BE MY HERO (Forbidden Men #3)

Prologue-2

I was paralyzed.

“Don’t worry.” Her voice echoed between my ears as if she were speaking inside my head. “I’ll give you your hope back.”

That’s when it happened. I have no idea how else to explain it except I was transported, sucked right out of my body on that cold wet ground with my ankle on fire and bleeding until suddenly, I was warm and dry, without a pain in the world and stretched out on a bed, buck-ass naked while the softest skin of the girl under me slid against mine.

Whoa! I was having s*x with someone on silky sheets and a comfortable mattress. And f**k. s*x felt good after all. It wasn’t as demented and perverted as that bastard who’d raped Tristy had made it look. It was sweet and warm, and just...really, really good. Better than good. Amazing.

Connected to my partner in the most unspeakable way, I buried myself deeper into her. Her sharp fingernails bit into my ass to keep me there. Desire rippled through my bloodstream as the sweetest, tightest wet heat hugged my d**k. The link between us seemed to strengthen as her smell, her softness, her throaty sounds of pleasure attacked all my senses. I glanced down into her face, needing to see what she looked like.

She was beautiful, so beautiful. Probably in her early twenties, though I had a feeling I was too, and she had pale corn silk blonde hair that looked glossy and soft.

Dumbfounded by such pretty hair, I sank my fingers into it as I cupped her face in my palm. Grinning, she parted long, dark lashes to reveal the most amazing set of eyes I’d ever seen. Almost turquoise around the pupils, their color fanned out, turning stark blue and then a bright navy close to the rings of the irises. It didn’t seem possible that eyes could change three shades of one color like that, but they did.

Her features were flawless, matching her unique eyes to perfection. With olive skin that wasn’t pockmarked by blisters and sores as most of the methed-up girls in my neighborhood, she looked clean and wholesome. Pure.

“Tinker Bell,” I said, my voice shocking me because it was deeper and more grown-up than I’d ever heard it before. I was no longer fourteen.

She smiled and breathed out a sigh, staring up at me as if she—

“I love you,” she said, actually voicing the words I was aching to hear. It was the first time anyone had said that to me.

A shudder tore through me. Overwhelmed by a blasting warmth and a strangling, overwhelming desire to say it back, I pressed my forehead to hers and pumped my hips with an age-old rhythm that seemed as natural as breathing. Her wet warmth clamped even more snuggly around me and her spine arched up, smashing a set of full breasts against my chest as she gasped and threw her head back.

She was coming.

Most magnificent sight ever.

I had no idea how I knew what was happening to her, but I did, and the knowledge spurred my own body to respond. My balls tightened and my d**k began to contract.

Before I could follow her into oblivion though, I was sucked away. Panicked, I clawed out to return to her, the perfect girl with the perfect body who said she loved me.

But then, there she was again. The bed under us disappeared and we were no longer naked. At least we were still twisted together—on a couch this time—and my chest still felt as weightless and free as it had in the last scene, as if I had nothing to worry about. I was...shit, I was happy.

So was she. Squirming underneath me, she tried to twist out of my grip as she laughed. I kept tickling her because I loved that sound, and I swear I loved her too. I had no idea how I knew that. I just knew. She was everything to me.

“Patrick Jason Ryan,” she scolded me. “I’m warning you.” But there was too much warmth and joy in her voice to be of any real threat.

She loved this as much as I did. My body responded, and I was ready for more of that s*x I decided wasn’t so bad after all.

But just as I leaned in to kiss her, a small voice asked, “Mama? Daddy? What’re you guys doing?”

Startled the f*****g s**t out of me.

I wrenched my head around to find a little girl of four, five, hell, maybe six years old standing in the doorway, watching us curiously as she hugged a pink stuffed pig to her chest and sucked on her thumb. She was freaking adorable. Startling blue eyes, just like the woman on the couch with me, but darker hair.

Kind of like mine.

