Page 169 of Beyond the Blue Horizon
Generous. Kind. Caring.
And we all made mistakes. We all did things we would do anything to take back.
“I’m not even close to being a good man,” he rumbled.
He hesitated, looking away for a beat, as if he were contemplating how far he could let me in. Finally, he returned his gaze to me. Black diamonds striking in the night. “Used to be a part of a brutal MC. We were bad, Piper. In the worst way.”
Surprised by his admission, I reared back a fraction, though my fingers were still burrowed into his shoulders.
I shouldn’t be shocked, should I? When I saw his motorcycles in his garage, I immediately knew they represented something far seedier than a simple love of riding.
“How bad?”
“I’ve done things that I couldn’t even begin to admit to you.”
Dangerous.
I knew.
So how had I never felt so safe?
“But it’s in the past?” I urged it. Begging him to confirm it was true.
“The affiliation with the MC? Yeah. But my sins continue.”
His expression tweaked. “Seems my worst ones are touching you like this. Having you this way. Wanting you as desperately as I do.”
I watched his features twist in agony when he admitted it.
Slammed by a rogue wave of guilt and grief.
My brow pinched, and my fingers sank deeper into his shoulders.
Holding on.
This time to keep him from floating away from me.
“What does that mean?” I whispered into the muted silence of the dim room.
Those black eyes darkened to pitch. An endless night sky that sucked me down into a bottomless abyss.
“It means I want you in a way that breaks the most important oath I’ve ever made.”
My spirit clutched with the misery that poured out of him.
“What oath?” I was a fool for asking it.
Begging for the pain.
Wanting him to give me access into who he was and the phantoms that howled underneath.
Theo warred, and the fingers of his left hand burrowed deeper into my waist, like he was trying to hold on. “I hurt the ones I’m supposed to love most, Piper. I’m…”
His jaw clenched, and I could hear his teeth grind through the pain. “I ruin everything because I’m not capable of truly loving that way. Not capable of truly giving myself that way.”
He uttered it like a confession.
Every line on his face contorted in agony as he traced his thumb over the apple of my cheek.
