I didn’t give her the chance.
“Remember the first time I saw you?” I asked, my voice dropping lower. “You were fifteen, walking down the hallway at school with your friend—what was her name? Doesn’t matter. Point is, I couldn’t take my eyes off you. You were wearing a dress—yellow with white flowers—laughing at something, and I swear to God, Kels, it was like everything else just fell away.
“Took me three weeks to work up the balls to talk to you. Three weeks of finding excuses to walk past your locker, to sit where I could see you in the cafeteria. My boys gave me so much shit about it. Big bad biker’s son, tongue-tied over some sophomore.”
A small, watery smile tugged at her lips. “You asked me if I knew where the library was when you were standing right in front of it. Idiot.”
“Yeah, well.” I huffed out a laugh. “Cut me some slack. You were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen… my brain stopped working.”
I traced the line of her jaw with my thumb before continuing, “Remember when you asked me to the homecoming dance. Justmarched right up to me in the parking lot, all five-foot-nothing of you. I fucking hated school dances. Hated the music, the crowded gym, the teachers watching everyone like hawks. But you wanted to go, so I showed up, in a suit and everything.”
“Your dad’s suit,” she said, the smile widening. “It was too big in the shoulders.”
“Wasn’t exactly focused on fashion.” I shifted closer, my hips pressing against hers. “I was too busy trying not to stare at you in that dress. Teal, with thin straps that kept sliding down your shoulders. Every time I’d fix one, you’d smile at me, and I damn near forgot my own name.”
I could still see the mum I’d bought her—some black and gold monstrosity that had cost me a week’s pay from my part-time job working in Phantom’s garage.
“We left early,” I continued, my voice taking on a wistful tone. “Planned on driving you home, but what’d you say?”
Pink bloomed across her cheeks, but she held my gaze. “I said I didn’t want to wait anymore.”
“Said you didn’t want to wait anymore,” I repeated. “And I tried to be responsible, tried to tell you we should slow down, that you deserved better than the inside of my Bronco next to an old oil well for your first time.”
“I didn’t want better. I just wanted my first time to be with you,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
My lips curved into a smile at the memory. “Only you didn’t know it was my first time, too. I was so fucking terrified of doing it wrong, of hurting you. But you just kept touching me, kept pulling me closer, and when it was over—” I had to stop, clear my throat. “When it was over, you curled into my side and told me you loved me. First person who ever said that to me who wasn’t blood.”
Kelsey blinked rapidly, trying to dispel the tears building in her eyes.
“Knew right then,” I said fiercely. “Seventeen years old, and I knew you were it for me. The only woman I’d ever want. Had two dreams back then, Kels. To marry you and run a chapter like my old man. That’s it. That’s all I wanted.”
“And you got both,” she whispered, her chest heaving with a sob.
“Yeah, I did. For a while, anyway.” I pulled back to look at her. “You know how I earned my three-piece?”
Her brows scrunched together. “Your dad sponsored you?”
“Not what I’m asking, baby.” I rubbed at the back of my neck. “I’m asking if you know what I did to earn it. What I had to do to prove I was worthy of wearing the colors.”
Understanding dawned on her face, closely followed by a flash of fear. “In by blood, out by blood,” she said, softly reciting the club mantra.
“See, there was a guy,” I said, my voice going flat the way it always seemed to when I talked about the darker parts of club life. “Forty-something. Had been following you around for weeks. Showed up outside your house, outside school, at the fucking mall where you worked. Remember?”
She nodded slowly. “He said he was a security guard or something, but he always gave me the creeps.”
“I remember,” I ground out through clenched teeth. “My old man had some guys from the club do a little digging; found out the guy had a record. Assault, kidnapping, rape—victims refused to cooperate with police, so the charges were all eventually dropped. Asshole had a whole system worked out. He’d watch his victims, learn their routines, wait for the perfect moment to grab them.”
Kelsey’s face had gone pale, but she didn’t pull away.
“Pops and I did a little recon and found drawings in his trailer,” I continued, each word tasting like metal on my tongue. “Detailed plans for what he wanted to do to you. Where he’d take you. How long he’d keep you before—” I stopped myself, my throat closing around shit too sick to ever say aloud. Not to her.
“I volunteered for the job. Told the club I wanted to handle it myself—my first kill. Should have been nervous about taking a life, but I thought about what he wanted to do to you. About how I’d feel if I let someone else handle it and he somehow got away, came back for you—” I shook my head.
“Didn’t feel a damn thing except relief when I sent that motherfucker to the Reaper. Need you to understand. Everything I’ve ever done, every choice I’ve ever made, it all comes back to you.”
I pulled her up against my chest, her jaw slack and eyes wide with shock. “I’d do it again, Kels. In a heartbeat. I’d do it a thousand times over if it meant keeping you safe. The club, the chapter, all of it—it only matters because it gave me a way to protect you, to provide for you and our kids. And I know none of it turned out how we planned. Know there’s been more pain than I ever wanted you to feel. But if someone came to me right now, told me I could go back and choose a different path—one where I never met you, never fell in love with you, never had to go through any of this—I’d tell them to go fuck themselves.”
She swayed against me, a choking sob slipping past her lips.
