His soft cock slipped from between my legs and he turned me around to face him. His kiss was simple and tender, and the way his warm eyes moved over my face caused a flutter in my belly.
"I love you, Sax. Never doubt that." Emotion choked me into clamping my mouth shut,
He inhaled deeply and released the breath, brushing the wet hair out of my eyes. "I know, Babe."
It hurt that he didn't say it back, but I understood why. He wasn't ready. I was just thankful that he was willing to give us a chance. "We'd better shower. Ava will be up soon."
We spent the next few minutes doing just that. Sax finished before me and stepped out of the shower while I was rinsing my hair. By the time I'd dried off and dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, Ava was awake and ready to begin her day. I didn't see Sax anywhere around, but smells coming from the kitchen revealed that he was fixing breakfast.
I picked up my daughter and gave her cheek a loud smooch. "Good morning, baby girl."
She giggled excitedly, drool running out of the corner of her mouth. I reached into her mouth with a finger and ran it along her gum line. The protrusion that I felt indicated that she had a tooth coming in. Ave closed her mouth tightly and gummed my finger. I was glad that I'd picked up some teething rings the last time I’d gone shopping and that I’d had the foresight to place them in the freezer.
"Breakfast in five, Babe!"
"Just need to change Ava and I'll be right there!"
I wondered what he was fixing. Sax was a good cook. I quickly changed Ava's diaper and slipped a tee with a colorful butterfly on the front over her head. We headed out to the living room. Sax was at the stove, scooping scrambled eggs from a skillet onto two plates. Next to the eggs were toast, sausage links, and orange sections.
Normally for breakfast I would have fruit and yogurt, and maybe toast, but Sax needed more to start the day, and when he cooked he made enough for both of us. Seeing him looking so comfortable at the stove flooded me with warm memories. I didn't fool myself into thinking that we were going to forget about the last year and just take up where we’d left off, too much had happened, but I couldn't stop myself from wishing for it.
Sax hadn't said so, but I knew that we needed to talk.
Chapter 29
Sax
While Holly was busy with Ava, I stepped outside the house to take care of some business. The first thing I saw was Frenchie sitting on his bike across the road, doing something on his fucking phone. Bull had vouched for him, but finding him distracted while he was on duty pissed me off. Before I went over and ripped him a new one, Demon answered his phone with his usual gruff greeting, blasting in my ear.
"Yeah?"
"What's up?"
Demon snorted. "You're the one who fucking called me, Brother."
I grinned. "Anything I need to be there for today?"
"Shit, it's early. Who the fuck knows what will come up? You okay?" I could hear the slight concern in his voice just before he took a sip of something.
"Got some personal shit I need to deal with."
There was a brief pause. "You still at Holly's?"
"Yeah." I didn't really want to go into it with him. What I had to tell Holly was something I'd never told another living soul, but it was time that I shared my past with her. It would help her to see things a little clearer, differently. It might even make her fear me. There was nothing I could do about that. All I could do was hope that with those emotions came understanding. I knew that she could also pity me, and if I saw that in her eyes it would destroy me. But if we were going to have a chance at making us work, she had to know the truth.
"Make it work, Brother. You two belong together."
As if I didn’t already know that. I snorted but remained silent.
"She makes you a better man."
I couldn't argue with that. Holly had taken to club life as if she'd been born into it. From the start, she'd accepted and understood the way we lived, had embraced the freedom and the challenges that came with keeping it. She had understood that I wasn't good with talking about feelings and emotions and shit.
I decided to change the subject. "Any word on Radar?" We'd had eyes on his mother's house for days with no sign of him. Cole, Sax, and I had spent a few days in Boulder City looking for his ass after he'd been sighted there. That had been the reason why I'd been a no-show for Holly when I’d originally planned to provide the DNA sample.
A grunt came over the line. "Fucker's a ghost."
"The Dunlap brothers underestimated us. Thought their numbers would defeat experience." Most of his club had been made up of rejects and gang members, other clubs that hadn't made it. If we hadn't stopped the weapons sale with Toledo and another no-name arms dealer, things could have ended differently. "Bastard's scared and on the run now."
Demon laughed. "We'll find him. And we'll find the rest of his holding places and free those girls, too."
That was turning out to be a big fucking win for our club's reputation, as one of the captives had turned out to be the sister of a Texas politician. It never hurt to have one who owed us a favor in our back pocket, and he'd been very grateful that we’d found his sister and returned her home alive—grateful enough to tell Demon that if we ever needed anything to contact him.
It was like a get out of jail free card.
"Don't worry about today. I'm hoping shit remains quiet. Can use a little R and R."
After the last week we'd had, we all could.
"Oh, shit, Brother, almost forgot—got an interesting call last night. Had to do with Holly and that job that fell through."
I perked up. It would be nice to have one thing on my fucking list that I didn't have to worry about. Not that her losing the job at Crickets was that big of a concern to me, but whoever was throwing around my name was. "What?"
"Guy was too fucking chicken-shit to face me or give me his name. Confessed that he'd called Crickets saying he was you."
"The fuck?" There had to be more to the story.
