Page 8 of Dark As Coal

Her only response was, “He’s got a fire in his eyes, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. And that fire tells me everything I need to know. Plus, those scars... he’s been through a lot. Something tells me he wouldn’t harm a single soul unless he was provoked. And something else tells me that once you get into his circle, it takes an act from God to get you out of that circle.

Piney’s only response was to say one word, “Huh.”

Fucking huh.

It was four weeks later after I heard that conversation that she managed to slip through.

Straight through my carefully planted explosives, the barbed wire surrounding my stronghold, through the concrete, I had caked on that particular organ that seemed to start beating to a rhythm she created.

I remember it like it was yesterday, taking my time, something I wasn’t known for doing, fucking ever, but there had just been something in her eyes.

Something that called to me, something that no matter how hard I had fought, I had been lost.

No one else knew that she owned me.

No one else knew the power she had over me.

And no one was ever going to find out, because if they did, they wouldn’t see the man I am.

No, they would only have to look at the dirt underneath her shoe, and that was where they would find me.

Because all my life, that’s all I’ve been, nothing but fucking dirt.

However, every time I looked into her eyes, I didn’t feel that way.

Never did.

No, the way I felt, it was as if someone had taken the highest voltage with a cattle prod and hit me with it. Or the way your chest expands when you view the Grand Canyon, Eiffel Tower, and The Statue of Liberty, all for the very first time.

I shook my head from where my thoughts were headed, knowing it wouldn’t do me any good.

Sitting there in the middle of the clubhouse with a few brothers, we were waiting for Asher to get done doing whatever he was doing.

I watched as a few of the club girls came walking from the back hall while rubbing sleep from their eyes.

And none of them got me to react like Adeline did.

And yeah, I’m not going to lie to you. I have from time to time sampled the offerings from the girls who wanted to be one of our girls.

But not since I laid eyes on Adeline in that hospital bed after she donated Piney a kidney and on her eighteenth birthday, no less.

Asher came down the steps then just as Whit finished with Lizette, smacked her on her ass, and then at Asher’s words, “Let’s ride.” We all got up and headed to our bikes.

As we pulled out of the clubhouse, eleven bikes in total, we throttled up and hit the open road.

Four hours later, we had just made our drop of guns, got paid, and found ourselves back on the open road and coasting back into the clubhouse.

Gabby, Stella, Chloe, and a few other ol’ ladies were in the kitchen making food as their laughter carried out of the kitchen and into the main room.

My fingers itched to text Adeline and see if she could meet me out back. And since it was outside of the clubhouse, I wouldn’t be breaking a rule.

Besides, I never got enough of her, even though I knew that fucking her was all I could give her.

But just as I thought that I felt someone’s hand graze along the back of my neck.

My vision blackened immediately.

Someone. Fucking. Touched. The. Back. Of. My. Fucking. Neck.

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