“Skylar.” The woman gasped, unable to break free of me. “Help me, baby. Tickle Daddy. Get him!”

Daddy?

My eyes widened, but the wider I tried to make them, the less I saw. With a bright flash of white, I was jerked away from both girls.

The woman returned, thank God. She had coiled her pale hair up into formal silky rolls with white pearls woven through the locks and a veil trailing down her back. I sucked in a breath as I saw the wedding dress she wore.

Surrounding us, hundreds of people became a distant muted blur as they milled around the large reception hall just as the deejay started a new song. Our song.

“And this one’s for the happy couple.” The deejay sent me a nod, telling me I was up.

Ignoring how stiff the shoulder pads in my tux jacket were, I held out a hand to the blonde in the wedding dress. “Mrs. Ryan,” I said, feeling as if everything inside me was going to burst out through my pores. “May I have this dance?”

This was my wife. My f*****g wife. I couldn’t remember ever feeling more gratified than I did in that moment when she gave me a giddy grin and took my hand. I pulled her close and twirled us onto the dance floor as I lowered my mouth to her ear.

“Tink. God, I love you. So much.”

When I noticed the letters P.I.C.K. tattooed in neat black script just behind her ear, my heart pounded from all the emotions rushing through me. I buried my nose in her pearl-coiled highlights and breathed in the fresh scent of lilac.

She pressed her mouth against my neck, and I swear the impression of her kiss followed me as I was sucked into yet another scene, a backyard with vivid green grass that was perfectly trimmed on a warm, sunny day. I’d never lived in a neighborhood with a lawn so immaculate, which made me swell with pride because I knew this was my lawn. My home.

I was so f*****g happy, even though the pair of scrawny arms wrapped around my neck were nearly choking me into unconsciousness. The weight of the small body pressed into my back made it worth it.

“Faster,” a boy’s voice encouraged in my ear. “Come on, Dad. Faster.”

So I spun faster, making my boy laugh as I whirled us in a circle on that amazing, lush lawn. The world around us blurred into a blissful oblivion. When I finally stopped after making us both dizzy, I bent down, resting my hands on my knees so he could slide off. And the little girl from the earlier vision—Skylar—immediately appeared before me, tugging on my elbow.

“My turn next,” she begged, her mommy’s blue eyes making it impossible for me to say no. “Please, Daddy.”

But from the house, the sliding glass door opened and the woman—Tinker Bell—appeared in the opening. She wore a bright red t-shirt that bulged over her very pregnant belly, but she radiated with a jovial glow that made everything inside me brighten.

“Pick!” she called. “Julian. Skylar. Time for dinner.”

And just like that, the vision was gone. In the next, a paper mask over my mouth and nose caused my hot breath to moisten my cheeks as a prickly cap wrapped snug around my head itched my scalp. When I realized I was wearing surgical scrubs, I arched an eyebrow. What the hell? Was I a doctor now?

But that voice—her intoxicating, amazing, love-filled voice—from the bed next to me had me turning until I saw her. My Tinker Bell lay on a hospital bed. Her face was flushed and damp but her tired eyes were lit with love as she grinned up at me. Cradling a small, wiggling bundle in her arms, she lifted the infant.

“Pick, come meet Chloe.”

A sense of peace and joy filled me.

Before I reached for our child, I cupped my wife’s cheek in my hand and just looked at her, trying to convey to her how much I loved her. “You did good, Tinker Bell.”

I was about to reach for my daughter, our little Chloe, when the darkness sucked me back in.

I cried out, scrambling, desperate to return to any of those visions, but I found myself back on the cold, wet ground in the witch’s front yard.

Madam LeFrey released her fingers from my eyes and I flopped limply to the ground, shuddering from loss and confusion. Keeping my lashes closed, I panted, willing myself back to wherever she’d just taken me. But the pain in my ankle kept me grounded to the bitter present.

