He twisted toward me and held his hand out. “Come on.”
I didn’t hesitate in placing my fingers in his and allowing him to gently tug me across the street and into my apartment building. My eyes widened when he pulled two keys from his pocket connected to a ring, then proceeded to unlock the communal door to my block and usher me inside. After he secured the door behind us, he walked up the one flight of stairs, going straight to my apartment and stabbing a key in the lock.
My senses rushed back into my brain, and I exclaimed, “What the fuck?”
His answering smirk made my stomach clench.
“How have you got keys to my apartment?” I demanded, my mouth agape as he pushed the door open.
His smirk widened. “Because I was comin’ to see you tonight and I didn’t know if you’d let me in. Not ridin’ for five hours in the damned snow to get turned away, baby.” He extended his hand inside my apartment with a flourish. “After you.”
I stepped inside and fumbled for the light switch. One part of me was too shocked to protest, but the other part was curious as hell as to why he was here and what the hell was going on.
He closed the door behind us with a soft click before pocketing the keys. Then he shrugged his jacket off and hung it on one of the empty hooks on the wall beside the door.
My eyes swept down him, taking in his sheer size and strength. He wore a long-sleeved, black tee and black jeans, which only added to the aura of menace surrounding him.
I popped a hip and folded my arms across my chest, demanding, “You have a key to every girl’s apartment, or just mine?”
His mouth twisted with humor, while his eyes took in a lazy inventory of my tiny home. “Nice place.” He brushed past me, going straight to the windows to pull the blinds and draw the curtains across, and cut us off from the world.
He reminded me of a cat as he moved around my living room, stopping occasionally to study the family photographs that filled the bookcase, and to pick up the trinkets I’d collected over the years that held sentimental value.
“My da found this place for me.” I removed my jacket, throwing it over the back of a chair before unwinding his scarf from my neck “When I started my internship, he wanted me to have somewhere close to the office. I love it here. It’s small, but it has everything I need.” I peeled off his gloves and placed them on the counter with the scarf.
He paused in front of a picture that took pride of place on my sideboard and nodded down at it. “Is this your dad?”
“Yeah,” I whispered, the emotion of the day suddenly hitting me. It was times like these that I missed my da the most. He always knew what to say and do. He always made me feel better.
Pagan’s head slowly swiveled to study the pain I knew was etched in my expression. “It still hurts?”
I blinked back my tears and nodded, hardly trusting myself to speak. Pagan wasn’t the kind of man I could show my vulnerabilities to. I didn’t trust him with them.
He turned back to the photograph, and in his low, husky timbre, he began to speak.
“My dad’s an asshole, and my mom’s a bitch. Not that you could really call her a mom, not in the sense that you’d recognize anyway. She was a club whore my dad knocked up when he was young. He wasn’t interested in raisin’ me; he was too busy raisin’ hell.” A small smile played around his mouth as he went on, “My dad’s a Kings of Anarchy brother from the mother chapter in Cali. I was born and raised in the same city as him, but I can count on one hand the number of times he came to see me. He had another son, my younger brother, Kidd, who’s in the club too, but there’s so much resentment there I can hardly fuckin’ look at him.” His voice dropped to a hush as he continued,“You’re lucky, Ash. You had it all. A mom who cared, a dad who doted on you, and three brothers at your back. I never got any of that.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
He turned his head back to me and grinned. “Don’t be. I didn’t tell you my life story to get sympathy or score points; I told you so you can get it into your head from the get-go that you’re not gonna change me or make me a better man. I’m damaged, and I’m angry to the core, and honestly, Aislynn, I don’t give a fuck. I know right from wrong, and I have a moral compass, but I don’t always follow it, and I’ve made my peace with that. I’ve killed for my country and for fun, and I’ve beaten more men than I can remember. I’m gonna hurt you; I may even ruin you, but if you do this with me, I’ll also protect you with my life. Cunts like Richard Sketch won’t factor because I won’t allow them to. I’ll get you everything you want, I’ll make every dream you have come true, but you’ll pay for it with your peace of mind and probably your dignity. Once you’re in, Aislynn, you won’t ever be out, not completely, and not unless I allow it. You’re a good girl, and I want a good girl in my life. I want somethin’ pure and decent that I can go home to after dealin’ with filth all day. I wanna be able to walk in the door and wash my hands of dirt until I leave you to go do it all over again.” He paused for a beat while he ran his hand over his smooth head. “I also need to be straight with you about somethin’ else. Somethin’ I don’t want repeated to your friends. Can you respect that?”
I nodded automatically.
“I need pure ’cause I’ve got two boys. I don’t want ’em growin’ up with a whore for a mother like I did. I want more for them, and that’s what you’ll eventually be. Not sayin’ I want you to meet ’em straight away, but eventually you will. In the meantime, we see how things go with us, and when the time’s right, I’ll tell ’em about you and pave the way for a meet.”
My jaw dropped. “You’ve got two boys?” I repeated, my eyes rounding. “You’re a dad?”
The shock on my face must’ve been blatant because Pagan chuckled. “Rex is sixteen and Roman’s fourteen. They live with their mother, who until recently was okay, but she hitched her star to a dude who’s not okay, and now she’s a liability.”
I wasn’t sure why he was telling me all this; maybe it was a test, and he wanted to see if I’d bolt. The whole speech came off so matter-of-fact, but still raw because there was something about the way he spoke of his boys that carved me open.
Suddenly, the air in the room felt too close as he watched me, waiting for a reaction, except I didn’t really know what to say. I hardly knew him. I couldn’t pledge my troth to a man I’d met twice, especially when one of those meetings didn’t end well.
I decided to go with honesty. It had never let me down before, and I had a feeling Pagan was the type of man who would rather I was straight with him, especially after all his revelations.
“This is a lot,” I announced.
Slowly, he nodded. “Yeah, baby. It is.”
