Page 138 of Ink's Devil

Suddenly I don’t want to hear what she has to say. I close the gap between us and pull her to me tightly. “Shush. I just want to hold you for now.” I might have my own views on where I want us to go from here, but if she doesn’t agree, this could be the last time I have her in my arms. Fuck I hope not. If she went, there’d be a fucking great hole in my life.

“Hey, what’s up?” In my arms, she’s gently shaking, crying quietly. Pulling back a little, I see tears leaking from her eyes.

“So much has happened, Ink. I feel like I’ve been trapped in a whirlwind, and now it’s suddenly stopped,” she sobs.

She doesn’t have to explain, I feel much the same. “It’s over now, sweetheart. Phil’s not a threat anymore. Connor, or Dan, I suppose we should call him now, has a chance at a new life. It’s all over now.”

Her hands have been clutching at my cut, now she lets me go. “You’re right, it’s over.” Pulling away from me, she walks to the wall, stands facing it and wraps her arms around her body.

Is this a sign that she thinks there’s no future between us?

“I’m sorry, Ink,” she starts, seeming to confirm my suspicions. She rises on her toes and back down as if she doesn’t know what to do with herself. “I’m so sorry. I did everything wrong. And you, you ended up in jail. No wonder you hated,hateme.” She stills. “Are you out for good?”

“I’m out for good.” Unless the cops think they’ve got something else on me, but as I’d been telling almost the whole truth, there’s little they can disprove. But I keep any residual concern to myself. “And hate you? Why the fuck should I hate you?” Didn’t riding behind me all the way from Denver give her some type of clue to how I felt? Once again, it’s me who steps closer. “Darlin’,” I put my hand on her shoulder, still turned away, “what I feel for you is so fuckin’ far from that it’s a joke.”

“But I got you locked up, Ink. I..,” her voice breaks. “You could have gone away for years.”

“I didn’t.” Something else I don’t admit, how much I’d been convinced that was going to be the result.

Suddenly she turns. “Why did you do it, Ink? Why? When you knew the cops were waiting? You must have known what was likely to happen? Why?”

Why? The million-dollar question. “I’ve asked that myself,” I admit.

Her face tightens.

I squeeze my fingers, anchoring her to me. “In one split second I knew you’d be walking into a trap and knew I had to stop you. One split second, but time for a myriad of thoughts. How I couldn’t bear it if you went inside, even if there was a valid excuse for you being there? Hell, there was a SWAT team waiting, darlin’. You could have been walking into a bullet.”

Now she gasps. “You knew all that? That you could have beenkilled?”

My hand moves from her shoulder around the back of her head. I grasp hold of her hair which has now faded to a much lighter shade of blue. “Yeah. I knew all that. And I’d do it all over again if I had to.”

“Why?” She tries to shake her head, but my hold is tight, controlling.

“Because in that moment, I knew what you meant to me Beth. You staying safe was worth more than my freedom.”

“But we hardly know each other.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Know? Got a lifetime to find out our likes and dislikes. I do know we’re compatible in bed, and since I met you, I don’t need any other woman, and I doubt I ever will. The thought of any man touching you makes me want to kill whoever it is stone cold dead. Even if it’s one of my brothers.”

“But you told me to leave you alone. That you didn’t want to see me.”

“Yeah. And that’s another thing I’d do all over again.” I fist my hand tighter in her hair and tilt it back enough I can look down into her eyes. “I couldn’t see how I wasn’t looking at the next thirty or so years in the penitentiary, Beth. It wouldn’t have been right to ask you to wait. Or hang around hoping I’d get out early on parole. You had to be free to get on with your own life. Fuckin’ killed me, babe, but it had to be done. Could I stand the thought of you with another man? No, I fuckin’ couldn’t. But I knew you would find someone, knew some fucker would sweep you up, and it wouldn’t be fair to hold you back.” She goes to speak, I put my free hand over her mouth. “Wanted you to have the freedom which I hadn’t. Wanted you to move on without feeling guilt. And last, but not fuckin’ least, didn’t want the cops to sniff out a connection between us. Could I stand being locked up? Wouldn’t have been easy, but yeah, I’d have survived it. Could I have stood knowing you were in jail? Fuck, no. I couldn’t.”

Her eyes have widened. Her pupils are dilated. Whether it’s my words or my tight hold on her hair, I’ve no idea.

My cock is swelling. He wants to be done with this conversation and right now, I don’t blame him. “You were mine,” I tell her. “Even though the words you were told were to stay away and that we were over. But my brothers knew different. I told them I’d claimed you.”

“You claimed me?” Her head tilts to the side, and her brow creases.

“Claiming you gave me the comfort of knowing you had family watching out for you.” I bow my forehead to touch hers. “Not that they did a good job of it.”

“They tried,” she says fast.

“Sure. They sent hangarounds…”

“Ink, they couldn’t send anyone else. Else the cops would have sniffed out a connection between us or more than the one we admitted.”

“You’re not just a fuck buddy to me,” I tell her. Hoping this time she’ll say the words back. She doesn’t, she seems at a loss for words. If she won’t say it to me, perhaps I’ll spell it out to her. “I told my brothers I’d claimed you, and that’s what I want. But I need to know you’re with me.” I hardly dare breathe as I start asking questions to which I might not want to hear the answers. “Do you want to be claimed, Beth? Do you want to be the only girl who’s ever ridden behind me on my bike and know it will only ever be you there? Do you want to wear my patch showing I own you, as you, in return, own me? Do you want to spend the rest of your days in my bed and in my life? Because that’s what I want, sweetheart.”

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