I nodded in agreement. The last thing I wanted was to make matters worse, and I was already worried about the repercussions of what had just happened, even though it hadn’t really been my choice to be out there, and it sure as hell hadn’t been my plan to be prancing around outside his room in his cut.
The mumbles started only seconds before the bodies seemed to part, and I found myself face to face with Drew. I couldn’t read his expression, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, or if it was for my benefit or the pack’s.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, receiving a shake of his head in response as his arm curled around my neck and pulled me close. The other hand reached out to slap Slater on the chest, asking him to give him ten minutes.
No one said a word as he towed us both through the main room, but the stares we both got had me shrinking into the leather until I was close to tears by the time we entered his room again. The only thing that stopped me was shame.
“I’m so sorry, Drew.”
His jaw was tense when he turned my body in his arms and faced me. I couldn’t get a read on him while I watched his nostrils flare. I knew he was trying to calm himself. All I could hope was that his rage hadn’t been anything to do with me or the situation I’d put myself in. When his hands met my shoulders to give them a gentle squeeze, his breath came out in one strong force.
“This was what I was talking about when I told you to go before it was too late. You’re making apologies when that should be on me. I’m the one who should be sorry. Not you.”
Lifting my arm, I cupped his cheek with my hand, sighingas he pressed his face against it and dropped his chin to his chest. I hated seeing him like this, but for better or worse, it gave me strength.
“Drew, I’m here because I want to be. I’m here because being with you like this makes me happy.” I tugged the side of the leather vest back with my free hand and tilted my head to the side. “I’m wearing this because I accept you for who you are. All I’m apologizing for is not thinking when you were so obviously focused on other things.”
His hands slid up to my neck again, his face moving closer to mine while he stared down on me intensely. “Ayda?”
“Yes?” I whispered, suddenly terrified he was going to ask me to leave.
“Shut up.”
Then his lips met mine. It wasn’t the same kind of kiss we’d shared before we’d been interrupted. This one was more intense, the playfulness and neediness replaced with passion and affirmation. I knew he was going to have to leave to sort out this mess sooner rather than later, but the yearning for him was almost painful. I needed him pressed up against me and inside me. I needed that look he gave me just before he took what he wanted from my body. I wanted to be wanted. I needed to be needed, and he was the only one that could fulfill that anymore. I was in it for the long haul. I’d made my decision and I’d chosen him.
Chapter Forty-Four
Drew
There were many things I was growing to appreciate about Ayda. Despite the obvious, I think my favorite was her ability to walk away from complex situations and not ask questions. All the other women I’d ever been with, even if it was only for one night, used to hit with the ‘getting to know you better’ bullshit before I’d even finished my final stroke and fallen down beside them.
I was a mystery to the town of Babylon. An enigma. Everybody wanted to be the one to crack me wide open and expose the real me. Only I’d never wanted to go there with anyone else up until now. The truth was that I still wasn’t sure how much I wanted to tell anyone. Not even Ayda, no matter what this was that was going on inside the two of us. But it didn’t matter because she never asked. She never pushed or pressed or made me withdraw. Instead, she would just look up at me as she rested her elbow by my head on the bed, use those fingers of hers to lull me into some kind of relaxed state of mind, and the words seemed to fall from my lips with ease.
Since Cortez came and went, I’d seen the hidden fear in her eyes every time she looked at me, and I’d not been away from civilization so long that I didn't recognize that she was too small a woman to survive in oceans as big as mine. I wasjust too much of a selfish bastard to try and do anything to change that. For the first time since my teenage years, I had something else to look forward to besides death and darkness when I woke up each morning. For the first time since I last saw my parents or Pete, I had a little bit of light in a world.
My brothers had seen it, too. Their know-it-all smirks and sly winks across The Hut would normally have gotten under my skin and made me snap, but for some reason, this time around, they didn’t. With every cocky grin that was sent my way, I flashed one right back and gave each man a salute.
Although I knew I had to be careful. There was falling fast and then there was fallingfast.The last thing I needed was for either one of us to get caught up in something that would be impossible to walk away from if we needed to.
Reality was always only a single scary moment away. Anyone who got close to us usually ended up hurt. My job now was to make sure that that never happened to Ayda. Not on my watch.
Thursday came and went without much fuss. Once she eventually peeled herself away from me and grumbled her tight little ass all the way to the shower, I made a deal with myself to tackle the day as head-on as I could.
By Friday morning, I’d called my brothers into the office to have a proper meeting on everything to do with all our businesses, and even though I was hungry and desperate to keep myself fully up-to-date with everything that was going on, I was biding my time and waiting to hit them all with questions over the boxing rings that I still hadn’t seen any paperwork on.
“Effectively,” Jedd spoke up from the couch opposite my desk, “Harry is the Mr. T of our club. Anything gold or ofvalue, he wears it and handles it.”
“Yeah,” Harry huffed out beside him, his chest bouncing while his eyes flickered all around the room. “You should see the looks I get when I tell people I’m in pawn management now.”
Shaking my head, I jabbed the pen on the invoice book in front of me and raised my brows back up at him. “Not the right kind of porn for you, Rogers?”
“Not even close,” he answered with a smile.
“We missed you doing the books though, Drew,” Jedd offered as his fingers rose to pinch his nostrils together. “Sinclair is a prick.”
“Tell me about it.”
“No one has the same take on things as you do. “
