Page 56 of The Bonds We Break
“I’ll take the deal,” I say gruffly. “Only it needs to include this very specific term. I will agree to be monogamous and get tested, in return for you giving me any orgasms you have over the next six months. If I’m gonna work hard to feel you come, I don’t want a condom between us when you do.”
“Do you need me to get tested? Because that feels like another term.”
I shake my head. “I’ll take my chances, duchess. I know enough about you to know you’ve always been careful. But if you want to, I’ll take you with me. Are you on birth control?”
“I am. And I agree.”
“Good. I’m gonna step outside and let your brother in. You have five minutes to convince him, then we’re going home.” I steal another kiss. It ends up gentler than I expected. “I like negotiating with you, Rae Miller.”
“Yeah, well, I kinda hate you.”
I step away and put my palm on the door handle. “And Rae?”
She jumps off the table. “Yeah?”
“You ever speak to me like that in front of my men again, I’ll shoot your brother, slit your throat, and bury you both in the Pines before sundown.”
21
RAE
“Rae,” my brother says on a gasp as he grabs me at a run and pulls me into his arms. “God, I am so sorry. If I’d known in a heartbeat he’d do this ...”
It hits me with full force, the familiarity of a rare safe space in my life. I sink into the comfort of him and cling tight while I rein in emotions that are threatening to spill out of me.
King leaves us alone in their meeting room, theirchurch. It doesn’t feel sacred to me.
“Ike. God, I’m so glad you’re okay.”
He grips my biceps and steps back. “I’mokay? What the fuck. What happened? How long has he had you? Are you okay?”
I glance around Ryker and see King with his back to the bar, his eyes on the two of us even as Clutch tries to reason with him. “We have five minutes. There isn’t time to argue. They came to the house. King, Niro, and Bates. King said I had no choice. He told me he had someone watching you in Mexico. He had photographs of you and Briar doing everyday things. Said he would kill you if I didn’t go with him. So I did. They haven’t hurt me.”
“He said you were a shit lay. Did the bastard rape you?” I can see rage darken my brother’s features. “I’m gonna kill the motherfucker.”
“Ike, you’re not. You need to listen to me, and you need to trust me.”
“Rae, I’m not kidding, I—”
“Ike! Don’t talk over me and listen. I’m fine. We had sex and it was consensual. At first, I thought he was doing all this to make you suffer. To control you. But that’s not it. On the surface, it looks like he wants to give you an option so horrible that you’ll choose leaving. Or that you react to this in a way that will force the club to side with Uther if you attack him. Then he wins. But you were right. He’s been betrayed and he’s hurting. He’s lashing out to ease his own pain because he doesn’t know how to work through it. If he doesn’t have to see you every day in the club, he doesn’t need to face and address the agony that comes from exposing himself to another human being and feeling betrayed or rejected.”
“Hurting? He doesn’t even know the meaning of the word yet. I’m going to—”
“Do nothing, Ike. You’re going to do nothing. We’re here because you found your place. And you believed in King until he did this. You believed in this club. Think. This is out of character for him, from everything you’ve told me, right?”
Ryker pauses for a moment. “I’ve always felt he had a version of right and wrong for this world. But I’ve seen him shoot a woman.”
“A woman who had deeply betrayed him, right?”
“Right.”
“Do you trust me, Ryker?”
“You know I do.”
“Then let me have your back. I can work with King. I know it. He’s a man who’s been pushed to his limits. He’s out of tools and ways to manage everything he carries. In a world filled with toxic masculinity, it takes trust and intimacy to help someone like him. And my methods may seem intense and unorthodox and against anything you’d read in a medical journal. But you had faith in him and what he stood for as a man. You want to remain a part of this club. And I really don’t want to have to witness them cutting your ink off your skin. Let me try. And together we’ll see if we can’t heal this broken man you admired.”
“It’ll kill me to let you leave with him, Rae. I left you once before.”
