by Jessica Ames
“What’s happened?”
I tear a hand through my hair, which is loose rather than in its usual tie.
“You getting to know Brie?” I avoid the question. I don’t want to tell her I’m failing on my promise to keep her safe.
“Ty…” There’s warning in her voice as she says my name.
I scrub a hand over my face, knowing I need to give her the truth here, as much as I don’t want to. My nerves feel more settled in her presence, as always.
“There’s nothing to worry about.”
She glares at me, her arms folding over her chest. Her expression tells me she doesn’t believe a word coming out of my mouth.
“Don’t keep things from me. I can’t deal with any more half-truths or lies.”
I don’t want to dirty her with my words, but there’s nothing else I can do. I want her trust. I need it if we’re going to move forward.
I blow out a breath and say, “We still can’t find Sin, but we’re looking every second of every day.” I take her hands in mine as I watch her spine stiffen and see the ripple of fear roll through her. “He won’t touch you or Lily-May, baby. I promise.” My words are hard, emphatic.
It’s a promise I fully intend to keep.
I’ll destroy my brother before I let him touch a single hair on her or Lily’s heads.
I lean down and kiss her. She allows it, and I feel her soften in my arms. I love when she does that. I love the trust she places in me to keep her heart safe and protected. Sasha talks sass and puts this hardened front in place, but beneath it she’s got a marshmallow centre. She’s easily hurt by the people she cares about. Always was.
When I pull my mouth from hers, I move back enough to trace her face with my eyes.
“While you’re here, why don’t you take a shower, maybe grab some food?” I tuck a piece of hair behind her ear.
“I want to get back to the hospital.”
“I know, but you need to take care of yourself too. You’re running on fumes.”
I think she’s going to argue with me, but after a moment she nods her head.
“Okay.”
I kiss her head before taking her hand and leading her through the clubhouse and up the stairs at the back of the building. I have a suite of rooms on the first floor. When Sash and I were together, I bought a house, but after she left, I didn’t see the point of keeping it, so I sold it on. I live in the rooms here.
I use the key to open the door and step inside, holding it open for her to follow me. Her eyes are everywhere as she takes in my large king-size bed, the small living area with large screen television and the door off to the en suite bathroom. It’s large, roomy—home.
“You decorated,” she says, glancing around the space.
I did. When I moved in full time, I had the lads paint it a dark metallic grey on one wall, the rest is cream. I move to pick up some clothes from the floor, tossing them into the hamper at the side of the bed. Not that I’ve ever done laundry in my life. The club bunnies collect it once a week and return it the next day.
Her eyes move to the hole in the wall I made when I first learnt about Sin’s betrayal and her brow arches.
I shrug, then say, “Shower's through there. There should be clean towels on the rack.”
She doesn’t move, her eyes still roaming around the space.
“What?” I ask her.
“I’m just remembering the last time I was in this room.” Her voice sounds a little breathy, and I dredge back through my memory banks. “Do you remember?” she asks, her gaze finding mine.
“We snuck upstairs for a quick fuck before I had to leave on a run.” A run that my brother didn’t come on. I left him behind to protect my girl. Some protection he was. “Was it… here… it happened?”
I swallow the bile climbing up my throat, heat licking up my skin. Have I slept for three years in the same room she was brutalised in?
The thought makes me sick.
Her demeanour changes instantly. Her arms wrap around her waist and she takes a step from me. I don’t like that she’s putting distance between us, so I move with her, closing that gap, and take her hand in mine. She doesn’t pull away, which I see as a good sign.
“No. It was at the house.” Sasha ducks her head, and I hate seeing my strong girl deflating before my eyes. “After you left for the run, Sin took me back there.” Her throat works as she speaks and I feel the rage returning, burning through me like fire. I don’t want to know the details. Imagining is bad enough. Having the cold hard facts will destroy me.
“I sold it.”
Her brow cocks and I see the disbelief in her eyes. “You did?”
“About six months after you left. It didn’t feel like home anymore.”
I watch Sasha’s eyes close as she takes this in. “I’m sorry I left how I did.”
My hands come to her face, cupping her cheeks. “You’ve got fuck all to be sorry about. If I’d known—”
I break off, my temper flaring. I grit my teeth to stop from losing my shit.
“It’s in the past, Tyler.” Sasha surprises the fuck out of me by rolling to her toes and pressing her mouth to mine.
My fingers move to tangle in her hair, keeping her mouth locked in place. I tug her head back, deepening the angle and devouring her as I do, tasting every inch of her. As I lick along the seam of her mouth, she opens to me, granting me the access I desperately crave. I don’t waste any time. I suck her tongue into my mouth and caress along its length as I do. Her movements are a little hesitant at first, but it’s like muscle memory kicks in and her arms drape around my neck, pulling me closer.
I want to be inside her now, but I’m aware of the damage my brother might have done to her by taking what wasn’t freely given. For that reason, I need to go slow with her, be gentle.
My eyes search hers and I see no reluctance there, so I hoist her into my arms. Sasha’s ankles lock around my hips, not breaking contact with her lips.
