My chest is heaving, my heart pounding so fast I feel like I might fall over. The knife is taken from me and my brother grabs my shoulder and steers me out of the room. I barely hear anything going on around me, my vision has tunneled and it no longer feels like I’m in control of my own limbs.
It will pass. I’ll move on but right now, I have to feel this, have to sit with what I’ve done.
I’m not sure how I end up at the back of his car, Camden cleaning me up before getting me inside. The whole time we drive, he keeps casting nervous looks my way.
“Callum,” he says after we’ve driven a while.
“Is she…”
“They’ve taken her to a private facility. You did it Cal. You got her out. And you have a solid lead on Storm. Remember that.”
I turn to look out of the window, still feeling like I’m not in my own body, I don’t know who I became in there, but I can’t get the images out of my head.
Not what I did to him, that bastard deserved it, and worse. In fact, I wish I had left him to the fate I created to scare him. I’m sure someone would have done it.
It isn’t about that at all. It’s the women whose lives have been irrevocably damaged.
Camden doesn’t say anything, understanding I need to bring myself from the ledge I walked onto back in that house. He does grip the steering wheel tight enough to make the leather creak when I do eventually answer.
“It wasn’t enough.”
Chapter Seventeen
Charley
Waking up alone in Callum’s spare bedroom shouldn’t feel as weird as it does. One night with him, in his bed and it’s like everything changed. In a way, I’m glad he has gone out of town because my thoughts and feelings about the last twenty-four hours are going to take a lot to unpack.
How did it go from elation about the dance, to being threatened by an asshole, who then got beat up and what went on between Callum and I when we got back here?
When I came to Baltimore, it was to get away from drama and craziness, not swap it for a different brand.
After watching Callum hit that guy and pin him to the wall, it totally threw me how gentle and sweet he was when we had sex. Insatiable yeah, experienced most definitely but not at all like I thought he would be, given he’s a big bad scary biker.
He is living proof of stereotyping. My head and body are at war with one another. No one has ever made me feel the way he did when we were together. I don’t exactly have much to compare it to but even in my limited experience, what he did to me, each time he did it, was nothing less than perfect.
Callum is the kind of man I wish I met a few years ago. He’s someone who will always protect the people he cares about. He wouldn’t stand back and watch me be belittled, mentally and occasionally physically abused by people he brought into my life.
He never would have allowed anyone to play pranks on me, or scare me, or drive me to the point of almost losing my mind, then making one of the biggest mistakes of my whole life.
Shaking out of that thought before memory takes hold and panic surges, I get up and go about the routine of washing, dressing, making breakfast, all things that I can deal with. It’s just the silence that is unnerving. I’ve gotten so used to the noise at the last apartment, and at Elegance, it’s never quiet there.
Here, it’s like the whole world has been shut outside, and nothing can get to me. Another thing Callum has done for me without realizing it. I can’t start to depend on him. It’s a bad idea. Good sex and a kind heart doesn’t make problems vanish.
Beast made me take a couple of nights off, and wouldn’t even let me plead my case. It’s only the fact that I got paid a lot of money for that dance, and the tips, that I didn’t end up in a real argument with my boss. Not that it would have got me anywhere.
If anything, the bikers were doing everything they could to make sure I was okay. Lily called me to tell me how everyone was pissed about what happened.
Which is dangerous... Why can’t I let myself to be open to it?
To prove to myself that I’m not falling into a trap of relying on someone else, I start searching for an apartment. I have enough for a security deposit now so it shouldn’t be that hard.
My stomach aches and a weird pull in my chest has me setting the phone down and looking around at this gorgeous house. Callum doesn’t want a girlfriend, he doesn’t want someone like me. He’s an amazing person, he could have anyone he wants. I’m just convenient…
Even as I think it, I know it isn’t true.
What is he doing right now? Having something to eat with his family, visiting old friends, or just hanging out with one of his brothers? What would it be like to be there with him now?
The doorbell chimes making me jump out of my daydreams. I’m not expecting anyone and Callum would have said if anyone was going to come over.
