Page 65 of Property of Chaos

“I think you know what I would have found.”

“I do.” My gaze drops to her mouth. “But it’s only half the truth.”

“So tell me the rest of it.”

I flick my focus back to her eyes. “Not yet.”

“Because women can’t be trusted with the details of the club, right?” Her lips firm into a hard line. “Men don’t tell their old ladies anything. Club business is off-limits.” She tilts her head, gaze narrowing. “Tell me how your club is any different from the misogynistic bullshit I escaped, Chaos.”

Game on.Here’s the discourse I hoped for—the meat of the issue. “It’s nothing like that hell.”

“How?” she presses, arms digging into my shins as she leans in.

Our fucking noses are inches apart. I could kiss that goddamn look off her face right now, but where would that get me other than proving her point about sex being used as a weapon?

“It’s different,” I detail, “because we keep the women, the men, whoever a brother’s partner is, out of club business to protect them, not deny them. Guilt by association. The less they know, the less they can be pinned for. More than that,” I say, lifting a finger to stall her rebuttal. “We keep them out of the shit to protect their head space. It’s abuse to force the kind of shit we do onto the unwilling. If they wanted to be involved in that side of things, they would have patched in as a member themselves. But by choosing to be property or associates, they’ve more-or-less entered a contract to have us”—I pat my chest—“the brothers who’ve sworn to protect the club, including the people in it, shield them from that hurt. We take the world on our shoulders so they don’t have to.”

“How noble,” she sasses.

It fucking pisses me off. “Yeah. It is noble. It’s also more than many are willing to sacrifice.”

She tucks her arms in, breaking our contact.

“Did I say you could stop touching me?”

I’m met with fury, bright and wild behind her gaze. “Did I say you could dictate what I do with my own body?”

“Did it ever occur to you that maybeIneed it?” Flay my chest open and serve my heart raw because that was the most honest and vulnerable confession ever to leave my lips.

I do need it. I crave connection. The reminder that I’m flesh and bone and not some devil sent to destroy the world.

Vanessa pauses, swallowing as she studies my unwavering gaze. Her jaw tics, nostrils flaring as her stance visibly softens. “Areyouokay?”

“No.” I clench my fists where they hang between my knees. “But I’m not here for me.”

“Whyareyou here?” Her breathing picks up pace. “What is it about me that makes you feel obligated to waste your time like this?”

I clench my jaw. “Don’tevertell me I’m wasting my time on you again.” I lean so damn far forward that my chest crushes my thighs. “You hear me?”

She stiffens.

“I choose what to do with my time, and I choose to be here. With you.”

“You still haven’t told me why,” she stresses. “I don’t understand what the fuck makes you feel responsible for me when you don’t even know me.”

“Don’t I?” I tilt my head, brow hard.

She rolls her lips together, testing my resolve not to kiss her yet.

It’s there, unsaid in the spaces between my words:I read your journal. I read your pain. I know you.

Iamyou.

“Even so.” Breathless words fall from her lips.

“Even so,” I mimic. “You tell me. Does anyoneneeda reason to fall in love?”

TWENTY-FIVE

---