My cock is hard as a rock in my jeans and I’m desperate to be inside her, desperate to claim fully what’s mine, but my movements are hesitant.
She pulls back from my mouth and peers into my face. “I won’t break,” she whispers.
I study her face, trying to get a read on her thoughts. “You’re sure about this?”
“Yes.”
“You want to stop, just say the word.”
Her smile has my dick twitching, and when her mouth crashes back onto mine, I nearly lose my balance.
I move so we’re against the wall, her back to the plaster and she slides down out of my arms. I miss her touch instantly, but she doesn’t stay gone long. Her hands fumble on my belly and my muscles ripple as she tugs the hem of my tee free from my jeans. Then her fingers move under the material, ghosting along the bare flesh.
I don’t waste time either, sliding my hand up her side to her ribs until I’m circling her breast. My hand curls around it, squeezing. It’s not enough, though. I need to feel her skin against mine. I push the material up and her arms follow, so I can pull it over her head. It gets tossed on the floor somewhere behind us. My kutte and shirt follow a second later.
Still kissing her, we move over to the bed and I take her down onto the mattress, climbing on top of her. She feels so good beneath me—soft, warm, willing.
Tugging her bra down to reveal dark nipples, I dip my head and suck one of the little nubs into my mouth, my tongue circling it. Her back arches. My fingers clasp her wrists and I tug them over her head, pinning them against the bed.
Sasha stiffens, her whole body jolting at my touch.
I release my hold instantly and pull back, searching her face. Her eyes are closed and I can see the pain in every line of her face, as if she’s reliving a nightmare. Her chest rises and falls in quick succession, her breath ripping out of her.
I lift off her slightly, my heart pounding.
Shit.
“Sash?”
Sasha doesn’t open her eyes. I’m not sur
e if touching her is a good idea, but my hands cup her cheeks.
“Sash, look at me.” Her eyes flutter and her glassy gaze focuses on my face. “I’m here. You’re safe.”
She blinks, seeming to come back into awareness.
“I’m sorry.” The rawness of her voice shreds me.
“Don’t fucking apologise.”
I lift off her and sag onto the bed next to her, my heart muscles still having a workout. Then I pull her into my arms, squeezing her to my chest. Her arms wind around my body and I feel her shaking.
“He’s going to pay for every hurt he put on you,” I promise her. “Every tear he’s made you shed, every pain he’s made you feel. I’m going to gut him and make him suffer. I promise you that.”
Sasha snuggles against me, and I feel her tears against my bare chest. It guts me, tears my heart from my chest to know my brother caused this.
“Yeah, you’ll kill him, Tyler, but at what cost?”
“I don’t care about that.” And I don’t. Will it stain my soul? Yes. But it’s a mark I can live with.
“I care about the cost to you.” She stumbles over the words as she blurts out, “I love you.”
I feel her tension as she says those words. Is she wondering how they’ll be taken? I peer down at her, brushing her hair from her face.
“You love me?”
Sasha gives me a half smile. “I never stopped.” She traces circles on my chest. “You don’t have to say it back.”
I take her head in my hands and bring her lips to mine. When I’m done, I rest my forehead against hers and take a deep breath.
Then, I give her the words I’ve needed to say from the moment she walked back into my life. “I never stopped either, baby.”
24
Sasha
Tyler holds me close for so long, just stroking my hair as I lie pressed against his chest. It’s been three years, for fuck’s sake, but the moment he held my wrists down memories invaded me. It was as if I was there again, reliving my nightmare. It was Sin’s hands holding me down as I begged him to stop. It didn’t matter how much I pleaded, how much I fought to get free, how much I screamed at him not to do it, he took what he wanted without remorse. Afterwards, all I can remember feeling was numb as he kissed me, as if he were my lover, rather than my rapist. I spent the past three years avoiding touches, building myself back up, but the darkness is creeping back in now, shredding what’s left of my control.
In Tyler’s arms, I can pretend none of that happened, that my demons are not rising and ready to escape. I can act as if my past is just that—my past—but I can’t stop the tears. I feel as if I’ve got permission to let it all go, to finally break the chains around my soul. They come freely, dripping off the edge of my face onto his bare chest. He doesn’t say a word about them, just keeps stroking me.
It feels good, right, being back in his arms again. This is the place I always fitted. This is the place that always felt like home to me.
God, I missed it all so much.
Sin took my world from me. He took my body, my mind, my family and the love of my life. Functioning without Tyler all this time has not been easy. Every night, I thought of him, about what he was up to with the brothers, if they were all okay. Lily-May filled the gap in my heart, but there was always something else missing—Tyler. I loved him from the moment I was old enough to understand what love was. That never disappeared, even when he was spitting venom at me and calling me a whore. I knew that was the anger speaking. I did what only a few people have ever managed to do—I hurt him. Walking away broke both of us.
I have to accept some of the blame. I should have had more faith in the man, in us. I should have believed that if he knew the truth, he would have protected me, not thrown me away like Sin said he would. Out of everything, that was the worst thing Sin did to me. He made me doubt my reality. He made me lose faith in my family and in the man I loved.
Since he found out my secret, he’s been the old Tyler with me. Each touch, each look reminds me of how it was between us, and it’s making me realise how much I miss what we had.
