I thought of every moment we’d spent together, every smile that had graced her lips, every flash of blue as her eyes stared back into mine, and all the calm she held in them that I found myself craving more and more of.
I thought of what the guy had just done to me.
I thought of another guy doing the same to her.
And suddenly, I was really fucking angry again. The white noise faded. My vision became clearer, and as I looked up at Slater pouring hell on that asshole’s face and body, I knew I had to do worse.
Whether it meant killing the whole of his MC, I didn’t care anymore. I had to keep my brothers alive and safe. More importantly, I had to keep living in a world where someone as pure as Ayda still existed. And nobody was going to stand in my way.
Within seconds, I was crawling to my feet and causing damage again, and for once, I was grateful that Slater let me take over without asking a single fucking question, because right there and then, the only talking I was capable of doing came from the power in my fists. The rest of me was numb.
The rest of me was still with her, on the edge of a football field, wondering how either of us could come out of this alive.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Ayda
The fact that I had to be nudged from my check out station when my shift was up said all that needed to be said about my day. I hadn’t been able to concentrate one little bit—not since Drew kissed me and took a small piece of me with him. To add insult to injury, Deeks was on my ass twenty-four seven. It just reminded me of what I didn’t have, and that damnable kiss that made my lips tingle every time I thought about it.
Then I got mad.
How dare he kiss me?
How dare he keep coming back when I had nothing left to give?
That stream of thought was the very reason I was sitting out in front of The Hut with my knuckles white on the steering wheel, my jaw working back and forth, sending an ache through my teeth. The bastard knew what he was doing. He fucking knew, and he’d made sure I wouldn’t eat or sleep for thinking about him. I was like a fucking toy he couldn’t put down, and he never would, not until I was completely destroyed and another one came along.
Well, I refused to be a toy anymore.
Using the code to get through the gates, I slammed it shutbehind me to slow Deeks down in his pursuit. I'd lost him in a subdivision that my ex-boyfriend had lived in. It looked like a rabbit warren, but I wasn't taking any chances. Not that night. I wasn’t going to be deterred from speaking my mind.
I was going to keep my back straight and stick to my guns, and I swore to God, if he tried to kiss me again, I was going to bite the son of a bitch.
The door to The Hut was propped open, as it was most evenings when everyone from the club was around. With that many bodies in the space, the smoke and stench had to go somewhere. I had to walk through a cloud of cigarette smoke to get into the main room, but not a soul saw me as being out of place anymore. I'd been invited in. They'd started to expect me. I was just the “cleaning lady.”
The cloying air that wrapped around my body like a force field made my throat feel raw as my eyes scanned the four corners of the place. My first stop was, inevitably, the bar. I could already see him in my mind’s eye, propped up against it with a bottle of whiskey in one hand, a whore in the other and his signature smirk plastered across his face. It wasn’t as though he expected me to be there… But then again, maybe he did. Maybe I was walking into another one of his traps so he could watch me jump through his hoops with amusement.
For a moment, I actually believed I’d finally got him pegged, but the face wearing the smirk wasn’t Drew’s, nor was it as handsome. It ended up just being one of his boys, who obviously looked up to him with some reverence and hero worship.
“Where's Drew?”
The guy shrugged lazily and huffed out a laugh at me, his arm curling around the girl’s neck and pulling her in for a kiss.
He had the emulation down to a fine art apparently, but it wasn't perfect. His eyes had flickered a second before his lips met the girl’s, and it was just the direction I'd been headed in. Drew’s office. Even though I felt my stomach flip at the last memory of being in there, I pushed forward regardless. The train I was on needed desperately to be derailed, and the sooner I managed to get it done, the sooner I could try and get back to some semblance of a life.
I took a huge risk not knocking. There was a chance I would interrupt him with a girl, or more importantly, him and the inner sanctum of the pack, but I stormed in with my anger-fueled bravado anyway, my chest rising and falling as the adrenaline pumped desperately through my veins.
He was there.
I didn’t need to look at him to know that. I could feel his presence the same way I always had, but I chose instead to stare at the memories filling the shelves on the bookcase in the corner of the room, where a younger, smiling version of him seemed like a better target for words that might just piss him off.
“You kissed me, you son of a bitch.”
There was no response from him, which, all things considered, wasn’t unusual. He was the king of stoic indifference when he wanted to be. He also knew when to play the cards he had and when to hold them close to his chest.
“You kissed me, Drew, and then you walked away when Ibeggedyou not to. I begged you to stay.”
I turned my head to look him in the eyes. I needed to see his reaction, but I choked on my last word as I did.
