Page 38 of Tyrant

She curls her fingers into my beard, drawing me even closer, shaking her head so hard that the tremor passes through the rest of her. “I was so stupid. I didn’t want to lose you, and I didn’t want her to have to lose you—because with the way you live, I knew that would happen eventually. I didn’t want her to ever be in danger, but we could have lost you anyway and we were always going to be connected to the club through Raiden, even if no one knew about us. You should hate me.”

My hands find her waist and my fingers curl in there. I shouldn’t be touching her, shouldn’t be grounding either of us, but I can’t help myself.

“All I’ve been is mean to you,” she continues in that trembling voice. “Chasing you away and trying to keep you at bay, and all you did was promise me time, bring your whole club here to plant flowers, and support me. Literally. You picked me off the ground. You’re here now, taking care of me. I said I hate the person you became, but it’s the other way around. I hate myself. So, so much.”

“No.” The world rumbles out of my chest, loud as my bike firing up. She tries to look away, but I force her chin back up. “Look at me.” She forces her swollen eyes back to mine. “You need to forgive yourself for leaving. It was hell for me when you left, but it was worse for you, out there on your own, having to raise a kid without family or friends. I wanted to find the prick who left you alone like that and murder him. wanted to find the cunt ass doctor Raiden told me about, and carve out his eyes, but my promise stopped me. I should have come for you. Should have known that words are one thing, but what I felt was a far more sacred oath. There hasn’t been a day since you left that I haven’t loved you. You want my forgiveness? You have it. You don’t have to ask.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Hey.” I press the pad of my thumb roughly into her bottom lip. A sigh of breath spools over it and trails up my hand. It’s all I can do not to bend her back on that counter, wrap her legs around my hips, and fuck my forgiveness into her. “You’re having a rough time and going through something like this, this much grief, would break anyone, so I’m going to give you a pass on telling me what’s possible and what’s not. I never saidit wasn’t complicated. I might have changed, we both might be different, but youknowme.”

She stares and stares at me, but at least she’s trying to breathe now. Slower. One shaky inhale after another.

She curls her fingers closed around my hand and surprises the hell out of me by bringing it to her mouth. She turns it over, my calloused palm, and brushes her lips over my knuckles. She should be cried out by now, but fresh tears spill down her cheeks. I twist my hand and press my fingers into the right side of her cheek, gathering them up.

I don’t crave to control her, and I swear that I’d die before I ever caused her another second of pain, but I have to move my hand, brush away her soft hair, and trace a path to her neck. She sighs, arching her head back into my touch.

“Gray…”

It’s hard, hearing her say my name like that. It sounds like a plea full of wicked, breathy desire. A plea to take her and make it all disappear, to make it all better. To be buried to the hilt in her until there’s no more death and no more world and no more hurt. No more aching for five years. No more separation or anger or anxiety over tomorrow.

Only us, fitting together perfectly, like we’re only here and only breathing this air and living in these bodies, sewn together of blood and flesh, shaped like clay and kilned into vessels made just for the other.

She feels it too. She freezes, sensing the danger and excitement.

“No, Birdie.” I need to detach. Give us time to think. I take her face gently, but firmly. “You’ve had a hell of a week. Youlooked like you wanted to crawl right into that grave and get buried too and I couldn’t handle it. Seeing you in so much pain tore the soul clean out of me. I’m not thinking about the past. I want you by my side, but it has to be your decision. I won’t settle for anything less than you as my queen and that comes with a lot of responsibility and obligations.”

She moans low in her throat, testing me as her eyes become velvet pools, as tears gather and star her lashes. The flush on her cheeks darkens.

“It bears more than a day of thinking, especially on a day like this.” I need to let her go. I need to…

“What if I need you right now?” She grasps my beard with surprising strength and slips her hand beneath, to my throat, like she wants to feel the denial I’m trying to work myself up to.

“Lark…” She trembles at the dark warning in that, and just seeing the way her eyes dark and watching her head tip to the side, her hair spilling out of the way to reveal her neck to me like he wants to be bitten, taken, fucked hard right there on the kitchen counter, owned by me, crowned the queen to my motorcycle king with my dick coronating her,sends desire coursing through me so hot and hard that I know I’m finished. Grief affects people differently, maybe she needs to feel alive again.

Anything she asks me for, I will give her.

I’ve always belonged to her, even when I didn’t know it, but I’ve done a lot of knowing it and I am half feral for it.

“Funerals make you feel that way. Death makes you want to live,” she says, echoing my thoughts.

She calls my half-assed attempt at denial, calls it, and raises by spreading her legs further apart then curling her knees and wrapping them around me, digging one of her heels into my ass and pulling me close.

“I want to be a good man for you,” I groan as all her naked longing is revealed to me by her expression, magnified by her silence.

Her hand drops to my waist, flips up my suit jacket, and tries to find my waistband. I push it away, shaking my head. “Not going to be with you like that again until I can do it without hiding and I know where your mind’s at.” She hisses at me like a feral cat as I clutch her fingers together in a tight grip. I might have had blue balls for half a decade, but I’m just glad to see some of her spirit come rushing back. “What you need is a release, and I can give that to you.”

“But not with your cock?” she sasses, looking like she wants to dick punch me in revenge.

“With my fingers.” I push her dress up her thighs with both hands, spreading my rough palms over skin soft and smooth as silk.

She whimpers when I lean in, getting up in her space, my hands pinning her legs down onto the counter.

She grabs onto the stupid tie that’s been half choking me all morning, arching into me so hard that her breasts mash against my chest.

I force her to release it, untangling her fingers. I swipe my hand over her jaw, turning her face down and away from me. “Lark…”

“Please, Gray.”

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