"Yeah. Said he'd been at the clubhouse the weekend before, hooked up with one of the club sluts. She got him good and drunk and convinced him to make the call, said it was a harmless prank. When he got sober and realized what he'd done, he thought he'd better fess up."
I didn't give a fuck who the guy was, I wanted to know which club slut got him to do her dirty work. "Who's the bitch?"
"That's where it gets questionable, Brother—said her name was Lulu."
Lulu?! My gut reaction was to defend her. Lulu had been with us for years, and she'd proved herself to be loyal and honest. All the brothers loved her, and so did the old ladies. She was sweet and caring and a good listener. She'd become more than a club girl to most of us, she'd become a friend.
"Don't believe it, Prez."
Demon grumbled low. "She wouldn't be the first club whore to cause trouble within the club. But I'm with you. Gonna get to the fucking bottom of it."
That meant that Cole would be doing some interrogating. My thoughts drifted to Goldie, and I wondered if she’d had anything to do with this. I hoped not. I'd brought her into the clubhouse thinking that she would make a good replacement for Tamara, but so far she hadn't impressed me.
"Got any way of tracking down the asshole who made the call?"
"Oz is working on it. We think it has to be a new hang around, someone who isn't familiar enough with the club girls to know if he was given the right name."
That made sense. "Got it. You know where I'll be if you need me."
As soon as we hung up I hollered across to Frenchie. He was paying attention now, but that didn't excuse his earlier behavior. "Might as well take off. I'm sticking around. And the next time I see your fucking nose in your phone when you're on guard duty, you'll feel my fist at the end of it."
He opened his mouth to defend himself, and then thought better of it. He may have been in LD's clubhouse, but he answered to any officer that outranked him. He was older than most prospects. I'd found out that he'd done
a stretch in prison for assault with a deadly weapon, and he'd been a sniper in the army. Bull knew him from way back, and was backing him to become a member.
He acknowledged me with a chin lift and started his bike. It was a good sign that he could take orders without bitching about it. I turned to go back inside the house. My gaze lit on Holly as soon as I walked through the door. She was just coming out of the bedroom with her phone in her hands.
"I need to call Annabelle to see if she can sit for me tonight."
I raised a questioning brow.
"I work at Grinders."
Oh. If she’d already told me that, I'd forgotten. I had other things on my mind, specifically the talk we needed to have. I'd gone back and forth about wanting to tell her, but had made a decision. "Wait and call her later. Sit down, Babe."
Immediate worry filled her eyes as the sound of my voice sent warning bells through her. When she started to pull out one of the chairs situated around the small dining table, I shook my head and motioned toward the living area.
"Get comfortable." This wasn't going to be a five-minute talk.
"What's wrong?" There was no disguising the slight panic in her voice. She sank down onto the sofa. "You're scaring me." Her lips trembled with a small, nervous smile.
I sat opposite her in the chair, close to the edge with my knees spread and my clasped hands between them. I took a deep breath. Where the hell did I begin? Because once the words left my mouth, I wouldn't be able to take them back, and Holly would know my humiliation. I thought about Ava, sleeping in her crib. This was for her, too.
"Sax, what is it?"
God, I loved this woman. I needed to be strong for her, yet my gut was churning with the acidic bile that wanted to come up my throat. I could tell that Holly wanted to say more, but something stopped her. Maybe she sensed that I needed time.
I took another deep breath and released it.
"I'm going to tell you a story." I clenched my jaw, searching for the strength I'd need to get through it. "All I ask is that you remain silent until I'm done, or I won't be able to finish."
She nodded, and I could see her throat work as she swallowed.
I decided to begin by ripping off the Band-Aid.
"The first time my father raped me I was seven."
Holly gasped sharply, her beautiful face morphing into a mask of absolute disbelief and horror. When her mouth dropped, I shook my head to warn her not to speak. I'd get up and leave the room if she did that. She snapped her mouth shut, but I could tell that what I'd said was tearing her apart. Tears came instantly to her eyes, but she didn't let them fall.
I looked down to the floor, so many fucking emotions running through me. Shame. Anger. Disgust. I swallowed hard, determined to go on.
"I had a baby sister, Stephanie. She was a couple of years younger than me. She was Daddy's little girl. He adored her. Even at my young age, I knew that he had a different kind of love for her than he did for me. He treated her differently. Always brought her toys home from work, spent more time with her, loved her more. It was obvious, but it didn't matter to me. I loved her just as much. I thought that was the way all daddies were with their little girls, because something made them special.
“He'd treated me differently, even before Stephanie came along. He was cold with me, rigid, said I had to be raised with a tough hand if I wanted to grow up to become a man. He rarely sought me out when he came home from work or touched me affectionately. He pushed me away, and punished me for the same things he let Stephanie get away with. I asked my mom one day why he didn't love me as much as Stephanie, and she laughed it off and said that he did, he just didn't know how to show it. To a little boy, that didn’t make any sense. But after a while, I got used to his indifference. Stopped seeking his attention and affection. I started school and made friends there."
I paused and took a deep breath.
I couldn't look at Holly.
