. I wondered if he’d ever let himself cry before. If he’d ever felt safe enough to let go.

  I imagined not.

  And that had my heart aching all over again.

  I might have only gotten a small tidbit of his story, but it had been enough for me to finally understand.

  The tears continued to fall and I kissed his temple.

  “I’ll never leave you, Sketch,” I whispered into his ear. I hoped he believed me because I meant those words.

  The tears fell harder and though he choked back the sobs, his body shook hard with each one.

  “I want you, Sketch. All of you,” I whispered.

  I kept running my fingers through his hair.

  Eventually, the tears dried up and his body went limp in my arms.

  I held onto him tightly long after I’d known he’d been too wrung out to stay awake.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sketch

  I ain’t never been wanted before.

  Most of my life I was struggling just to survive.

  I didn’t need anyone’s tears over it, I’d made it out and I was making my way up.

  Truth was, I didn’t stand much of a chance from day one.

  Moms was a whore. Legit. Prostitute with a drug habit. Meth, it’s a horrible thing, fucks people up in ways you don’t even want to imagine.

  Don’t do drugs, kids!

  I’d never touch the stuff or anything like it. Fuck that. I didn’t care how many nights I spent freezing my ass off wishin’ I had some way to escape the life around me, I’d never do it. And I didn’t let the people around me do it either. Maybe it was a way I saw that I could save them. The only way I really could save them. It wasn’t like I had a lot to offer.

  Anyways, moms was a junkie whore.

  She got knocked up by some john, who the fuck knew who it was? And who the fuck really cared?!

  Somehow I made it out okay, her pimp didn’t kill her when he found out.

  Ronnie, he was something. Still remember that fucker and I didn’t think I’d ever forget him. Piece of fuckin’ shit.

  Heard once that moms stopped the meth for a few months while she was preggo with me. I guess it was true. I somehow made it even though there was no hospital, no doctor to deliver me and shit. Yeah, I was pushed out one night on a dirty mattress with two other workin’ girls there to help.

  Or that was how the story went. Ronnie like to sprout some bullshit all the damn time, but I had a feeling that one was pretty fuckin’ accurate.

  Don’t ask how the fuck I survived, the good man above must have been lookin’ the other way that day because if he was like what people keep sayin’ he was, then he would have shot that down quick. Fuck that little asshole and his junkie mom, kill them both. Woulda gone straight to hell. Sins of the father and all that shit. And moms too, in this case.

  But I made it. I was raised by her dickhead pimp and all his bitches. They took turns watching me, caring as much as they could. Which I couldn’t blame them for the lack of care. They were overworked, tired, and fuckin’ beaten down.

  So, I never had a name. Moms only stayed sober enough to pop me out. Think the moment she was free of me, she went back to the junk. It was all too much for her to handle. I guess I just should have appreciated what she’d given me.

  I grew up thinkin’ women were good for nothing more than one thing. And when they couldn’t do that right, you had to put a bitch in her place. I’d seen Ronnie do it more times than I could count.

  Eventually, my punk ass tried to do it too.

  I was seven.

  Or so I woulda guessed, since I’d never really knew when the fuck I’d been born.

  Didn’t know much because I didn’t go to school.

  Hell, no one outside of Ronnie’s house knew about me. Don’t even ask what happened when I got sick. Fucking hell, times were shit, but it wasn’t like I knew any better.

  Think that was my mom’s wake-up call, the day I tried to lay her out as Ronnie stood at my back. She’d pissed a customer off and came back empty-handed. That wasn’t something you did and got away with.

  The next day, she took me and went renegade.

  I knew what the fuck that meant and I spent the next few months lookin’ over my shoulder. You didn’t ditch your pimp. Not unless you had a fuckin’ death wish.

  We moved around so much I lost where the fuck we were. Moms still turned tricks but now she got to keep all the money herself. It also meant that she didn’t have anyone to look out for her and more than once she came back looking worse than when Ronnie got ahold of her pissed.

  Most of her money went to losing herself to feel numb.

  She couldn’t hack it on her own and eventually, we ended right back where we’d started. Ronnie took her back, not with open arms, of course.

  More like closed fists.

  Moms lived through it and two days later, it was like nothing had happe
ned. She was right back at it and I was left behind to ‘learn the things a man needs to learn’ because that was what I needed to be.

  Years I was by Ronnie’s side but I had this feeling deep inside that I didn’t like who I was or what he wanted me to be.

  Anyway.

  My point was that I’d never been wanted before.

  But the way Melissa held me, made me think that I was worth something. That I had something to give.

  I broke down. Yeah, I’m a bit ashamed of it because men didn’t fuckin’ cry, ya know. But she just wrapped me in her warmth like that very moment was what she was made for.

  Then she fuckin’ told me she’d never leave me like she just knew or some shit. And she wanted me, like the real me. She didn’t get disgusted at my vulnerability and she didn’t kick me out.

  What the fuck was I supposed to do with that?

  Still though, she was too damn good for me. But I was going to be selfish and take everything she had to offer.

  I woke at some point later, still feeling drained. My eyes didn’t want to open and I knew they were still puffy from me cryin’ like a damn baby. The bed was empty and I felt a sense of panic jolt through me. I jumped out of bed and ripped my pants up my legs.

  Then I smelled it.

  Bacon and coffee.

  My mouth watered and I realized she hadn’t left me to leave me. She’d left me to take care of me. Because I had a feeling that a woman like her wouldn’t be cooking bacon if I wasn’t around.

  I shuffled out of the bedroom and made my way to the kitchen with a shit-load of hesitation in my steps.

  The moment she sensed that I was there, she turned to face me. I looked down feeling a little exposed and ashamed. But then she was softly telling me to go to her as she held her arms open for me.

  I went willingly and the instant my body was against hers, she wrapped me up in her warmth again. She squeezed me tightly for a few breaths, then let me go. It was enough and when I realized she released me to make me up a plate of food, I was alright with it.