A Vine Mess (Love on the Vine #4)

27. Ella

The next morning, while Liam was still passed out after having given me another orgasm barely an hour before, I carefully and silently slipped out of bed, dressed, and headed out to the kitchen. After I got coffee brewing, I stepped out onto the porch to call my sisters.

“Well, well, well,” Delia, who was naturally the first to answer, said. “If it isn’t the wayward sister.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re annoying.”

“You love me,” she said, blowing me a kiss. “But really, you’ve been MIA. Where the hell have you been, loca ?”

“Fucking hell,” Amara grumbled as she joined the call, adjusting sleeping baby Cora in her arms. “Have you been marathoning Twilight again?”

“Hey,” Brie said when her face appeared in the corner of the screen. “Don’t be a hater. Twilight is a cult classic.”

“Thank you, Baby Brie,” Delia said happily, then noisily slurping from her coffee mug .

At last, Chloe appeared, baby Aleah propped up against her shoulder.

“Why are we always talking about Twilight ?” she sighed.

“At least it’s not Anne Hathaway marathons,” Brie supplied. “We’ve moved past those, right, Ella?”

“Oh, we’re way beyond Anne Hathaway.”

There was enough suggestion in my tone that my sisters immediately perked up. Chloe even went so far as to call for Logan and hand Aleah off to him and, almost in sync, Cal stole Cora away from Amara so they could give me their full attention.

“Spill. The. Fucking. Tea. Sis,” Delia said, punctuating each word with a clap of her hands.

“The first thing you guys should know,” I started, pausing for dramatic effect, “is that I’m in love with Liam Danvers.”

“Holy shit,” Amara breathed.

Brie and Chloe merely squealed, and Delia cut right to the heart of the matter by saying, “Tell us everything .”

So I did. I filled them in on everything that had happened since I called them that first night in South Dakota. Somehow, that had only been five days ago, but it felt like a lifetime.

“This is crazy, isn’t it?” I asked, shaking my head. “To fall in love in less than two weeks?”

Brie shook her head. “I knew Ezra was the one the first time I laid eyes on him. So no, I don’t think it’s crazy at all.”

My other sisters hummed in agreement, though I knew it had taken each of them longer to come around to the ideal of a lifetime with their partners.

“Do you guys…approve? Of him?”

“You’re grinning, El,” Delia said. “We haven’t seen you this happy in years . If he’s the person responsible, it doesn’t really matter what we think, does it?”

“Of course it matters!” I protested. “You’re my sisters, and if I’m bringing this guy into the family, I want you and the guys to like him.”

Amara, who worked closest with him, shrugged. “He’s a great guy. And as we told you before, you could do a lot worse than Liam Danvers.”

“Actually,” I started. “I don’t think I could do any better. He’s…yeah. He’s it for me, I think.”

Brie’s voice sounded a little watery when she said, “You deserve this, sissy. After everything, more than anyone, you deserve this .”

And finally, I believed her.

“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” Liam grumbled as we stumbled out of Dusk Valley’s only tattoo shop later that morning. Thanks to the fact that all of the Lawless brothers were heavily tattooed and frequented the place, one of the artists was willing to squeeze us in.

I was now the proud owner of a majestic purple Volkswagen van tattoo. It sat just above the crease of my right elbow, and Liam’s same arm spotted a matching one. I made him pause outside the shop with me, arms extended, so I could snap a picture and share it on my Instagram.

“You love it,” I told him as we walked hand-in-hand behind West, who had been all for the impromptu tattoo session. While we’d been getting ours, he’d added a little bird to the piece that took up most of his back in honor of his mom.

“I love you ,” Liam amended, dropping a kiss to my forehead.

“So much you got my name tatted on you too,” I teased, reaching out to tap the space next to the blue butterfly where he’d added my initials.

“I told you days ago not to tempt me,” he replied.

Fuck, that was sexy. To be branded on his skin as a physical representation of the way I was branded on his heart and soul.

“Just think,” I said. “One day, our grandchildren will ask us about them and we can tell them about this trip where we fell in love.”

Liam softened at that. “Well, when you put it that way…”

Raising onto the balls of my feet, I gave him a quick peck. “I knew you’d see things my way.”

“I don’t know about you guys,” West said, turning to face us but continuing to walk backward, “but I’m fucking starving. How about we swing into the deli for lunch?”

At that moment, my stomach let out a low growl, and I nodded emphatically.

