by Max Henry
And that’s what undoes me.
Dog’s empathy for a girl, no, a brat brought back to earth in the worst kind of way. I learned my lesson about abusing my privilege, not being thankful for what I had, and I learned it the worst way imaginable.
I’ve pretended that being strong was the best way to deal with the grief, but in reality, all I did was delay the onset.
My chin dimples as I roll to my other side, giving him my back. Pain radiates through my fist as I clutch the blanket over me as though it could shield me from everything that I feel, past, future, and present.
“Don’t lock it up,” Dog whispers in the dark. “It ain’t healthy, babe.”
Fuck him. Fuck him and always knowing the right thing to say. Fuck him and this amazing side of him I feel blessed to know.
“Fuck you,” I choke out, my body shuddering with unspent sobs.
“Fuck me?” he echoes. “Why?”
“For being exactly what I need.”
He scoots forward as I sniffle pathetically, trying to get myself back under control. His hips collide with my butt, the evidence that he’s a man pressed undeniably against the small of my back. Dog nudges my head, and I lift it as far as I can to allow him to slide his arm underneath. He settles my temple on his bicep, curling his other arm over top to snuggle me in his solid, yet soothing hold.
The knee-jerk reaction to stiffen, to hole up my weakness and parade as some hard-ass who doesn’t feel, washes over me. The “stiff upper lip” Daddy used to tell us kids we needed to have. Dog’s arm weighs heavy as I suck in a deep breath and focus on shoving my burgeoning breakdown back in the remote corner of my mind it belongs in.
“You thinkin’ about them?” he whispers, his breath tickling the back of my head as he nuzzles in close.
“A little,” I manage to say without losing hold of my wits all over again. “Just hearing you talk about your mom, about how hard your dad was on you …”
He makes an understanding grumble, the kind that says, “I know what it’s like; I’ve walked the path too.” My eyes slip closed as he hinges his elbow, pulling me into his front a little more. The sense of being confined is strangely comforting, as though I could let go and trust him to catch me. As though he’d be there no matter what.
It’s a beautiful lie of a love that could comfort a lost and lonely heart such as mine.
“They loved you,” he mumbles against my hair. “You know that, right?”
And there they go again, the tears, rushing forth like a fire hydrant smashed open on a hot summer day; destructive, yet welcomed for the relief it brings.
“Yeah,” I sob. “I know.”
“You think they’d want you unhappy?”
I twist in his hold, wiping my nose with the back of my hand as I settle on my back, head still on his arm. “What are you saying? That I shouldn’t be allowed to grieve?”
“No.” He frowns, the outline of his face illuminated by the dull glow of the fire through the tent. “Just …” He sighs, clearly exasperated with his inability to find the right words. “I wasted time wishing things weren’t how they were after Mom died, and all I’m sayin’ is that I know in retrospect how much of a waste of time it is dwellin’ on the things you can’t change.” He leans away, running his free hand over his face. “Honor them by makin’ the most of what you’ve got: life.”
“Is that what you do?” I snap, pissed he’s still effectively telling me that my grief has a deadline. “Honor your mom by fucking and bingeing your way through life?”
My head hits the bedroll with an unwelcome thud as he rips his arm free. “Fuck, Mel. Why do you have to be so goddamn difficult?”
The opportunity’s there, laid out before me with flashing neon, to argue this and turn it into one hell of a shit fight just so I can validate my need to push him away. I’m unfairly taking my frustrations out on him, and he knows it.
I know it.
“I’m just saying,” I whisper, “that we all handle things differently.” I roll back to how I was, my hearing attuned to the rapid, yet deep breaths he takes.
“He says I killed her.”
What? “Your dad?” I look up to find him lying with both hands over his face.
“Yeah,” comes his muffled reply. “He said it was my fault her heart gave out.”
“Jesus, Dog.” I push up on one elbow. “Why?”
He drops his hands, rolling his head to face me. Blond lengths stick out at odd angles, highlighted by the amber glow of the fire. “I went for dinner, like I always used to, on a Friday night. I’d go have dinner with the family, and then spend the weekend getting wasted so I’d forget why they were so disappointed in me.” He shrugs. “It was routine.”
