Page 35 of Dark As Coal

Slowly, at his pace.

I shook my head, no, this wasn’t going to happen.

He told me I was his woman this morning. Laid it out for me. He wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t meant it. Because Coal Matthew Adams doesn’t say shit, he doesn’t mean.

Using a move Coal had taught me, I twisted my arm out of his, spun around him, and then marched back into the main room of the clubhouse.

Seeing Coal going toe to toe with Asher should have stopped me from doing what I was about to do, but there is no greater pain than a woman with a broken heart.

When I reached him, just like all the other times when he felt me near, his head moved and then his eyes landed on mine.

I noticed Asher let go of him, my arm was coming back, and then my hand was slapping him across the face.

I watched as his nostrils flared but I didn’t move, I waited until he righted his head, and locked those steel-gray eyes with mine.

“You’re a fucking coward. I tell you that I love you, and then not even, not fucking even twelve hours later you’re okay with some other man getting their hands on me. I heard you this morning, you know. I heard you. So, what if you have blood on your hands? I do, one week each month when my period is heavy, and I have to change out my tampons. Big fucking whoop.”

“Hell, I sleep easier at night knowing about the men you go after and take down. I know that you’re ridding the world of that kind of evil.”

“Sou…” I held up my hand.

“No, you just lost the right to call me Soulshine. And what the fuck us up for someone being too good for another person? That’s my decision. I’m a grown-ass woman. I choose who is good enough for me, and you were, you always have been, until the thought crossed your mind to let someone else put their hands on me.”

Then I stepped back, looked at Asher then looked at Charlie because he would be the one to know, and asked, “How many months ago was my time as a club girl over?”

Charlie looked at me with a sad smile, and muttered, “Seven.”

I watched as Coal took in that news.

And then I watched as his eyes flared.

But I kept going, “Yeah, I didn’t have to sleep with anyone. I could have walked away seven months ago. But I didn’t. For you. I never thought it was possible. But god damn, Coal. You would never lay your hands on me. And never, not once has a woman texted or called your phone. Not once have you come back from a run with the scent of another woman on you.”

“And I know because when your cologne is two days old, it’s faint. But it’s there.” I didn’t realize I had tears trailing down my cheeks.

“After everything that happened this morning. What was that? Some kind of fucking game?” I asked him.

And when he still didn't answer me, when he stood there still as a statue, I knew, I knew. I knew what I had to do. It was time I stopped.

Fucking high time, I did.

And that was holding onto something and trying to be patient.

Fuck. That.

Then I looked over at Piney, and asked, “That marker you owe me? Calling it in.”

He stood up, and immediately asked, “Whatcha need, baby girl?”

“You don’t let him get near me while I pack my things, and then load them up in your truck and you take me home.”

Piney nodded, “Done.”

“I’ll help, honey,” Gabby said as she came to my side and wrapped her arm around my shoulders.

Stella stepped up, “Same.

Chloe got on my other side, wrapped her arm around my waist, and said, “You got me too.”

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