West led us inside, making small talk with every single person we passed, and I almost felt like I was back home. There was nothing that beat the familiarity of small town life.

After lunch—where I consumed the best grilled cheese and homemade tomato soup I’d ever had in life, though I’d never tell Ezra that—we wandered the main drag of Dusk Valley, popping in and out of shops and letting West tell us stories about the history and growing up there.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon, before the sun went down, on a horseback ride through the rolling hills and fields that made up a small portion of ranch land. I was mesmerized and deeply contented by the simplicity of it all, the mighty creature beneath me, surprisingly gentle despite its size. Minus the horses and the drastic differences in landscape, the whole vibe reminded me of home.

That night, we had another boisterous dinner at the Lawless family table before Finn and West decided they wanted to take us to the local watering hole. Once that idea was floated, the entire family decided they’d be joining us, save Birdie, who said she was too old to hang with us young guns. I kissed her on the cheek as we all filed out, thanking her for another amazing meal, and followed Liam back to our cabin.

I was in the middle of changing when a light knock came at the door, and Liam disappeared to see who it was. Voices floated back to me as I donned my dress, rushing to do up the buttons running from between my boobs all the way to the hem, which hit me at mid-calf, before Liam returned. I didn’t do up all of them, loving the way the ones I left opened at the bottom created a little slit that offered tantalizing glimpses of my thigh tattoo. With my arms exposed, the bulk of my ink was on full display, and once I put my black cowboy boots on, I felt like a badass.

I’d gone a little heavier on the makeup than I had in recent months, but still lighter than anything I’d worn when I’d been with Alfie, hooked delicate silver hoops and studs into my ears, and slipped on a few of my favorite rings.

During that time, makeup had been armor for me. Hiding the dark circles under my eyes from lack of sleep when we’d gotten in yet another fight and I couldn’t relax until it was solved.

Spoiler alert: they rarely ever were. We fought about stupid shit, frequently, that never saw any sort of resolution.

That wore on a girl after a while.

I supposed, if you wanted to get technical, I started dressing and making myself up to look emo, mostly because I was so fucking depressed and, maybe, somewhere deep down, silently screaming for someone to notice and help me.

Shaking my head, I threw away those thoughts. That was all ancient history, and deserved to remain in the past.

Liam was my present—and, if I was really goddamn lucky, my future.

As though I’d conjured him, I heard Liam’s footsteps as he came back down the hall, and said, “Who was—”

“Holy fuck,” he breathed, cutting me off. I turned to him, finding him stalled in the doorway, those bright blue eyes darkened as they raked my body head to toe.

I did a little twirl. “You like?”

“I’d like ,” he growled, stalking toward me and slipping his hand along the outside of my thigh and beneath the dress, finding I wasn’t wearing panties, “to strip you out of it and have my wicked way with you.”

I gasped as he slid a finger through my slit, toying with me. Fuck, his hands were magic. Even that single touch had my legs weak and shaking. Gathering my wits, I placed a hand on his chest and pushed him away—or tried, but the man was a wall of muscle and didn’t move until he planted a kiss on the side of my neck—then wagged a finger at him. “Down boy. We have somewhere to be. And you know someone will come looking for us if we don’t show up.”

“Damn nosy Lawlesses. ”

Ignoring the comment, I nodded at the box in his hands. “What’s that? Who was at the door?”

“West was bringing me something to wear tonight.”

I frowned. “You’re already dressed.”

Unintentionally, we’d decided to match tonight, with him in his dark wash jeans and black button down shirt, and brown work boots, me in my little black dress and the cowboy boots I’d bought in Deadwood. Without answering me, he set the box on our bed and removed the lid.

The cowboy hat he withdrew was also black, the hatband a shiny strip of dark leather. Gingerly, he removed the hat from the box and set it atop his head, adjusting it until it was comfortable.

Sheepishly, he looked at me. “What do you think?”

The uncertainty in his eyes almost sent me to my knees, the knowledge that this man wasn’t always as sure of himself as he’d like me to believe—and that made him even more loveable in my eyes.

Slowly, I approached him and pressed my palms to his chest, digging my nails into his shirt and dragging him closer until we were both shielded by the brim of his hat.

“You’re giving me major Rip vibes right now.”

Liam’s eyes flared with heat. “Does that make you my Beth?”

“If that’s what you want,” I said, tilting my face and offering up my mouth.

“I want anything that ends with us together forever,” he said, leaning in, a breath away from my lips.

“Deal,” I replied, then kissed him.