Not sure how wrong it is to have this feeling when Diana says it, especially since I’ve got a kid of my own, but I can’t help but react to it. We don’t use the word often. It’s not a road name or anything, just something we use in the bedroom during certain moments. And each time she says it or I use it to refer to myself, I get rock-hard. Which is prettypainful since my girl gets me hard from a simple look on her own.
Still, the events at the club keep running through my mind, no matter how much I try to push them away, focusing only on my girl and the peace of mind she brings. But with her constant touch—fingers sliding through my hair, resting against me—it’s harder for me to lock my shit down. Because in this moment, I want to share with her. I want to be real with someone who gets it and doesn’t judge me for it.
“Had an issue at the club.” I shrug.
She raises an eyebrow, and the corner of her lips rises. “Care to elaborate?”
“Not really.”
She nods, and then a small smile spreads across her face. A forced one that I rub my fingers over to ease it away because I don’t like her having it.
“It was about me, wasn’t it?”
“They don’t know you.”
“Yeah.” She rolls till she’s looking up at the ceiling, but her hand finds mine and holds it over her heart. “And they don’t seem like they want to.”
I don’t argue. She might have interacted with a few brothers while I was in the hospital, but none since I got out. Might explain why they don’t trust her. They don’t evenknowher.
Other than General, because of her job, and he never treats anyone differently. Well, unless it’s a problem for the club. Then the evil comes out of him, but it’s still dim compared to the rest of us because he took the doctor’s oath and has a slight issue each time he inflicts long-term pain onpeople. Short-term? He’s all for it. The guy is a sadist in the bedroom for a reason. The club only brings him in to keep people alive so we can torture them more. Something he’s surprisingly okay with. No moral issue there. I’ve never questioned it, and I doubt anyone in the club has. We all have lines we won’t cross and others we’ve got no issues skipping over. Everyone is different, and there’s zero judgment on what does or doesn’t do it for someone.
The club was cordial to her at the hospital. Well, all but Ruby. Mad Max gave her space to do her job, and they even became friends. Well, not in the traditional sense, but Mad Max is never one to get buddy-buddy with someone, so him talking to a person is basically a friendship in itself. He speaks when he wants to, on his terms, and only if a grunt can’t be easily interpreted. He no longer sits at my side every minute of the day, but I know he keeps tabs on me all the time. He knows what I’m doing. He doesn’t say shit because he’s not like that. I picked him for my personal protection for a reason. He doesn’t judge, and he protects with every part of himself. He sat with me during my coma because he wasn’t there when I got hurt. He couldn’t protect me like he thought he always could, so his vigil was his self-imposed punishment. If I was stuck in the hospital, so was he. Now that I’m out, he spends his time with his old lady, but I know he tracks my phone. When I’m at the club, so is he. When I leave, he checks in regularly. I might not see him, but I know he’s there. And despite me being out of the president’s chair, I know I can rely on him for life.
Casper hasn’t chosen his protection yet. I understand with so much shit going on, it’s not at his forefront, but he needs to. We might be in a good spot right now with most people now that Ruby is back, but we’ve still got enemies. It’salways going to happen. People hate us just because of who we are. That we wear a vest and ride something with two wheels instead of four. It’s how things are done. People always fear the Reaper, and we are the Reaper’s men. Whether you believe in the guy or not, death is knocking on everyone’s door, and only a few are taken out by us Hounds.
My fingers find hers, lacing them together as we continue to both be lost in thought.
Maybe like Casper taking his time to choose who to have his back, the club is waiting too. A held breath of sorts. Everything stagnates. No one moving on from what was and into the future.
The club doesn’t know how to handle me with another woman because they’ve never seen me with one. They don’t know who to pick for certain positions and roles in the club because it’s been the same for so long. My dying, figuratively and literally, might have been what started the change, but since then, everything seems to be frozen in time. No changes going on, at least none that I know of. Perhaps seeing me live is the thing to get them kick-started again.
My phone buzzes, pulling me out of my thoughts. I reach over to the nightstand and check it.
“Everything okay?” Diana asks softly.
I set it back down and look at my girl. So beautiful and open. She gets me. Gets my issues and things that happened before her. She doesn’t ask me to change but is willing to make changes for me to make it easier on me. Everything’s about me, and so little about her.
Till now.
“Family barbecue on Sunday. You off work that day?” I’m pretty sure she is—I memorized her schedule the second I could understand it—but it can still change.
I feel her stiffen against me. Hear her sudden intake of breath. I know I’m asking a lot. From her, from the club. Even me. Pushing myself into the uncomfortable. Forcing everyone to see what I see. That Diana is mine, even if I won’t come out and say it out loud. But this will be loud enough. It might be a mistake. This might be the tipping moment where the memories come back if I bring her there. Someplace I only ever took Katrina.
But I want her with me. She makes me feel calm. At peace. I need that if I go back to the club after what happened.
“Sunday? That’s the tenth, right?”
I nod as I grab a piece of her hair and play with it between my fingers, twirling it around one, then the other.
“I’ll go if you go with me someplace before that.”
I tilt my head and narrow my eyes. She’s being purposely vague, and it puts me a bit on edge. “Where?”
She licks her lips, flicks her eyes to the ceiling, then back to mine. “To meet Mom.” It’s not a whisper, just spoken softly. “She died on the tenth,” she explains before I can ask.
I nod, choosing not to speak. Not sure words are the right choice here. Tonight was about finding comfort in each other’s arms after our own issues of the day, but it seems to have turned into us both wanting the other to meet our families.
I lean down and press my lips to hers. Both of us silently agreeing that we’re done talking. She welcomes mytouch as easily as she breathes, sighing into my lips as we reconnect in the most primal of ways. I run my fingers through her hair, not only because I love the feel of it, but also to support her neck as I lift her head for better exploration of my mouth on hers. She moans at the angle, but I know it could be better.
