Page 103 of Avenging Devil: Part 1

“The note was pushed under my door. It was a warning to me. Who’d go out of their way to do that if it wasn’t true?”

As fast as it came, he shakes off his anger, his face radiating sadness instead. “Fuck. No wonder you didn’t want to talk to me.” He shakes his head. “I’m so far from having an old lady, it’s a joke. As for who, one person occurs to me. And if it’s her, she’s fuckin’ dead. Saffie, I fucked a woman once, months back, and that was a fuckin’ mistake when I was drunk. Since then, she won’t leave me alone. Even the club girls have taken to chasing her off. Salem escorted her out of the club a couple of nights back. She’s nothing to me and never has been. If it was her, she was only trying to stir up trouble between us.”

Unreasonably jealous she’s had a part of him I have not, forgetting for a moment I don’t want it, I say cattily, “So you fucked her, didn’t find her to your taste, and dropped her just like that?” I should have known. It’s the way bikers act.

His voice rises. “I barely remember fuckin’ her. I wasdrunk.If anything, it was she who took advantage. Good or bad, I have no recollection.” He huffs. “What would you say if a woman was drunk, and a man forced himself onto her? What would you call it then?” He pauses, then shakes his head. “I didn’t even know whether I used a condom or not, so got tested as soon as I sobered up. And that, Saffie, was the last time I fucked anyone. If I had an ol’ lady, my damn hand wouldn’t be so overworked.”

I’m half full of hope, half disgust at myself, knowing I’m lapping up his explanation. The words he’s saying make me want to believe him, when maybe I shouldn’t. Turning around I face him, my hands fluttering in the air. “Who can I believe, Niran?”

His dark eyes, full of anguish, settle on me. “Not an anonymous note writer for a start. If you don’t trust me, Saffie, then you were right to leave. I thought I’d shown you enough that you’d never doubt me. You never came and asked me for the truth.” He wipes his forehead and looks at me sadly. “You really thought I had an old lady in the wings I was cheating on? How could you believe that of me?”

He’s been moving, either his fingers across his hair, or using his hands to gesticulate at me. Suddenly he stills. “Fuck. How could it have been Susie? Even if she dared return to the club, she wouldn’t have known where you were staying that night. It has to be Cyn. My own fuckin’ sister.”

His sister?“Why would she lie, Niran?”

He visibly slumps. “Remember I hadn’t shut the door that night? I didn’t want you to feel trapped. I thought I heard someone outside, but dismissed it. After I left you, she appeared. She could have been eavesdropping. If she had, she’d have heard me offering to turn in my patch and leave the club.”

“And that matters to her?” It kind of makes sense, but I’m not convinced. Okay, I hadn’t taken to Cyn when I’d met her briefly, and knew she’d taken an instant dislike to me.

Niran rubs his nose as though trying to think of the answer. “She’s as possessive as fuck about me. And I suspect, she gets a lot from me being in the club. If I left, she wouldn’t be welcome there. And I sure as fuck wouldn’t have her coming with us.”

“But she must have known she’d hurt you.”

“I honestly don’t think she gives a fuck.” He steps closer to me. “Saffie, I swear, whatever she said, it’s for her own reasons.”

We’ve been arguing, I’ve thrown accusations, and he’s refuted each and every one. Never once have I felt at risk, as I might have done with another man. I also feel certain that were I to tell him that having heard everything, I still want him to leave, he would. Instead of judging him on what I’ve been told, I judge him on evidence instead. He’s never hurt me, and I don’t think he ever would.

There’s something comforting about him being with me in my apartment. The noises don’t seem so threatening with him around. I feel the most at ease than I have since I returned.

He could be with me forever if I just reached out.

I let the tension ease from me, my shoulders dipping as they relax, and my breath comes more evenly. “I think I believed the note as it was easy. I wanted an excuse to think you weren’t the man I made you out to be. You scared me when you said you’d claimed me. And then when you said you’d leave the club… You’ve offered so much when I’ve nothing to give you. We’ve not even had sex.”

He looks at me sharply. “Sex? Hell, darlin’. Sure, that’s part of a relationship, but not the be-all and end-all of it. You, you’re different, like nothing I’ve known before. From the moment we met, there was something inside you that called to me. If you ask me what, I couldn’t explain.” He smooths his hands over his face, drawing down the skin below his eyes. “I wanted to be there for you, not sexually, but as a friend. I respect you, that’s the difference. I wanted to get to know the real you, to be there for you while you couldn’t be strong for yourself, to see you become the confident, strong woman I know you are under all the burdens you carry. In the meantime, you needed something from me, something that was my gift to give, my protection. It wasn’t a hardship thinking about making you my old lady, even if we hadn’t taken the next step yet, nor knowing when or if that was ever going to be possible.”

His words are hypnotising, poetic, and on the face of it, reasonable. I point out what’s wrong. “But you didn’t ask me. I don’t know you, and you really don’t know me. You know a…” I pause to choke back a sob, “a now-not-pregnant woman who’s got a ton of shit to sort out. I don’t even know myself, Niran. I know I’ve changed since I left Duke, and I know I’ll need to change again if I’m to survive.”

He chuckles softly. “I know all about needing to change, darlin’.” Tapping his leg, he continues, “I know all about regrets. Maybe I haven’t lost something as precious as you have, but I do understand how difficult it is to reverse everything you thought you had straight. Yeah, circumstances led to the idea of us skipping a few steps and heading straight for the old lady part, but I didn’t walk into it blindly.”

I can’t lead him on. “Nothing’s changed. I’m still leaving.”

“I know.” He drops his head into his hands. “Offer still stands, I’ll come with you.”

“No, Niran, you can’t. You’d come to resent me. Your club’s your family, and I could never replace that.”

The look he gives me, followed by his defeated sigh, tells me I’m right and he knows it.

Suddenly I want to address the other side of the coin. “What, what would you do if I stayed?” Part of me wonders if I’m mad. Whether I should have jumped at the chance of being his old lady with both feet. I’d be protected, and safe.But I’d be associated with a club of bikers and I couldn’t get away from that.I’d be property.

“If you stayed? Well, fuck, I’d call you my old lady, but we wouldn’t rush into anything. First, we’d eliminate the threat, get Duke off your back. Then, I’d date you. Take time to get to know you, then, if things went right and when you were in the right headspace, I’d show you how good we could be together in bed.”

My stomach twists at his words, but not unpleasantly, and though getting rid of Duke should take foremost place, it’s the rest he offers that almost draws me in. He’d take things slowly, woo me. Somehow, I doubt he wouldn’t have to try too hard.

But how far would he go? “And what if,” I gulp, trying to address the topic without tears, “I was still carrying another man’s baby? What if I’d kept it, what if he’d been healthy?”

His eyes crease. “You’re you, Saffie. And I’m man enough to take on another man’s kid. Blood isn’t what makes a dad.”

He’s saying all the right words. “Do you want kids?”

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