"I was in second grade when Stephanie drowned."
I heard Holly’s shocked gasp.
"We were at a birthday party for one of my friends. They lived on a lake. Parents were there, there were kids all over the place. No one realized Stephanie was gone until it was too late." I finally glanced up at Holly to see that she was silently falling apart. "That night was the first time he raped me. Said it was punishment for causing Stephanie's death. He'd told me to look out for her, and I'd failed. He was beside himself with grief when they found her body. Inconsolable. And then later, when we were at home and it was dark, he came to my bedroom crying and said it should have been me that drowned."
With a cry, Holly left the sofa and fell to her knees in front of me, laying her cheek against my knee. I hadn’t realized that I was shaking until then. That my eyes were wet. I put my hand on her hair, smoothing over the softness.
"Every birthday, every anniversary of her death, every kid's holiday, he'd come to my room drunk and beat me with his belt. It always ended the same way." I breathed in deep for control. "There were times he'd just come to my room, drunk and crying over her. Said I was never going to forget it was my fault that she was dead. That if there was a god, one day I would learn how it felt."
I stopped, leaned back in the chair, and closed my eyes on a long sigh. I felt sick to my stomach, and could feel my heart pounding. The attacks hadn't stopped until I got big enough to protect myself. I'd nearly killed him the last time he’d come to my room, drunk and stumbling, with his belt in his hands and his pants already opened. I'd packed up my shit and left shortly after that, and had never returned.
"Your mom—"
"Never knew." I'd made sure of that. Even after she and my old man had divorced, I’d never told her what he'd done to me. What good would it have done?
"Oh, Sax," Holly sobbed brokenly. I was relieved there was no pity in her tone, just teary sadness for a little boy that had been dealt a shitty hand. "I'm so sorry you went through that! I wish I could undo it all for you."
"Don't," I said sharply.
"I hurt for you. I feel sad for the little boy who only wanted acceptance and love from his father." Her tears left a wet spot on my pants leg where she rested her cheek. "This is why you don't want kids? Because of what your father did?"
I looked down to see Holly gazing up at me, her face ravished by tears. "I used to think so," I admitted. Being beaten and abused by my own father for years had cemented the idea that I would turn into a monster just like him. Fear, disgust, shame were powerful tools in shaping someone's moral fiber. After a while, I'd convinced myself that I would do the same thing to my children that he had done to me. But as I’d grown older and wiser, I’d realized that I wasn't my father. That I could never be like him.
My sister's death was another matter. If I'd been watching her like my father had told me to do, she wouldn't have wandered down to the lake and drowned. I'd been selfish, and had been more engrossed in having fun with my friends than watching Stephanie. The guilt over her death had been like an anchor around my neck for all these years. The phobia of being a failure to any children I might have had grown into a fear that I couldn't seem to overcome.
The solution had seemed simple.
You can't fail what you never had.
Now there was Ava, and regardless of what the DNA results said, she was my daughter. I knew that if I wanted Holly in my life, I was going to have to accept her daughter.
"You believe something that you did caused your sister's death, but it didn't, Sax. You were a little boy. It wasn't your job to take care of Stephanie. Your father should have never put that burden on you, he was wrong, it was his responsibility to take care of her and keep her safe, and what he did to you..." She paused and dragged in an uneven breath. "He blamed you for his failures and took it out on you. Did he pay for what he did to you?"
I shook my head. "You're the only one I've told this to, Babe. And that's the way it's going to stay." The last thing I wanted was for my brothers or anyone else to look at me with pity.
/> "You're afraid that if you have your own children that you'll fail them in some way."
If there was a god, one day I would learn how it felt.
To lose a child, though he hadn't said the actual words.
Holly's assumption was half-right. "For a long time I was afraid that I'd turn out like him. Like father, like son. The thought of treating my own child..." Fuck, I couldn't put it into words.
"You won't, Sax! You're not like your father! You're a good man. Do you think I wouldn't know it? Wouldn't feel it? What your father did was his choice, Sax. It's not something in your blood, not something you inherit. He was sick. His obsession with your sister, his indifference towards you, wasn't natural. Parents are supposed to love all their children. I'm sure if you were to look back you'd recognize that there were signs he was a monster."
Maybe so, but I'd never seen anything that would have warned me of what was to come. Other than his lack of interest towards me, he'd worked hard and had provided for us. The relationship between my parents had seemed normal, but what the fuck did I know? My mom had seemed oblivious most of the time. Maybe that was her way of dealing with what was right in front of her nose. I'd never blamed her, though.
I'd blamed myself for all of it. There had been something wrong with me.
"Are your parents still alive?"
I shrugged. "Don’t know. After they divorced he disappeared, mom went to live with her sister in Utah. Haven't talked to her in about ten years." I let Holly take my hand when she reached for it. "I told you this so that you'd understand why I didn't want kids. I didn't want you to think that I was just being a controlling asshole."
Regret flashed across her face. I wondered what she was thinking. If I had to guess, she was probably questioning her decision to stop taking her birth control. But then she wouldn't have Ava, and I couldn't to change that.
Sax Page 21