Shuffling beside me told me Madam LeFrey was standing up and moving away, but I didn’t care about her anymore. My brain was jumbled, shifting between the pain in my leg and the memories stirring in my head.

“There. You have your hope back now.” Her ragged old voice angered me.

I opened my eyes and managed to glance up at her. “Wha...what was that? What did you do to me?”

“I gave you a glimpse.”

“You gave me a what? What the hell is a glimpse? What does it mean?”

“Mean?” She c****d her head as if confused by the question. “Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. It shows you what your life would look like if you lived it to your heart’s content.”

My yearning heart thumped hard in my chest. “So...so that’s going to happen to me? That’s my future?”

Shit. It didn’t seem possible. I had never done anything good enough to deserve a life like the one I’d just had a glimpse of. Elation roared through my veins until the f*****g witch shook her head.

“No. It’s only your future if you live to your heart’s content,” Madam LeFrey repeated solemnly.

“So…” I gulped, wanting to deny it. “It’s not true then? It won’t really happen?” More tears filled my eyes. Would I never meet that girl? Would I never have a beautiful backyard with plush green grass? Never have three perfect children who meant the world to me? Never belong to a family?

“The future is not ours to know. I only showed you what could happen if you lived happily ever after. It’s up to you to make that happen.”

“But...“ I reached for her, desperate for answers. “How do I do that? I don’t even know that girl. I’ve never seen her before in my life. How do I find her?”

The witch had been busy picking her shotgun off the ground. But she paused at my frantic questions. “Girl?”

“Yes! The girl. The girl you kept showing me. Who is she? Is she even a real person?”

With a confused shake of her head, the old bat stared at me as if I was crazy. “I showed you only you. Five glimpses of you. That’s all. If you saw another in one of your visions, that means you love that person.”

“But I...she was in all of them, not just one.”

Stepping closer, Madam LeFrey eyed me as if I was a new species she’d never heard of. “Can it be?” she whispered in awe.

“What?” I demanded, almost panicking. I wanted to know more about that girl and how I could live that life with her where I’d been so f*****g happy. I’d never been that content before.

Madam LeFrey shook her head as if unable to believe what she was about to tell me. “A soul mate,” she rasped. “How very rare.”

“What? She’s my soul mate?”

I was a little giddy over the idea. A soul mate sounded good. Soul mate, someone to love me, a happy future, a place to belong. Family. Now, all I had to do was find her.

Except the f*****g old bat looked concerned. She grabbed my arm. “Find her,” she told me, urgency lacing her voice. “You’re not complete until the two halves come together. You’re only half a soul.”

I tugged my arm out of her grip. “Well, where is she?”

Instead of answering, she jerked backward as if I was tainted. Stomping on something by my ankle, she released the trap I’d been stuck in. I cried out from the rush of blood that shot to the injury and created a s**t ton of pressure. As I gritted my teeth and clutched my leg, Madam LeFrey turned her back on me.

“Go away now,” she said, as if she were afraid of me. “Don’t come back.”

“But...wait! How do I find her? What’s her name?” When she didn’t even slow down, I growled out my anger and pain. “Damn it. Can’t you do some spell to draw her here? I just want what you showed me.” Why would she show me that if she wouldn’t help me get it?

When she reached the porch, she glanced back. “No spell can touch this. It’s bigger than any spell. It’s fate.”

Before I could say anything else, she scurried into her house and slammed the door, leaving me to find my own way home on a bum ankle.

Though I was no longer held prisoner, I just stayed there. Breathing hard and rattled in more ways than one, I held onto my injury and filled my head with all the damn glimpses the witch had given me. A cool mist on my face told me it had started to rain.

I knew I’d never be the same again. Up until tonight, I had convinced myself that my life would always be shitty and hopeless. But Madam LeFrey’s glimpses made everything even worse. Because now I wanted something. I wanted it so damn bad I could taste it. I wanted that future and happily ever after. And if I never found that girl, if I never found even a portion of those glimpses, the disappointment would probably kill me.