Giving It Up: Pushing the Boundaries, Book 1 (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

“I have to admit, I’m enjoying this even more than I expected to.” Donahue flashed Warren a shit-eating grin through the cell bars and twirled the key around his finger. Warren had been locked in there for approximately fifteen minutes, ever since Crewes and Brewer had gone to pick up Beatrice, and he was getting nervous as hell.

Trapped here, listening to Donahue prattle on about how much he liked seeing Warren in this position was not helping his nerves.

It had taken him the better part of the week, but he’d sat down with Mom and Dad and taken a hard look at their finances and realized they actually had more than enough money now—having saved up all their extra cash since Warren had bought the house—to buy it back from him. But instead, they’d insisted on having him keep the house and simply let them pay rent. They told him, over and over, it was the least they could do to thank him for being there for them for so many years.

In the end, he hadn’t really had a choice. Dad had grumped about how Warren made him feel like an invalid by always hovering, and he’d told Warren it would be good not to have his own son fretting over him all the time.

But he’d said it with a tender smile and a hug, and Warren had accepted it as Dad’s way of telling him
I love you
.

The money they would pay in rent was more than enough for Warren to afford an apartment of his own. He’d found a decent place, then spent some quality time with Nate, helping the kid understand why Warren needed to move out.

And he’d finally gotten the guys at the station to stop laughing at him long enough to help him carry out this last step.

“Shut the fuck up, Donahue.” He pushed against the metal bars, feeling frustrated and more than a little scared. What if Beatrice rejected him? What if she didn’t even show up?

He’d deserve it, given the way he’d treated her, but he wasn’t sure he would ever recover if she was lost to him for good.

Donahue stopped twirling the key and looked at him, his expression serious. “Look, Davis.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I know I’ve given you a hard time about this. You can’t pretend you didn’t expect that.”

Warren huffed, but didn’t argue. The guy was right. Warren probably would have signed him up for a full psych evaluation if he
hadn’t
been a little shit about Warren “finally getting pussy whipped”, as Donahue had so eloquently put it.

“But the truth is I’m happy for you.” Donahue reached a hand through one of the openings between the bars and squeezed Warren’s shoulder. “Out of all of us, you’re the one who deserves to be happy.” He pulled his hand away and stepped back, giving Warren a rare, genuine smile.

Warren swallowed hard and nodded. For Donahue to say something like that…

Well, it was rare enough that he believed it.

“I love her,” he said simply, and Donahue nodded. Of course, all the other officers had probably known even before Warren had realized. But it felt good to say it.

“You do?” came a voice from the entrance to the small cell block, and he looked up sharply to see Beatrice standing there, looking at him in a mixture of shock, happiness and confusion, probably at seeing him locked inside a jail cell.

Come to think of it, his brain was so addled at the sight of her after so long, like something from a dream, that for a moment even he forgot why he’d done it. And then he remembered—he had something important to say to her.

Of course, that was just in time for Brewer and Crewes to stomp in, followed by what looked like half the department. Damn. Was he really going to have to do this with everyone watching and—

Fuck it. Embarrass yourself. She’s worth it.

“Yes. I do.” He let his gaze roam over her face, committing every last feature to memory in case she turned him down, ran from him, and he never saw her again. “I love you. I’ve loved you for longer than I
knew
I loved you, and I’m sorry, Beatrice. I’m sorry it took me so long to realize it. To tell you how I feel.”

He needed to tell her, so she would understand. He cleared his throat, and she seemed to sense he was about to tell her more, because she didn’t move, didn’t say anything.

“Before my dad’s stroke, I had been dating a girl for a few years. A nice girl. She came from a working class family, like I did, and I felt like she understood how my world worked. Mom and Dad liked her, and she was pretty good with Nate, even though only in small quantities…well, it’s not really that important. Looking back, I see so many things now that I didn’t see then. Anyway, we’d been dating for a while and were even starting to talk about marriage. But then my dad had a stroke and had to take early retirement and everything got tough.”