“You okay?” he asks, pressing his mouth to my hair.
I nod. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Understanding.”
His body tenses a little under me and he huffs out a breath. “Fucking Sin.”
I lift slightly off him, so I can glance up the lines of his chest to his face.
“Forget about him. All I care about is you and Lily.”
“I ain’t forgetting what he did to you. I ain’t ever forgetting that shit.”
His words are like a knife to the belly. I disentangle myself from his hold and push to the edge of the mattress, raking my fingers through my hair.
“What?” he demands, his tone sharp.
“You can’t forget it,” I tell him, my voice filled with sadness. “We can never have a relationship if every time you look at me you see me as a victim. It’ll tear you apart.”
It’ll tear us apart.
I feel the bed dip behind me and then his hands are sweeping my hair back from my neck.
“I don’t look at you and see a victim. I see a strong as fuck woman who survived hell and still managed to bring our beautiful fucking daughter up to be just as strong.”
Tears well in my eyes at his words. “Ty…”
“Sin’ll die for what he did, not because he made you a victim, darlin’, but because he took something he didn’t have the right to take.” He kisses my neck and I tilt my head to give him better access. His lips trail up the column of my throat, sending shivers through me. Just as I’m getting into it, he pulls back.
“Go and shower,” he says in a soft voice I barely recognise. “Then we’ll go back up to the hospital to be with Lily-May.”
“I’m not broken,” I tell him, needing him to know that, needing him to see me as strong. I can’t stand being with him if he thinks I’m this damaged little girl.
“I know.”
“I mean it, Tyler. I’m not broken,” I repeat, my words snarling out of me. I don’t want to be seen as weak. I don’t want what happened to me to be the first thing people see when they look at me. “I survived what he did to me, and I came out the other side a different person, but I’m tougher now.”
I don’t know if I’m saying the words to convince him or me, but speaking them helps ease some of the tightness in my chest.
“I see that.”
I push off the bed and snag my tee off the floor. “Do you?”
He moves too, his hands coming to land on my shoulders, stopping my frantic movements. “I don’t see what he did to you. I see you, being strong, getting your shit together for our daughter. You should never have had to go through that alone. I’m sorry you did, because I should have been there with you. I would have been there with you.”
I close my eyes for a brief moment, pain lancing through my chest, before I peer up at him. “I should have let you, but after… fuck, I was a mess. I couldn’t deal with anything. Sin made me believe you’d never listen to me, that you wouldn’t believe a word I said. I shouldn’t have let him get in my head like that.”
“I get why you did, but you shouldn’t have shut me out, but now that you’re back you have to know I ain’t going anywhere.”
I peer up at him as I scrape my teeth across my bottom lip. “I don’t want you to go anywhere.”
He closes the space between us, capturing my mouth and I melt against him as his fingers thread into my hair. I want to have him inside me, but that tingle of fear bites just on the edge of my awareness. Losing control again scares me. Keeping it is key.
“Get on the bed,” I order him.
“Sash…”
“Get on the bed,” I repeat.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I don’t want him to take anything else from me, especially not this—not us.”
He lets out a breath, and then reluctantly climbs onto the bed. I move slo
wly towards him, my heart pounding. This isn’t Sin. It’s Tyler, and I know he won’t hurt me.
I push that bastard out of my head and focus on the beautiful man lying on the bed, his jeans low on his hips, his inked-up chest staring back at me. I move to his belt and slowly undo it. He watches me with heated eyes and lifts his hips as I tug the denim down his legs. I remove his motorcycle boots, tossing them to the carpet, then I pull his jeans the rest of the way down, pooling them on the floor next to his boots.
His hands interlace behind his head as he watches me crawl back up his body to his boxers. I meet his gaze. He’s watching me like a cornered animal, as if he expects me to lose my shit. I hate that he is, but we’re both going to have to find our way through this mess. I take a steadying breath, before I pull the material down his legs again and off the end of his feet. His cock springs free, the length hard, long, veiny and beautiful. I wrap my mouth around the shaft, my hand holding the root as I swipe my tongue over the slit. He jerks his hips, his breath ripping out of him. I grin and move my tongue again over his end, tasting the salty precum that’s starting to leak from the head.
Tyler moves my hair aside, fisting its short length in one hand as I hollow my cheeks out and take his cock further down my throat. He growls a curse.
“Babe, you keep this up, I’m going to come in your mouth.”
Ignoring his words, I swipe my tongue over the head of his shaft, feeling triumphant when his hips twitch again. I suck harder, moving my hand at the base of his dick in a slight twist that has him cursing under his breath.
I mix it up between twisting, licking and fondling his balls until he’s writhing beneath me. Then his hips flex once more and he shoots his load into my mouth. I take it all, everything he has to give, swallowing it down, the saltiness coating my tongue. When he stills, I peer up the length of his body and see his arm is draped over his eyes and his chest is heaving.
“Fuck,” he mutters.
I smile when he drops his arm and looks at me through glazed eyes.
“That was… I forgot how good it could be between us.” He starts to move, grabbing my hips to pull me closer, but I shake my head.