Page 67 of The Bonds We Break
Well, pisses me off more than I already am.
“Are Track and Tess alright?” I ask.
Halo tugs his hair back into a leather cord. “Can I give you some tough love, Prez?”
The coffee lands in front of me. It’s strong and steaming. “Can’t wait to hear it.”
“You gotta get the fuck over it.”
I almost choke on my coffee. “What did you just say?”
Halo’s a big guy. The former Navy SEAL stays in shape. Could probably crush the grueling BUD/S training all over again to qualify. Deal with all that sleep deprivation, carrying logs into the ocean shit. But I’m seriously about to kick his ass.
“Track is an important brother. But his time in the club, being in the thick of it, has passed. He’s not riding as much. Not out working any of the core businesses. There’s a group of them like my dad. We show them respect by giving them a cut of the profits, but they ain’t earning it. Saint? He was there. What he said was true. He’s come through for the club more than Track has in the past two years. Even while undercover. He got the strip club to turn a profit. And you and I both know what he did waswayoutside the law. It was clear he was more like us than them. That’s why people voted the way they did. All this baggage you’re carrying about being disrespected and betrayed by your own club? You gotta acknowledge why you’re carrying it, man. Because that’s on you and your past, not the club. But you’re making it the club’s problem.”
I think of the crumpled sheet of yellow paper still sitting on the kitchen counter. The one with the list.
People I trusted.
People who betrayed me.
“You finished?” I ask. I take a slurp of the coffee and wince when the burning-hot liquid scalds my tongue and throat.
Halo takes a deep breath. “I was on a SEAL mission once.”
I’ve never asked what SEAL unit he was with. He never tells. Rarely mentions being a SEAL at all. I’ve always thought he was one of the elite. Like part of the secret SEAL team that everyone insists doesn’t exist. It’s the only thing that makes me pay attention to what he’s about to tell me.
“And?”
“I remember being fucking relieved it wasn’t another dust bowl. Let’s just say I was behind political lines. Ten minutes before wheels up, one of the guys realized his wife had been messaging a guy on another team. He didn’t say a word about it to her. Figured he’d stay on the plane and get some space, so he didn’t rush straight back to base and kill the son of a bitch who’d been sexting with his woman. He was confident that the distractions wouldn’t affect him. He died on that trip, shot in a stairwell in a building we had no place being in. We brought him home in a body bag. I slammed my trident into his coffin at his funeral. Don’t make me bury a member of this club because you’re too distracted to lead it.”
It’s the most I’ve heard Halo say in one go. He’s usually the master of the funny or deadly serious one-liner. “Understood.” It’s the best I can come up with.
“Now. How’s the girl?”
“Asleep in my bed.” After she blew my fucking mind. Last night left me off kilter, grappling with the guilt of why she was here with the need to take her all over again.
Never felt anything quite like the moment Rae let go and fell into what we were doing together. She lost herself in me. And I forgot who I was to her. Watching her masturbate right in front of me, where I could see the soft curls that framed her pussy, turned me on so fucking much I was afraid I was going to blow before I ever got inside her.
Then, when she climbed on top of me, I thought it was the tightness of her pussy that was going to kill me.
But no, it was none of that. It was the sound she made when her face was buried against my neck. I still can’t decide what it was. Longing, release, agony, joy. It could have been any of them.
But more importantly, it was uninhibited. Gone was the calm and indifferent sheen of Rae Miller.
Instead, she was an utterly raw human being.
And I want more of that, more than I want my next breath.
She fell asleep facing away from me. This morning, I woke up onherside ofmybed, wrapped tight around her again. She was so close to the edge of the bed; my arms were likely holding her on the mattress.
There was no misunderstanding. I had pursued her in sleep and slept like the dead once I had her in my arms.
Rae was the cure to my insomnia.
Embarrassed, I crept out of bed, showered in the guest bath, placed her phone and laptop on the kitchen counter, and left without saying a word to her.
I don’t want to think too hard about the past twenty-four hours.
