“Nobody else heard, but babe, the Skulls have a lot of women from situations like this. I think you two have a bond and a better place would be with us, at least until she is ready to decide what she wants.”
“With us?” I ask.
His eyes widen and he smirks. “The club. A place she can heal, a place she can feel safe and protected.”
I snort, unable to hold it back, not even if I wanted to. “A free-for-all sexscapade is where she’s going to feel safe?” I ask. “A place full of gigantic burly men, booze, and drugs?”
“Do you feel safe there?” he asks.
Pressing my lips together, I take a step toward him, closing the short distance between us. Lifting my hand, I cup his cheek and slide my thumb along his bottom lip. The blood is dry now, sticky and weird feeling, but beneath all of that, I just feel him.
“I feel safe with you, Orson. No matter where I am.”
He blinks, then all of the emotion leaves his features. “You shouldn’t.”
Nodding, I hum softly. “Even here, I did. I knew you would get us out or your men would be here. I knew nothing too terrible would happen to me, not with you here.”
He groans, wrapping his hands around my waist before he roughly tugs me forward, my chest smashing against his. My hand falls away from his face and I let out a sigh at the feeling of his hard body against my own.
“You are fucking crazy,” he growls, lowering his face as his lips touch mine.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Keepin’ you, baby. Not just for now, for fuckin’ ever.”
He doesn’t give me a moment to respond. Instead, he slants his head to the side and his lips crash against my own in a hard, bruising, owning kiss. It’s full of emotion, it’s everything that I have ever wanted from him, and more.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
HAWK
The ride back to the clubhouse is exactly what I needed to feel myself again. Though I don’t know if I will feel the way I did before my dignity, my freedom, and my control was stolen from me.
The clubhouse comes into view and I don’t even stop as I continue to ride toward the building. Once I’ve found my parking place, I kill the engine and kick the stand down. I don’t climb off immediately, I stay staring straight ahead, not sure if I’m ready to return back to life quite yet.
Avah scrambles off of the bike behind me. She tries to rearrange the sheet she has wrapped around her body, but that shit is holding on by a thread.
Throwing my leg over my bike, I finally climb off and bend down slightly, sliding my arm beneath her knees to pick her up. She’s barefoot and doesn’t need to be walking around this dirty, hot parking lot.
Carrying her inside of the clubhouse, I ignore everything and everyone around us. I’ll deal with the questions, the awkward looks, and the rest of the bullshit tomorrow. Tonight, I’m going to just wash the blood from my body and make my woman my own all over again.
Thankfully, nobody stops us as we make our way toward my bedroom. Slamming the door behind me, I don’t bother locking it, not really giving a fuck. In fact, I don’t really want it locked. I’ve had enough of locked doors to last me a goddamn lifetime.
Leaving the bathroom door wide open, I start the shower and only then do I set Avah down. Spinning her around until she’s facing the mirror, I unwrap the sheet from her body, leaving it in a pile on the bathroom floor.
“Burn it,” she whispers.
“Fuck yeah, we will, together.”
My gaze finds hers in the reflection of the mirror, and I can’t help but notice that her eyes are filling with wetness. “Baby,” I murmur as I wrap my arm around her chest and slide my hand up, curling my fingers around the front of her throat.
“Orson,” she breathes.
“We’re safe now,” I state.
“It was all my fault. All of this was because of me.”
Shaking my head, I let out a snort. “Avah. Get that shit outta your head. Would do it all over again if it meant keeping you safe, getting him gone so that we can move on with our lives.”
“Move on?” she asks.
I hum, my gaze traveling from her eyes to her stomach in the reflection and my hand leaves her throat, sliding down the center of her body and landing on her flat belly. I listen to the way her breathing speeds up, the way those breaths come out in soft little pants, the way her body breaks out in goose bumps.
“Yeah,” I murmur. “Move on. My ring on your finger, my baby inside of you. Move on.”
“Hawk,” she exhales.
Spinning her around, I look into her eyes. There’s some of the blood from my face and body transferred on to hers and it’s sexy as fuck, the blood of my enemy on my woman. Proof of my victory on her sweet, untouched body.
“Don’t say this, not unless you mean it, and I know that you don’t. You’ll feel different tomorrow.”
Shaking my head, I look down at her and my heart fucking aches. She’s looking up at me, so goddamn innocently through her lashes, her whole face lit up with hope. She doesn’t need any hope, she’s getting everything she wants, even if she may not really want it from me in the end.
“I’m old as fuck. I’m set in my ways. I’ll be faithful.”
She arches a brow, her lips twitching.
“I’ll try my fucking hardest to be faithful,” I amend.
“You will be,” she says. “Because if you don’t, then your life will be over.”
I laugh, my voice hoarse. “I’ll be faithful, baby. But beyond that, I’ll cherish you every fucking day, because I won’t take another day on this fucking planet for granted.”
“Orson,” she exhales. “Please tell me this is really real. You’re not going to change
