Page 106 of Rook

“Wait, Rook. I’m so sorry!” I said, my voice catching as I rushed in the elevator with him.

Just when I felt like my heart was about to shatter into a million pieces, Rook reached for me, pulling me close and pressing his sweaty forehead to mine.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” he said, sucking in a deep breath as the tension leeched from his body.

“I should have told you.”

“I knew you had secrets. I figured you’d tell me when you felt comfortable enough to. You still don’t have to tell me if you’re not ready.”

That right there was what made me want to tell him it all. Every dirty, ugly, shameful thing I’d been keeping to myself for years.

“He told me he was going to take care of me,” I told him. “And after a lifetime of never having anyone do anything for me, I think I just wanted that so badly. Badly enough that I didn’t even hesitate to believe him.”

“And it was good at first,” Rook guessed.

“I don’t know if I would ever say that it was good. Not that I know what good actually means,” I said as my hands slid around his hips, pulling him closer, getting my ex’s blood all over me. And, somehow, that felt fitting.

“But it was… it was better than life with my mom. There was good, at least. Someone who actively looked for me and wanted me around. But it wasn’t because he actually liked me. He just wanted to possess me. He wanted to exert his… his… ownership of me in front of the men.

“And before long, he liked to punish me in front of them too.”

“Punish you?” Rook asked, tensing.

“He didn’t… hit me often. It happened. But Randy was much more into psychological abuse. Like, like if I, you know,refusedhim for any reason—even a legitimate one—he would drag me out to the common room, grab a club girl, and force me to watch him have her go down on him, or fuck her, while telling the club how I didn’t know how to satisfy my man.”

“Christ,” Rook said. “How the fuck were you even able to look at me, if that was your experience with bikers?”

“I’d like to claim I just saw the goodness in you, but I honestly just saw safety in you.”

“Safety?”

“Randy didn’t have a lot of morals. But he did respect club rules. Namely, that no one touches another biker’s old lady. I thought being married to you would protect me from him. I guess I was wrong there.”

“I don’t think you were,” Rook said, surprising me enough to pull back to look at him. “In the interest of full disclosure, I didn’t kill Randy tonight. I would have. But Slash pulled me back. Make no mistake, he might be wishing for death right about now, but he’s still breathing. As much as he can through a nose that broken, anyway.”

“Okay,” I agreed.

“I get the feeling he doubled down out of shock and not being used to having someone stand up to him.”

“That’s definitely how he is.”

“Once we were pulled apart, he was, I don’t want to say… reasonable. But he said he didn’t know you ‘belonged’ to me when he came to take you back. Putting aside the disgusting language, he agreed that if I married you, that you’re mine. And he isn’t going to come for you again.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I think so. I mean, the guys are riding out of town with that whole crew right now. Who probably should all be in a hospital, not doing a road trip, but they will follow until that crew crosses out of state. And we will be on high alert for the next few months. But I think it’s done, babe. And if it isn’t, Iwillput an end to it.”

“Thank you for coming for me.”

“Babe, I’d go to the ends of the fucking earth to get you back. In a strictly non-controlling way,” he added with a little light in his eyes. “Not because you belong to me, but because I thinkwebelong together.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, heart squeezing. “I think we do too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We do have a problem, though,” I said, wincing a bit at his face.

“What?” he asked, tensing.

---