Page 77 of That Girl is Trouble

There’s a tremble in her voice when she speaks. A note of panic. “So you’d just, what? End it all in some fiery death? If they caught you, what would you do? Kill yourself? Do you… do you not want to live?”

Fuck if I know why, but I pull her closer. With more gentleness than I knew I possessed, I wrap my hand around her throat, my thumb at her pulse. Her face is close to mine. Close enough to kiss. And for a second, I consider it. Just for a second. Just like that split second when I thought I could pull over and let them cuff me. Like before though, sense takes over.

“I wouldn’t off myself, Kat, Christ. They manage to get me, I take my licks like a man and bide my time in lockup. But I won’t let them get me. I’ll die before I do. Because this,” I say, tightening my grip around her throat, pressing my thumb down harder on her pulse, taking in the way it picks up a notch as my fingers slide against her skin. “Feeling this. You. Everything. All that is gone when I’m in there. And maybe it makes me a coward, but giving that up? Not sure if I can survive it. It was four years, but it felt like a lifetime. If I had to do it again…”

I don’t finish. I don’t have to. Because I can see it in her eyes. She gets it. If I had to do it again, it would kill me.

Prison did a lot of things to me. In some ways, it hardened me. Most days, I don’t lose much sleep over the bodies I’ve buried, the death I’m responsible for. The drugs. The money. The shit I’ve had to do these last few months to keep the club running. None of it fazes me. And maybe that’s because of who I am, because of the people who raised me, rather than a side effect of being thrown in a cage for four years. I was born to be this person, and I’m okay with the blood that stains my hands.

In other ways, prison fucking ruined me. Sure, I have a better understanding these days of what’s important, and since I got out, I haven’t wasted a second living life in any way other than exactly how I want to. I do what I want. I take what I want. I fuck who I want. Other than Kat, of course, I’ve managed to at least control myself in that respect. But I don’t answer to anyone. I do what feels good and don’t think too hard about what I’ll be sentenced to when death decides to take me.

It’s the fear, though, that’s really done me in.

Every time I find myself in danger, any time I do something that could put me right back where I swore I’d never go again, there’s another one of those split seconds where I re-think. A pause. A hesitation. And that shit, taking too long to make a choice, could get me or one of my men killed. I wasn’t like this before.

Before, I was like Graves. I’d jump face-first into any mess dropped at my door, and I didn’t much mind handling it with a blade or a bullet.

There was no control. It’s what got me locked up in the first place. I lost my temper at the wrong moment and tried to kill a man in the middle of the street. Now, I keep a tight leash on my control. It keeps me from becoming that man again. The one who’s reckless and doesn’t think about who’s watching before taking his fists to a man’s skull and pounding down until he’s not moving.

But I lose that control when Kat’s around.

She takes my face in her palms, pulling me so close our lips are near touching. And I’m thinking about pulling those cherry lips into my teeth.

“Axe,” she murmurs. “It would kill me a little. If you weren’t here. Don’t… don’t talk like that. I hate it. The thought of you being gone? For good?” Tears well in her eyes as they plead with me. “I just can’t.”

She nuzzles her nose against my cheek, and I skirt my hands to her waist, plucking her off the ground and pulling her on top of me. Because I can. Because I do what I want. Because that control I’ve been loosely holding on to since Kat Danforth barrelled back into my life is about to fucking slip out of my grasp. Just like it did in the shower. Just like it almost did the night of the Slam.

Straddling me, Kat brushes her lips against mine, testing the waters, gauging my resolve. It’s chaste, the kiss, but just the feel of it, the softness of her lips, the pads of her fingers trailing over the scruff of my chin, her hips flush against my lap, it dissolves the last of that control. And like everything else that feels good, in this moment, I don’t fucking care. Seventeen. But maybe I’ve stopped giving a shit.

I do what I want. I take what I want. I fuck who I want.

The sound of crunching gravel makes us both freeze. I wait for the click of a radio, the sounds of a gun being pulled out of a holster, a yell demanding surrender. Grand larceny. Stunt driving. Reckless endangerment. Evading arrest. That jail cell floats through my mind. Cement walls. Iron bars. That fucking echo.

My hand is immediately plunging into my jacket, steadying on my gun, but Kat moves with me, her hand pressing down on mine to stop me. And for a second, I let her. I pause. I hesitate. I wait to see how this is going to play out.

“Axe?” a deep voice yells from the road.

On top of me, Kat sags and lets out a long breath.

“Over here, Preach.” I pick Kat up by the waist and move her back to the ground beside me. Pushing up, I grasp on to a few pieces of brush and use them to haul myself back onto the driveway.

“Hey.” Preach nods at me from where he’s propped up against his old Toyota pickup. Then his focus shifts behind me, and he tilts his head, scanning her, then me, before he moves on to the bike I kicked into the ditch opposite us. “That the Streetfighter you had at the shop?”

“Might be,” I say. “You bring that tarp? Need to get this loaded into your box.”

He rubs a tattooed hand over his mouth. “Yeah, I got it. Was it fast? Fuck, I bet it was fast. You can take the truck. I’ll ride it back.”

Kat takes a quick step forward. “Not without me.”

“No one’s riding it,” I snap. “Get in the truck, Kat.”

“But—”

“I won’t ask again.”

She throws an eye roll at me, then drags her feet to the passenger side door and slides inside.

Preacher lifts a brow, a small smirk drifting up his face. “You two get into some kind of trouble?”

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