Tattered Love (Needle's Kiss)

for life. Not another second was I going to be without her.
    “I want you to be mine,” I whispered against her hair.
    “Told you I’m yours.” I felt her lips smiling against my skin.
    “No. I want you to be mine for the rest of my life. I want you to be my wife,” I clarified. I felt Scar tense and go still in my arms. A moment of doubt formed in my mind. What if she said no? I was still hard inside her heat, now probably wasn’t the best time to ask such an important question. Or maybe it was? I couldn’t get any closer to her if I tried. Right now, we were two parts of a whole.
    “Babe?” I prompted, getting a little worried she hadn’t answered me.
    “Did you just ask me to marry you? While you’re inside me?”
    “Yeah, you gonna put me outta my misery and answer me?” I whispered, scared shitless she’d tell me to go fuck myself.
    “Yes,” she whispered, burying her face further into my chest.
    Panic set in. “’Yes’, you’ll marry me or ‘yes’ you’ll put me outta my misery?” I rambled.
    “Yes, I’ll marry you,” she said, her voice but a whisper.
    “Think you can look at me and tell me, baby?” I asked, relief washing through me. But wariness and concern travelled through me. I just needed her to look at me. Why was she hiding?
    “No, I don’t wanna do the girl thing and cry. You’re makin me feel all squishy and shit,” she mumbled against my skin. That was it for me. I burst out laughing. Her head snapped up and she slapped my chest lightly.
    “Don’t laugh at me! It’s not funny. I don’t do squishy,” she pouted.
    “I’m not, I swear,” I chuckled. “You are the only woman I know that would be worried about crying in front of her soon to be husband”
    “Shut up and kiss me, you fool,” she smiled.
    “My pleasure, baby.” I took her mouth as her hips started to move slowly. Me making love to her mouth, while she made love to me. What felt like hours later, we collapsed on the sofa sweaty and satisfied. An overwhelming contentment filled my chest.
    “You really gonna marry me?”
    “Yep, I may be a shitty wife though,” she said with a smirk.
    “I may be a shitty husband, but we’ll pull each other up and I’ll love you just the same.”
    “You might regret this,” she whispered.
    Bringing my lips down on hers, kissing her whisper soft, I said, “One thing I will never regret in my life is you, Scarlett.”
    “Best day of my life when you walked into my shop,” she mumbled against my lips.
    Being with Scar had healed me. She took what I was and made it better. What we had in this moment, it was more. This was my love, her love—torn, damaged, broken, ripped apart and put back together. This was our tattered love.

 

     
    “Scotch on the rocks,” I told the bartender before turning back to the party. Doing a quick sweep of the room, I took in all the crap hanging from the ceiling; streamers, paper bells and bird-shaped shit, the confetti and champagne glasses strewn across every surface. It looked like cupid had walked in and puked on the place. The lovey dovey shit was for the birds.
    My eyes fell on Mace and Scarlett holding each other on the dance floor. Scarlett looking up at Mace like he hung the stars and moon, Mace looking down at her like she was God’s gift, made just for him. The way they were with each other made me wanna poke my eyeballs out with a fork. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy for them. There weren’t two people I knew who deserved to be as happy as those two were, but the thought of being with one person for the rest of my life made me nauseous and claustrophobic.
    Turning back to the bar, I picked up my glass and downed it in one hit. I’d need a good bit of booze to get me through the night, to deal with all the sweet-cutesy crap.
    I scanned the room, again my gaze landing on Teeny sitting quietly on her own in a corner, smiling sadly at the happily-engaged couple. As somber as she looked, she was still a knock out, and she still wasn’t speaking to me. Not nicely anyway. One night of stupid drunken decisions, and I’d royally screwed up years of carefully constructed friendship.
    I was an asshole, but I’d warned her I was. In all fairness, I’d been upfront about my one night rule before I took advantage of a liquor fuelled situation. Still, I felt like I’d screwed shit up, Teen looked at me like she wanted to do bodily harm, gone was her usual happy-go-lucky sweet smile.
    Mace and Scar broke away from