It started to come back then, and he could feel his chest tightening at the memories. The fear that Dad wouldn’t pull through at all. The arguments with Jen over how much time he was spending with his parents, on top of all the stress of wondering how to make ends meet. Kelly was unemployed then too, and everything was falling down around him.

Shit. He didn’t want to pour his heart out to the whole world, but she had to know. She had to know the score before she accepted him. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

She took a step forward. Coming
toward
him. His lungs loosened at the sight, giving him the breath he needed to go on. “Dad’s medications cost a lot, even with assistance and what he got from his pension, and eventually it got to a point where he and Mom decided they’d have to sell the house and move into a smaller place. There was no way I could leave them alone, Mom still working crazy hours, Kelly making nothing. Hell, even now that she’s working she only makes minimum wage. I was living on my own then, in a rented apartment, but after a few months it was pretty clear everyone needed too much help. That’s when I bought the house from them and moved back home.”

He paused for a moment. “Jen resented that. She called the whole thing one big fire drill and told me I was overreacting. She complained constantly that I wasn’t being fair. And then, after a while, she stopped coming around. Just…dropped off. She finally called me one day to say she didn’t want to be with me anymore because she couldn’t handle the instability. After six years together.”

Beatrice had reached the cell bars now, and she made a small sound of dismay.

“You have no idea how many times I’ve thanked God it happened before I married her. Before I had kids with her. But after all that, I’ve had a hard time trusting in relationships again. And when it comes to you, I’m especially worried,” he admitted. “Because what happens when you become a famous artist photographer and you have the opportunities and the means to move on to something bigger than me? When you can move on to something
better
? Why would you want to be stuck back here, with me and my entire family and all our problems? You don’t owe me anything, but I would give you
everything
, Beatrice. And that’s what scares me.”

She looked at him in surprise. “How did you know about my exhibit? And how come you didn’t say anything?”

He blinked at her. “I-I was speaking hypothetically. I mean—
do
you have an exhibit?”

She nodded and he shook his head slowly. “I knew you could do it, Beatrice. I’m so proud of you.”

“Oh, Warren—”

“But if you get famous and become rich and sought-after, I don’t want you to forget that I want you for you, not for your money.”

That made her grin. “Then we’re even. I don’t want you for your money, either.”

She wanted him still. His heart started beating faster, hope flying through him at an impossible speed.

“I did this…” he gestured to the cell, “…because I wanted to show you how it feels without you. I didn’t even realize I had trapped myself into such a small, confined space until I met you. I locked
myself
into it, but convinced myself—and tried to convince everyone else—I didn’t have a choice. You were the one who set me free the first time around, and I was too scared of freedom to embrace it. I ran back into my own prison.

“But this time, I’ve tried to show you that I won’t turn my back on you again. I moved out. Yesterday, I moved out. I got an apartment and it’s ugly as shit, but I’m not asking you to take on my entire family if you don’t want to. I’m not going to use them as the excuse to fall back on.”

Her hands were curling around the bars, her face coming right against the metal, and he stepped forward too, placing his fingers over hers, rejoicing when she didn’t move away.

“It’s me. Only me. I tried too hard to control everything around me, but missing you in my life has brought me to my knees.” He was whispering now. “I’m sorry, Beatrice. I’m so sorry. Will you forgive me?”

The whole room had gone silent, watching the exchange. For a long moment, Beatrice stared at him through the bars, and right before he thought he might explode from anticipation, she smiled, lighting up the room like the sun breaking through the clouds. “Yes,” she gasped. “Yes, I will.”

Then she shook her head at him, but smiled as she added, “But no more of you saying you’re not worthy of me or you don’t deserve me. We’re done with that now.
We deserve each other.
”

The room erupted in cheers as Warren pressed his mouth to hers, his head pressing up against the bars as he tried to show her with his kiss how much he loved her. But it was impossible to kiss her the way he wanted, so he settled for just saying it.

“I love you, baby.”

