Total pages in book: 260
Estimated words: 245483 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1227(@200wpm)___ 982(@250wpm)___ 818(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 245483 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1227(@200wpm)___ 982(@250wpm)___ 818(@300wpm)
Where the fuck was that for me? Where was it for Kat? She’s not the one who betrayed the club. We were kids at best. My father’s words scream at me as I recall that night.
He begged me to run, to be anywhere but on the scene when the cops arrived. I should have listened to my old man. Regret is a bitch but betrayal … it’s unforgivable in this world.
The entire way to the club, Kat was silent and if I pressed a subject, she’d only give me one-word answers. She was too busy picking at the sleeves of her burgundy sweater and a hole in her torn skinny jeans. She was too busy avoiding me and the conversation.
My leather jacket was laid in the back seat of her car and I left it there.
Being home is nothing like I thought it would be. There’s a constant anxiousness that has me on edge. Even as I drove Kat’s car, taking her back here to the club, I struggled with reaching out to hold her hand.
There’s a part of me that’s dead and gone. And a part that’s mourning what used to be. More than anything I want it back, but as her pace slows with us nearing the club, I question what it used to be. What loyalty meant and whether or not it ever existed.
It hit hard when Kat asked if we were taking my bike.
The dreams of her on the back of my bike carried me through hell and yet, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not for this.
None of this feels right. It’s not what I was told it was. It’s as if I’ve been living a lie. It’s eerie as I slip my fingers through her hand and walk through the same door that led to our end four years ago.
“Cillian?” My name on Kat’s lips holds fear, insecurity and the threat of her turning around and leaving me as I push open the door.
She pulls back, her boots stumbling in the gravel and her hand leaving mine.
“Don’t you dare leave me,” I say and the words leave me before I’m able to stop them. With my pulse pounding in my ears, I tell her with a gravelly tone, “You are mine.”
Her hazel eyes peer back with more concern than I anticipated, more fear, like it’ll kill her to go back to what used to be our home, our haven, the place of nearly all our firsts. “Cill, please,” she begs me in a whisper, and it’s my undoing.
With one hand wrapping under her thigh and the other on her waist, I lift her up in a swift movement and brace her back against the wall, capturing her lips and reminding her who she belongs to. Even if neither of us will say it out loud. I love her. I need her.
And this hell the club put her through? Seeing her write that she hated the club and feeling deep down that I do too? I can’t fucking stand it.
It only takes my lips on hers for my little hellcat to mold her lips to mine. To part the seam of them and grant me entry. Although I’m hard with my kiss at first, my touch softens, her body heats and soft moans pour from her like they used to.
It’s only once I’m satisfied she won’t run that I pull back and stare into the haze of emotions in her gorgeous eyes.
“The club had no right to leave you.” All I keep thinking today, the one thought that won’t stop demanding to be heard, is that she would have stayed with me if only they did what the club stands for. If only they’d protected her. She was more mine than she was her father’s daughter. She was supposed to be my wife, my everything. “They should have stayed by you until I was out.”
A concoction of emotion swirls in her green and gold eyes that I can’t place. “I don’t know that that’s true.”
“I do.” There’s not a second of hesitation. “They knew what you meant to me. Every single one of them.” They knew I was going to propose. They all fucking knew. “And that’s enough. Do you hear me?”
She nods, swallowing thickly as I slowly lower her to stand on her own, her back still against the old brick wall of the club.
“They need to accept you because you’re mine,” I tell her firmly and the lack of her denying that is what fuels me to say and do whatever the fuck I have to in order to make this right.
“I am,” she murmurs, her gaze still captured in mine.
This time when I gather her hand, she holds it back, walking beside me as I push open the door and lead the way past the garage and upstairs to the rec room.