I shuffle so I lie on my stomach and rest my chin on the heels of my hands while he talks.
He drops an arm over my back to toy with the ends of my hair and continues. “Mom had chemotherapy a few years before and they say it weakened her heart. She was on medication and stuff, but she’d never been right since. I went there that night and told them I’d been patched in.” He takes a deep breath. “She just stared at me, and I thought she was shocked by what I said, but truth was her heart was failin’ and she couldn’t voice the words to tell us. She’d been sick for weeks, but stubborn as she was she said it was just a virus and that it would pass.”
“That sounds awful.” And explains so much. I nestle in closer, resting my head on his chest.
“Her hand hit the table as she reached out for me, and when I touched her I knew it was bad. Shot out of my chair, laid her out on the floor, and yelled at my brother to call an ambulance.” He snorts, a bitter contempt sound. “Dad didn’t even move. Just stared at her as though he couldn’t believe what was happenin’ at first. I held Mom’s hand until she stopped breathing.” His chest jerks, and as I tilt my head I realize why: he cries. “Fuckin’ stared at me with her lifeless eyes and just went. She looked … it was like she wanted it.”
“Dog, I’m so sorry.” Here I am selfishly wallowing in my own pity, not even thinking that he may have experienced the same or worse.
“Don’t be.” He wipes his eyes clear with the side of his hand and then pats me on the back as though finalizing the conversation for himself.
“Thank you for sharing that with me.”
“Feel better?” He laughs sadly, tucking his chin to his chest so he can look down at me.
I push up on my elbows and stare in his darkened eyes. “Nope.”
“Well, fuck.” He chuckles. “Waste of time that was then.”
I smirk, reaching out to caress the line of his jaw. “I don’t feel better, because I hurt for you. That sucks he blames you for that.”
“He said if I hadn’t broken her heart, it would have kept beating.”
“Do you think you broke her heart, though?” I shift a little so I’m closer.
He stares up at the roof of the tent for a while, his brow twitching in and out of a frown as he works things through in his mind. “I don’t think so. She was the one who encouraged me to go out and explore who I was before I got tucked under Dad’s wing at the company.”
“Your dad wanted an apprentice.”
“So to speak. He wanted somebody to beat into shape who couldn’t just resign and walk away.”
“Harsh.”
“The truth.” He reaches for my hand, pulling it higher to his lips and places a kiss on the back of my fingers. “You feel that way? Being the club princess?”
“Sometimes.” I lay my left arm on his chest, propping my chin on it. “Daddy had strict ideas on how our lives would go. He let us be ourselves, but only as long as that fell within the boundaries of the person he saw us as, you know?”
“Completely.”
“He wanted to pick my husband, somebody to sit to Hooch’s left when he took the gavel. It’s why Crackers and I had that awkward … thing. Why I stormed out the first time.”
“Arranged marriage. That’s some fucked up medieval
shit right there.” He smiles and then kisses my fingertips.
“Right?” I smile back, amazed at how he always manages to turn my mood around by just being himself. “I’m sorry I was rude to you before.”
“Water off a duck’s back, babe.”
Maybe. “It’s not your fault though.” I let my head drop to his chest again and relish the feel of his fingers in my hair as he strokes it away from my temple. “It wasn’t so much that I miss them—I mean, I do—it’s more that I feel lost. Like, I don’t know who to be now I’m not ‘Judas’ daughter’ or ‘Mel and Dana’.”
“You’re in charge of your own future for the first time.”
I chuckle. “Stupid, isn’t it, when I spent the last year on my own, that I feel lost.”
“Not really.” His hand stills. “That was different. Being alone physically and mentally are two massively different things.”
I push up again, scooting so I’m close enough to kiss him if I wanted to—which I do. “Why do you hide this side of you?” I ask again.
“What side?” His eyes crinkle at the corners.
“You’re so smart. So … insightful.”
“Ain’t much place for that in an MC club is there, babe?”
