My eyes flick to the broken man beside me, his face a mask of pain, his eyes closed, breathing ragged, and I know that no matter how hard it is, how brutal, this is the road I’ve always been destined to walk.
Chapter Three
Edge
“Had it coming,” I mouth, as soon as Harley perches on the edge of the couch I collapsed onto the second she helped me from the car to the house.
“No.” She shakes her head, her eyes wild, rage and sorrow rolling off her with every move she makes. “You didn’t.”
“I did.”
She has a wet cloth in her hand and a bowl of warm water that she’s filled up in the kitchen. She knows her way around this house better than I do. I never brought her here alone.Ever. Figured the temptation would be too great for both of us and I always wanted to treat her with respect. I never wanted to do anything to hurt her. I would have moved heaven and hell to keep her from falling in love with an asshole like me, but I couldn’t protect her from her own heart, just like I couldn’t stop mine from beating for her.
She dips the washcloth into the water and wrings it out. Suds trickle between her knuckles, her soft, perfect, slender hands. Hands that I want touching me more than I’ve ever wanted anything, wanted it like an ache, a sickness, straight down to the marrow of my bones, but not like this. I never wanted her to have to see this.
To take care of me like I’m a fucking child.
To clean up the mess I’ve fucking created.
But I know she’s not leaving. I can’t do or say anything to drive her away and I don’t have the strength to force her to leave. If I kicked her out of the house, I know she’d sit on the porch fuming for a few hours then probably just break a window to get back in.
It’s pretty much a metaphor for how we’ve been for the past few months since we realized we both felt the same way.
I’ve treated her like she’s made of glass. Like she could shatter, or rather, like I could shatter her. I’ve been so careful. Never done anything more than kiss her, because she’s my world and if I’m going to hell, I’m going to pave that way with gentle words, with nights spent watching the stars, with just being beside her, craving her to the point of breaking, but always keeping myself apart.
She dabs at my face with the washcloth, cleaning away the dried blood. Probably the fresh shit too. I fucking leaked blood all over her car, stained those ugly cloth seats, making them even uglier. I want to kick my own ass for doing this to her.
“Fuck, Harley,” I breathe. I wait until she’s looking at me before I continue. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I saw you in that parking lot as soon as you drove up and I dragged you off to those trees because I couldn’t not kiss you. I should have stopped. Should have been more careful. None of this should have happened.”
Her lips purse, but she says nothing. Her hair is ruined, the long tendrils escaping the pins and trailing down her back. Her makeup is even worse, dark streaks stained on her golden cheeks from her tears smudging her mascara andeyeliner. Her lips tremble, plush, full lips that I bruised with my kiss, my teeth, my tongue.
Fuck. Didn’t know it was possible to feel like I just got run over with a literal fucking truck and still pop a boner. My cock throbs, so swollen and hard that the head presses against the underside of my jeans, the fucking zipper bruising me right through the barrier of my boxers.
Since Harley’s straddling my lap as far as her dress will allow, I check to see if she feels it and let out a sigh of relief when I realize her legs are planted firmly on the couch and she’s leaning up too far.
Harley wrings out the cloth, the water turning a sickening shade of red. Her eyes flick back to my face. “I wanted to think that if we waited until I graduated and came back to Helena he might see sense.”
“I hoped he’d stopped seeing you as his little girl.”
Harley snorts. “Yeah, that’s not gonna fucking happen.”
Somehow, even though she was raised around a band of tough as fuck men, brutes who have a heart of gold but still get drunk and fuck and swear, she rarely ever uses bad language, so I know how upset she is, even though she’s trying to play it down at the moment.
Her face is a mixture of tenderness, anger, and a fierce protectiveness that bruises my heart and makes my chest clench up tight. She’s not some fragile princess that I have to handle with care, though I’ll always treat her that way, because she’s my whole fucking world. Harley’s tough. Tougher than anyone I’ve ever met, man or woman. She’s a different kind oftouch. She’s physically strong, always did track at school, since it was more of an independent sport that she didn’t have to worry about hearing for. She’s a good runner. Fast as hell. I’ve seen her work on her car with Steel. When she was working at the shop over the summer, she insisted that we show her how to do stuff, even though her job was supposed to be helping out with the admin.
But it’s more than just physical strength, she’s mentally tough as well. She’s grown up all her life not being able to hear. She’s lived silently in a world made for sound. She’s the daughter of a biker too, so it was never easy for her at school. She used to get bullied, even well into her teens, but when she was fifteen, she just stopped caring. Stopped coming home crying. She learned how to hold her own, and other kids were impressed and attracted to that, and after it, she had a hell of a lot of friends.
She’s always had the old ladies, but having Leah around really helped. Harley never had a real sister, and I’ve watched them, watched Leah love Harley in ways that I can’t, both because I couldn’t let myself get close enough and because she’s a female, and it’s swelled my heart up with so much love that I thought there were times it would burst and fucking kill me.
Harley rinses the cloth out again. Her eyes flick up to me, and she takes everything in, and I know that I don’t look real fucking pretty at the moment. She doesn’t wince when she looks at me. “You should have fought back.” Her eyes are glistening with unshed tears.
“No. I wronged your father. He has the right to use violence against me as retribution so long as he doesn’t kill me. Club code.”
“That’s a fucked up rule.”
“With a bunch of men prone to violence, sweetheart, it might sound fucked up, but it’s surprisingly effective.”
Her forehead scrunches up into a frown. My eyes drop down to her dress, a simple, tight fitting black number that hugs her curves gently, dips down low between the valley of her perky breasts, but not low enough to be indecent. It’s open in the back, with a trail of beads and lace leading from her ass to the ground. It’s the prettiest dress I’ve ever seen. A man like me doesn’t give a shit about dresses, but I cared about this one, because it was Harley’s. She and Leah picked it out. She was so excited for me to see her in it.
