Page 17 of Rogue

“She was attacked by the same guys who shot me,” I tell her. “It’s better if you don’t make her say it in front of too many people. It was a warning.”

Melody’s eyes finally thaw out a little bit hearing that.

“You should take better care of your woman,” she snaps.

“She’s not my woman,” I say, so happy she’s giving me the chance to clarify this.

“Even if she’s just your club girl then,” she says even more ferociously.

“Hey, I’m here with her, aren’t I?” I say, feeling my blood rising too.

It’s not just because of the accusation in her eyes. It’s also because I totally failed to protect Lotus. But mostly it’s because I’m starting to accept that maybe I don’t have a chance in hell with this pretty lady in front of me.

“Take a seat out here,” she says. “And let me take care of Ms. Richards.”

She doesn’t wait for me to say anything, just goes back into the exam room and slams the door shut, making the glass in the windows rattle.

Great.

Now I want her to know I’m not some creep who doesn’t take care of his club girls on top of really wanting to look into those deep ocean blue eyes of hers while she’s riding my cock.

The problem is, I have a very strong suspicion that neither of those things are in our future as far as she’s concerned.

But one of those things she’s yet to find out about me is that I never back down from a fight. Not even a losing one.

8

Melody

We spent almost an hour trying to stabilize that poor kid whose family was plowed into by a Mack truck. I spent thirty of those minutes giving him CPR until my arms were on fire. He coded three times. And three times we brought him back. His grandma and his parents are hanging on by a thread. They all need surgery that they might not be strong enough to survive. The truck driver limped up and down the hall with a band aid on his forehead and a bruised knee.

“Who’s Ben?” Shelly asked as they wheeled the boy out of the trauma room on his way to Surgery.

Hearing the name felt like an icepick through the hurt, opening a wound that I’d fooled myself into thinking was closed.

“My little brother,” I told her.

“You called the kid we were working on that a few times,” Shelly said as she unfastened my gown. “Did he die?”

“Yeah,” I said, only vaguely remembering calling the victim by my brother’s name as I begged him to stay with me. “In a car crash a lot like this one.”

“Well, you saved this kid,” she said, smiling widely even though her eyes were very sad. “Good work.”

“Saved him for what? His whole family might be dead tomorrow.”

My knees almost buckled as she gave me a very familiar miserable and pitying look. The pity of strangers or near strangers is something I just can’t stand. Still, even a decade later. It’s why I’m really careful about who I share my story with. About eighty percent of that look is always happiness that they’re not the ones in my shoes. Seeing that look on the faces of everyone who knew me back then is the main reason I was so happy to run away from everything and everyone in my old life and join the Devils. They all knew my kind of pain there. Some better than others. But none of them pitied me. We were all in the same boat. And we had a lot of fun together.

After remembering all that, I rushed out of the trauma room in search of Rogue, my one last link to my old life.

Only to find him whispering something into the ear of a willowy redhead in the waiting room. She was covered in bruises, but the adoration in her eyes as she looked at him said one thing and one thing only. They’re together!

The creep had asked me out with his beat-up girlfriend sitting alone in the waiting room. Hell, he’s probably the one who beat her up.

And as my luck would have it, they called them in right as I was standing there gawking at the display, so I had no choice but to examine her.

Maybe I don’t think either of those things anymore now, after Rogue told me what happened to her. And after Lotus spent the last twenty minutes while I checked her over, extolling on what a great guy he is, and how much he’s done for her and how much he always does for everyone. If it weren’t for the childlike honesty in her big brown eyes as she told me all that—all aboutthe abusive ex Rogue saved her from, and all about what a saint of a man Rogue is—I’d think she was coached to say all that. But she’s telling me the truth as she sees it. I don’t doubt it.

So after Shelly wheels her out to get x-rays, I don’t think too hard about anything. I just walk up to Rogue who’s leaning on the wall across from the exam room. The look in his eyes is such a perfect blend of fire and ice I feel like I’m looking at a raging forest fire as it meets the cool waters of a mountain lake.

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