The sadness in his eyes slays me. “Who says?”
“The culture. The men who make up our numbers.”
“King’s smart and insightful.”
“And look what that did to him.”
Almost killed him. There’s a certain detachment required if a brother is going to make it at the top, a safety-switch that allows the person to shut off the emotional toll such hard decisions take on a man.
“You have a point. Still …”
“Still.”
“I like this side of you better.”
He smirks, reaching out and twirling a length of my hair around his finger, using it to pull me closer—close enough that our lips brush with his next words. “I wasn’t aware you liked the other me at all.”
“I don’t.”
He hums, low in the back of his throat, and fuck me if that isn’t the sexiest sound a man can make. “Good thing I’m choosin’ to be this version of myself tonight then, huh?”
“Why?” I whisper against his mouth.
“Otherwise you wouldn’t let me do this.” He barely moves an inch, but it’s all he needs to pinch my bottom lip between his and gently tug.
The crackle of the fire breaks the silence between us as he stares into my eyes, silently asking. The heat between Dog and me accentuates the cold night air at my back as I lean down and answer him by returning the gesture. He groans as I take his lip between mine, and run my tongue along the plump flesh before letting it go.
“Are we doin’ this?” he whispers, eyes closed as he battles what goes on behind them.
“I think so.” I shuffle my body over his, rearranging the blanket so it still covers us both.
He sighs as I settle my weight over him, his wide hands moving to rest on my hips. “King said he’d kill me if I touched you.”
“You already have.” I chuckle at his lame excuse, sliding my legs on either side of his. “Besides, since when have you listened to what you’re told?”
“Since it made sense to.” He frowns, eyes still closed as I push both hands down on his chest to sit myself up.
The air is cold between us, the space seeming larger because of it, and yet this is the perfect view. His shoulders are strong, the width of his chest accentuated by the narrow waist between my legs as I eye-fuck the hell out of him. He tips his head back and groans in protest, the cut of his square jaw lickable from such an angle.
“Girl, you’re gonna get me killed.”
“By who?” I sass. “Big brother’s gone home. It’s none of any of their business. Who’s gonna care?”
“Me.” Dog’s eyes finally open, and what I see rips the courage straight from my heart.
He’s telling me the truth; he wants me to stop.
I hold his stare, hoping for a flicker of change as I flare my nostrils and push down the rejection that stings like a hot knife. Yet, he stays steadfast, cold and calculated as his hands slip away from my hips and fall to the tent floor.
He’s pleasured me twice now, and yet he doesn’t want me enough to go the whole way.
I’ve ever felt more stupid in my fucking life.
Not only have I been rejected by the first man who connected with me outside of my status in the club, but also by the known man whore of the Lincoln chapter.
How’s that for harsh?
“I’m sorry I misread things,” I mutter as I shuffle off him and to the farthest side of my bedroll. “I thought that was what you wanted. My mistake.”
“Mel …”
His sweatshirt feels unwelcome against my skin, as warm as it is, so I pull the fabric from my body and throw it aside not giving a fuck that I sit in nothing but my bra. What does it matter when he’s clearly not interested anymore, anyway?
“Put it back on.”
“No.”
He startles me as he jerks upright and reaches to his feet to grab the offending article of clothing. Dog thrusts it at me, the soft fabric slapping me in the chest as he comes short of punching it right into me.
“Put it on. You’ll get cold.”
I stare him down, bleeding every ounce of venom I can into my gaze as I will him to back the fuck off. “What changed? Huh?” I shake my head. “Got what you wanted from me already?”
He moves to his knees, the sweatshirt still thrust at my chest. “Don’t be fuckin’ stupid.”
“What else am I to think? You didn’t care what anyone thought before, so why now?”
I’m suddenly acutely aware of everything around us as the tension intensifies: the crackle of the dying fire, the shadows it casts on the walls of the tent, his breathing, mine, and the undeniable pull that has us leaning into each other despite the fact I’m waiting for one of us to throw the first punch.
