Page 18 of Diesel
There are two bedrooms, one with a narrow single bed and the strip of carpet between it and the wall. The room next to it has a double bed. No way am I sleeping in that.
I move toward the smaller room, but he takes my wrist. “No.”
All the fight drains out of me. I just want to sleep. “Fine.” I change direction. “You can fold your giant body into the single bed.”
I move around the bed to the side I usually sleep on. It’s one of those old-style wrought iron things that looks like it crawled out of a period drama. I don’t care if it’s a blanket on the floor. I’m done.
I sink onto the mattress and toe off my trainers. My eyes feel gritty, my head foggy.
“Shut the door on your way out,” I say when he doesn’t leave.
I hear his footsteps, but they’re not retreating. They’re coming closer.
I look over my shoulder, but he’s in front of me before I can move, looming over me like a tattooed guardian. He exhales through his nose, like he’s trying to calm the roaring in his brain.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
He’s sorry? I open my mouth to say… something, but his hand flashes out and there’s the kiss of metal around my wrist before he tugs it over my head.
My mind is so frazzled it takes me a second to realise he’s handcuffed me to the bedframe. I stare at, blink, and wait for it to disappear.
It doesn’t.
He’s not sorry he upset me. He’s sorry he’s cuffed me to the fucking bed. I laugh. I can’t stop it. It bubbles out of me quiet and hollow. “Are you out of your mind?” I tug against the restraint, but it doesn’t budge. “Unlock me right now.”
He walks around the end of the bed, forcing me to twist awkwardly so I can face him. The position digs the metal into my skin.
“No.”
I lick my bottom lip, slow and deliberate, trying to hold back the words I could use to raze him to ashes. You still love him…
I do, even if I want to throttle him.
“Zane Cooper, I’m going to smother you in your sleepif you don’t remove this fucking thing right now.” I jerk the cuff, which rattles against the bedframe in protest.
He ignores my outburst, sinking down on the opposite side of the bed, his back to me. “I need rest, and I can’t do that if I’m worried you’re going to disappear again.”
I close my eyes and count back from ten. Of course this makes sense in his head. It’s logical. I’m a flight risk. It’s also insane.
My tone is clipped when I speak. “Do you hear yourself?”
“Go to sleep, Makenna.”
Go to… sleep?
Oh. I’m going to strangle him. I’m going to wrap this cuff around his neck. “How am I meant to do that when I’m chained up like an animal?”
He bends to unlace his boots, as if this is just a normal night at home and we’re getting ready for bed. “The last time I gave you space you left me with nothing but empty drawers and divorce papers. I’m not taking that risk again. Not with you.”
My cheeks heat. Shame and guilt duel with anger and a hundred other emotions I can’t name. I didn’t mean to be cruel, but I was at my wits end and I was drowning. I needed to get out of there, to think. I ran because that’s what I’ve always done when things get too much.
He stands and shrugs out of his kutte, hanging it on the back of the door. The Sons insignia stares back at me. That stupid skull mocking me from across the room. I know it’s not the club’s fault. It’s his. It’s ours. We’ve never learned to communicate. We grew up in a world where talking wasn’t normalised. Emotions were punished. No one cared if you were sad or hurting.
He lies on top of the covers, his eyes closing, as if he’s giving me space. He’s not. He’s doing what he always does when he’s scared of losing something. He’s holding onto it tight, but his grip on me is suffocating whether he knows it or not.
I stare at him in disbelief as the silence stretches between us like a live wire.
“You can’t keep me through force,” I rasp.
