Page 18 of The Reaper

She looked at him and he indeed looked angry, his face was flashed and his eyes were glinting. He was looking at her intensely and she felt her anger burning off her. It wasn’t fair that he was getting angry with her. It wasn’t fair that he was going to take out his frustrations on her. Maybe she should take out her frustrations on him.

He then began to pull the sheets off of him, his irritation palpable.

“Jack, what are you doing, you can’t get up-” she said exasperatedly.

“I can and I will,” he ground out through clenched teeth. And she saw the moment he realised that really he couldn’t stand and realised he only had his hospital gown on, with it half hanging off him. Hannah swallowed. He was tall. He lurched forward unsteadily, his cannula in his wrist rattled.

“Jack, you can’t get up yet, the nurses said —”

“Fuck what the nurses said, Hannah, is this how he would resolve our arguments?“ He stepped forward then. She did not back down. She squared up to him, even though she had to look up to meet his eyes and she shifted her shoulders back and down. What was he going to do to her, really?

He stepped forward again and looked down at her. “Is this what we would do Hannah?”

“Maybe we did, Jack, more to the point, maybe we will again.”

There was one way she knew they could find resolution. She shot her hands out and fisted his hospital gown, pulling him closer, so that he was pressed up against her. She adjusted her legs and pushed her hips against his thigh. Her clit rubbed against him. She moaned again, extended up and bit his ear.

He gasped, his eyes widened.

“Maybe we will again,” she repeated to emphasise her point. “You’re always looking behind, Jack, maybe you should start looking ahead.”

“Fuck.” Was all he managed to utter, and then he promptly fainted.

CHAPTER

TEN

HANNAH

“I feellike there is something between us, something hot and alive and full of passion and affection, but there is something cold and solid, like concrete, something between us, a wall, you hide behind it sometimes... ” He was sitting up in bed, it was the day after he had fainted, and Hannah was sure he was beginning to remember. Beginning to remember he wasn’t hers after all. It was on the tip of his tongue, the elephant in the room. The ward had felt safe and now it felt too crowded with the web of lies she had spun..

He was right, of course, she was almost glad he felt it, too. Yes, there was a wall of something hard and cold and solid. It was who he was. And yes, there was something she didn’t want to tell him, he was perceptive to feel that cold wall of lies.

“You just had clear boundaries. There are some things you kept to yourself. Which was fine. I never pushed you for anything further.” She knew she sounded distant. She was scrambling to make stuff up now. He knew and it was only a matter of time until the house of cards she had built came tumbling down around her.

“I could change that, though, like you said the other night, I can change, maybe I should start looking forward, instead of trying to unravel the past, this could be a new beginning for us,” he said, tentatively.

She looked right at him. Why had he said that, phrased it exactly like that, ‘new beginning’? That’s what she had called him, when she had found him, when she had claimed him. That caught her out, her face flushed and she stammered, unsure of how to respond.

He pulled her close and kissed her. It was a lovely kiss, a real kiss, there was deep feeling there on his side. It wasn’t the passion filled, rushed, hungry kiss designed to arouse, like previously. The kisses of the other night. It was a real kiss.

He looked at her, really looked, like it was the first time. “You're very beautiful, you know, your eyes, there is so much going on in your eyes…”

She felt uncomfortable at the compliment. He spotted, she must have squirmed. He could read her like a book, he picked up on it at once.

“Did I not tell you that?” he asked.

She took in a shaky breath. He defaulted to thinking about their relationship. He felt something was up and he always wanted to ask, how had they been before. He didn’t yet realise that actually she was such a tiny part of his life. She was a stranger, and he had bigger worries on his plate. She would fade into obscurity once he remembered. Or he’d come for revenge. He’d be angry with her for the lies. And then maybe she’d had the wrath of the Bratva and the Reapers MC coming down on her all at once.

“A new beginning, I’m telling you now, Hannah.”

She smiled but turned away, pretending to straighten out the bed sheets. She didn’t want to ask him outright, ask him what he was remembering. She didn’t want him to have to outright lie,she didn’t want to force him into that corner. She didn’t want it to end.

He took a breath. “Why is there so much you aren’t telling me?” he asked. “I can’t help but feel something doesn’t make sense here.”

Her palms immediately felt clammy, when seconds ago she had felt fine. She tried to maintain her relaxed posture, her smile, but she felt it falter on her lips.

“The doctor said it would be better not to rush it, you should recall things as they come back to you under your own pace-” she stammered, looking down, looking anywhere but right at him.

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