“Because,” he pushes out, “maybe he’s right? I’m worried that if I keep rushin’ you along, you’ll just think I’m only after the end goal, babe. I want you to know that I’m serious. I want you to know you’re different.”
His fist full of material hits my chest as I lean far enough toward him, his free hand dropping to the tent floor to steady himself as he tilts off balance. I push back, he leans in, and without another word being uttered we agree on the only logical end to this stand off.
The sweatshirt hits the side of the tent with a rebound, settling on the floor near my knee as I scoot forward and climb onto Dog’s lap. He sits back on his heels, using his large hands to jerk my hips forward, toward his. A gasp leaves my lips as his still hard length presses against me, a wicked grin spreading over his lush lips as he grinds me purposefully against it.
“Show me,” I demand, letting my head drop back wantonly as he runs his nose up my throat. “Show me why I’m different.”
He presses a kiss to my jugular before answering. “Are you sure?” I wilt as he circles his tongue around the same spot. “I don’t want you sayin’ yes just because it’s what I want.” He chuckles. “You know if it were up to me, woman, I’d marry you tomorrow.”
“I want this, too, Dog.” His hair runs like silk between my fingers as I comb through it. “I want you.”
With one strong hand pressed between my shoulders, he arches my body effortlessly, offering my chest up to him to be devoured. And he does, kissing a path from my throat to between my breasts, reaching up with his free hand to release them from the constriction of my bra, only to then feast on the hard nipples with a deft tongue and caressing lips.
My arms drop behind me, my body lax as he rewards me with the kind of touch I haven’t known for years. Straight up adoration.
It makes me hunger to return the favor.
“Lie down, babe.” Dog gently lowers the arm he holds behind me, letting me fall to the floor in a controlled manner as he helps me push up the bed roll to lie out stra
ight. I arch my back as he fiddles with the clasp of my bra, lifting one shoulder and then the other to help him slip it off. He rocks back on his heels again as he sets the black garment aside, his lips curled up on the side as he peruses what’s laid out before him: me.
“I get why your chapter’s so screwed up, babe.” He shakes his head, chuckling. “Would have been fuckin’ torture seein’ you every day and knowin’ I wasn’t allowed to touch—enough to drive any man crazy.”
“Life’s dull without a little madness,” I smirk at him, sure it would have felt the same had the roles been reversed.
He lowers himself over me, propped up on one forearm as he places a kiss to my navel, then another a little higher. All I can do is stare at his mess of blond hair, my hand lifting of its own volition from beside me. I bury my fingers in the lengths, curling them to take hold of his head. Dog’s lips pull at my stomach as he smiles, still kissing his way back up to my neck.
“Bet women tug on your hair all the time,” I whisper as he places a kiss to my throat.
“Yeah.” He pushes hard on the hand that braces him and rises up over me, my fingers falling free of his locks. “But I’ve never enjoyed the pain all that much until now.”
“That so?”
“Mm-hmm.”
I let my eyes drift closed, my lips wide with a smile as he lowers himself again. Hot lips capture mine, his tongue gently stroking across the seam. I tilt my head a little, returning my hands to his head as he does the same, deepening the contact.
The adrenaline takes me by surprise; the elation of having Dog’s lips on mine, his hand carefully stroking my side, and his hips rocking into mine sending my body into overdrive.
He breaks from the kiss and rests his forehead against mine as I slowly open my eyes. Deep chocolate greets me as I meet his gaze and smile, the reaction mirrored in the tilt of his mouth.
“What?” I whisper, conscious of the fact he’s still staring, still smiling.
He blinks a couple of times, and then juts his chin forward far enough to place a chaste kiss to my lips. “Making memories, babe. That’s all.”
My palms skate over his bare back, the heat in my cheeks a dead giveaway of how deeply that simple statement got to me. The truth of how he feels is right there before me if I look for it: if all he wanted was another notch on his belt, he wouldn’t care for sentiments and meaningful looks. I would have been lucky to lose any more clothes before he dove straight to the point of the exercise. Yet, here he is, telling me sweet nothings as he runs a gentle fingertip along the side of my face.