Page 94 of Roar & Lizzy: A Forever Kind of Love

Maybe because she'd fallen in love with him, she had never allowed herself to dig deeper. Maybe she was scared of what she'd find out.

The uneasy feeling that something was going on behind her back and Roar purposely hid whatever it was from her fractured their relationship. She wanted openness and the truth.

Several minutes passed, and he refrained from answering her. She needed to know. To understand.

"Are you going to answer me?" she asked.

"Ja." He set down the empty mug between his boots. "I've never had someone ask me the question. I know in my heart what it means to be Slag. I'm not sure I have the words to describe what my heart feels."

"Try," she whispered.

"You have to understand that how I feel goes back generations and I've inherited the fight to keep our heritage and traditions in the lives of our members." He stroked the braid holding his beard. "I have known nothing else but the life I've been given, and I'm proud of the freedom my parents and their parents before them have given me. How they've brought a wide range of people together, despite their differences, and bonded them through their love of motorcycles and the blood that runs through us."

She remained quiet, wanting him to go on. She understood the common thread for Slag members. They were all Nordic, and that meant a lot to him.

"To do what we love, we must fit into this small glass bowl." He tapped his fingertips together. "And, like all of society, even outside the groups of Motorcycle Clubs, there's a culture with different stages of power where the top dog sets the rules while the little dogs are constantly trying to fight their way higher that causes contention and wars. It might seem like we're always fighting, but that...bowl is small."

She bent her legs and wrapped her arms around her knees. "Like the rich versus the poor? Money makes a difference?"

She could understand losing control of her own destination because a job, money, dictated her life. She had no choice but to work every day to pay her bills when one visit to the hospital had the power to make her homeless. She envied those who had healthcare, and a doctor visit was no longer an inconvenience but a benefit of having money. To think of it that way, she would be a little dog envious of the bigger dogs.

"Money, size of club, territories, everything can be achieved with hard work, despite the hardships." He looked at her. "They can also be stolen."

"It causes war within the motorcycle clubs," she whispered, finally understanding.

"Ja," he whispered back. "To know you can lose everything makes us...makes me fight harder to keep what I have."

His gaze never wavered. Proud in his stance, he held a certain conviction in his opinion that stood true to her.

She couldn't help but admire him for his beliefs. "Is fighting and gaining more that important to you?"

He thumped the front of his chest with the palm of his hand. "It's my heart. It flows through my veins. It's what I live for, and if I die trying to give my men, my family, and someday my children, the life they deserve, then I'll die honorably. Wouldn't you protect your child with your life? Wouldn't you want to give your children every advantage, every freedom, every chance to feel the love of their family?"

She dropped her chin to her chest and blinked the tears from her eyes. He gave her a picture of the life she wanted. He'd changed her mind about something ugly and made her see the beauty. While she could never accept criminal activity, and he wasn't asking her to, he wanted her to believe in him and all that he stood for.

He loved her enough to spend the night on the step to protect her. She inhaled deeply at the ways he'd shown her every step of their relationship what kind of man he was for her.

She raised her gaze. The heartache of last night lessened by the overwhelming pain of being without him.

"You hurt a man because he was going to kill Aron," she said, for no other reason than she wanted to validate that reason in her head. To understand. To get rid of the vision she'd imagined last night, that he'd purposely assaulted another person.

He turned his head and inhaled deeply.

"You're not an easy man to understand, but you're a simple man to love." She swallowed. "I do. I love you."

He leaned toward her and kissed her softly but passionately. "I love you."

She snaked her arms around his neck. "I'm sorry about—"

"No." He kissed the side of her head and said, "There's nothing to be sorry for. You only heard part of the story."

"Was that what the police were doing there? Talking to you about the man who tried to kill Aron?" She leaned back and looked at him. "Are you in trouble?"

He shook his head. "They came looking for evidence and found nothing. It happens. Law enforcement gets a whiff of trouble in the area, and they'd love to pin it on Slag."

She shivered. "That's unfair."

"Life is often unfair." He gathered her hands in both of his. "There's one more thing I need to talk to you about."

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