Chapter thirty-one:
Present day
Laney
I sat on the sofa in Charlie and Rider’s house, my feet tucked up under me. I’d wanted to go to the clubhouse and see Jesse, make sure he was all right after what I’d overheard Rider telling Charlie. But I couldn’t.
That wasn’t my world now, and the sooner my heart understood that, the better.
I’d been thinking about moving back to Florida a lot since leaving Jesse. I had friends there—at least I’d had friends before Gauge had dragged me away from there kicking and screaming. Regardless, I wasn’t worried. I knew I could take care of myself now. I just knew that I couldn’t stay, watching Jesse go through woman after woman like they were trash. Watching him tear apart everything we’d worked for. Watching him destroy our world.
I just couldn’t do it. To him, or to myself.
The roar of an engine startled me out of my thoughts, and I stood up and pulled the netting back on the window. A bike was coming down the street, but I didn’t recognize it. Of course, there were plenty of bikers around there, and I couldn’t know them all, yet something in my heart made me go to the front door and open it. Something in my heart told me that that biker was there for me.
I stood in the doorway as the biker pulled to a stop at the sidewalk, and whoever it was turned off the engine. I definitely didn’t recognize the bike, not even from any of the club events that I had gone to.
It had a dark forest green body, with large ape handlebars and beautiful chrome pipework. And the sound: the engine roared like a caged lion, the sound trembling over my flesh and giving me goose bumps. It wasn’t the sort of bike you bought from a shop. Shit, I didn’t know much about bikes, but I knew it wasn’t one that was just built as a custom job. That bike was special, and it had been built from the ground up with love. It was also covered in scrapes and dents along one side.
The biker shut off the engine, and the sudden silence was unnerving. He climbed off the bike and pulled off his helmet, and I swallowed as I took him in.
Jesse stood there, his cut wrapped over his shoulders and hanging from his lean and muscled body. I swallowed, because despite the fact that I’d chosen to leave him, my body couldn’t deny the attraction I still held for him, nor the love I felt. I would always be in love with Jesse, no matter how many times he broke my heart.
He stalked toward me like an animal moving toward its prey, and my heart sped up. The last time I’d seen him he’d almost killed a guy with his bare hands. The cuts were still visible on his knuckles, the blood still stained on the driveway.
His hair was loose around his shoulders and the sun kissed his skin, making the light sheen of sweat on him glisten.
And then he was there, in front of me, his heated gaze bearing down on me. His beard twitched and his eyes narrowed, and I opened my mouth to say something to him but the words fell away as his large hands reached out and grabbed me, dragging me to his body.
He slammed me against his chest and I tried to push away from him, but I’m not too prudish to admit that it was a half-assed attempt. And then Jesse wrapped one hand in my hair, tipped my face up to his, and he pressed his mouth to mine. I fought him for seconds before finally surrendering myself and going limp in his arms, and opening my mouth to he could push his tongue inside. And then we were kissing.
It was a kiss of claim.
Jesse was claiming me once more.
Owning my mind and my body with that kiss.
And I was powerless to stop him.
When he finally pulled away, my lips were red and sore and I stared up at him in a daze.
“I’m telling you now that you’re coming home with me,” he growled out. “I fucked up real bad, I know that, but that’s over now. That shit ain’t ever gonna happen again, I swear to you. I lay down my life to that promise Laney.”
I tried to pull away from him, needing the space to give my mind the clarity it needed to think clearly, but Jesse held on tighter, practically snarling at me, so I gave up.
“I don’t know if I can forgive you,” I whispered. “You broke what we had, Jesse. You turned it into something ugly, where there should only have been beauty. How do I get over that? Tell me and I’ll try.”
Jesse’s eyes softened and he nodded, and I worried that he was going to back away from me but he didn’t.
“We don’t,” he said. “We don’t get over it. Because we never get over the bad shit that happens, we just somehow learn to live with it. You keep the good vibrant in your mind, and you hold on tight to it, and that makes the bad bearable.”
I nodded, feeling tearful, and he leaned down and kissed me again.
“I will never hurt you again, Laney. I don’t know what was wrong with me these past months—grief, insanity…but it’s over now.” He gripped me tighter. “You are my family. You and the club. I couldn’t see it before. All I could see was that Butch was gone, and I’m sorry for that, but I see it now.”
I thought about the first time I met him—the kid who looked at me like I was made from the stars. I thought about the first time he’d kissed me, and the way my heart sped up and my mind spun out of control. I thought about the way he made my stomach feel like there were butterflies living inside of it. But mostly, I thought about how every time I looked at him, I couldn’t help but love him, no matter how much I wanted to stop.
And so I kissed Jesse back and I thought about the good and somehow, he was right: it made the bad seem more bearable. Who knows? Maybe one day the good would be so good that the bad would be obliterated.