Her grin grew wider. “I love hearing you call me that.” But then her smile dropped, and she looked at him with all seriousness. “And I love you too.”

He laughed at that, and moved away, gesturing to Donahue, who pressed the key to the cell into Beatrice’s hand.

“I thought it would be symbolic,” Warren told her, and she laughed before rushing to unlock the door, sliding it back and yanking him out of the cell and kissing him, long and hot and deep.

The crowd hooted, a few teasing remarks were shouted out, but then everyone clapped as the two broke apart and smiled at one another.

She looked up at him, her expression full of love. “I spent so much of my life not getting involved. I retreated behind the lens of a camera rather than face the ugly reality that my parents weren’t willing to even try to understand me, and the only prospect I had in that environment was marriage to someone who would marginalize me even more than they did. But you—” she leaned in and kissed him gently before pulling back again, “—you make me feel like I matter. Like what I do and say matters. When I talk, you listen. And I don’t just mean when I was ordering you out of your clothes and onto my bed,” she whispered.

He gave a low laugh, and this time the kiss they shared was even more intense, leaving them both breathless. She wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her forehead against his. “You really
see
me. Why would I give that up? I’m not going to leave you because life might throw us a couple of curveballs from time to time. Most things are only temporary, but I don’t want us to be. Not anymore.”

There were no guarantees in life, Warren knew firsthand, and he was sure she knew it too. But there was no point in saying so. When one had lived his entire life the way he had, always feeling like he was scrambling to shore up the bits of a cracking foundation before it crumbled completely, it was nice to have the illusion, at least, that someone could take the reins for a while. Beatrice had taught him that. She had given him the illusion that had somehow become as important as his reality.

His balance. His control. His Beatrice.

The spectators began to move away, to get back to their jobs, and soon enough, they were standing alone.

Warren grinned. “Look…don’t take this the wrong way, because I’m really glad you came all this way, but I took the day off, and was thinking—can we go back to your place now? Or mine. I’d love to show it to you. But my new bed won’t be delivered until next week.”

Beatrice laughed and stood, pulling at his hand. “Yes. My place. Let’s go celebrate.”

* * * * *

They barely made it through the door with their clothes on. The second the bolt was flipped, Warren practically attacked her, pulling her clothes up and off, and pushing her back toward the dinette table in her tiny kitchen.

He was about to lift her up onto it when he paused, his hand reaching behind her and grabbing something off the table.

“What are you—?” She stopped abruptly when she realized what he was holding. The photos she’d taken of herself, naked on the couch while talking on the phone to Warren. She’d finally decided to file them away this morning, but then had gotten distracted and left them there.

He was already flipping through them.

Oh goodness. Would he think they were silly? Would he think she looked too posed? Like she was trying too hard? Like—

“You’ve captured yourself perfectly,” he murmured, his voice full of awe. “This is exactly what I see when I hold you.” He wrapped one arm around her back and pulled her close. “When I kiss you.” He took her mouth, soft and seductive. “And when I’m inside of you.”

At that, he set the photos back down on the table and brought her to the couch, seating her there and spreading her legs wide.

“But I’ve never seen you this way.” He was still standing, looking down at her, open to his gaze, but she didn’t hide from him. She gave him everything, all of her, and after a moment, he knelt in front of the couch, putting his hands on either side of Beatrice’s naked thighs and leaning up to kiss her.

“I worship you, Beatrice.”

And I love you
, she wanted to say. But there would be time enough to say it, later, after she had
shown
him first. So instead, she poured her feelings into the kiss, breathing him in as her lips nibbled and sucked at his. Her hands roamed his body, down his stomach, to the waistband of his jeans, then unbuttoned and unzipped them, pushing them down his legs.

“Take this off,” she growled, pulling at his T-shirt, and he did as she demanded, ripping it over his head and pitching it across the room, making her giggle. But then she ran her palms up his arms, feeling the hard muscle there, and her laughter died away as she brought her hands together over his heart where she could feel the steady beat.