She’s one of the more decent ones to have around.Well, unless you count the way she opened her fucking mouth when Birdie first arrived.Her eyes heat as she gets closer, her tongue coming out to lick her lips.
“Need help to work that adrenaline off, Pope,” she purrs.
Before Birdie returned home, I might have taken her up on the offer.Now, though, just the thought has my stomach roiling.
“No,” I snap.“The fuck is wrong with you?You know I have an ol’ lady.Don’t come at me like that again.”
“I’m sorry.It won’t happen again, Pope.”
“See that it doesn’t.I’d hate to have to slit your fucking throat.”I hold out the needle.“Need you to stitch this for me.”
“Okay.Turn so I can see it.”
The touch of her fingers against my skin has a shudder of revulsion skirting up my spine, but I grit my teeth.
I close my eyes at the sting of the first stitch, breathing deeply through my nose.
They’re only closed for a few minutes before a commotion at the front door of the clubhouse has them snapping open.
“Move out of the fucking way and let me see him,” Birdie screams, her voice high and panicked.
She shoves through the wall of brothers trying to block her out, her eyes searching through the common room.Terror covers her face as she finds me.But then her eyes drop to Cookie, and she freezes.Her face drains of color and her body shakes.Pain bleeds through her beautiful green eyes and then they go blank as she just ...fucking ...stares.
“Stop,” I order Cookie, needing to get to Birdie.
“What?I’m almost finished.”
“I said fucking stop,” I yell, grabbing her wrist and yanking the needle from my flesh.
Urgency rushes over me when she whimpers, and I rush to her in deep strides.As soon as I’m in front of her, I lift my hands to her face, cupping her cheeks in my palms.I rest my forehead against hers, staring deeply into her empty eyes.
“Come back to me, baby.Come back.I’m right here.I’m sorry.I’m fucking sorry,” I whisper repeatedly.
Fuck.Fuck.Fuck.
The first time she comes to the club since showing up weeks ago and it’s finding me with my fucking shirt off and another club girl touching me.It doesn’t matter if she was patching me up.To Birdie, it was only a reminder of that night seven years ago.
Dammit.I should have gone to her and the kids like I wanted to.
“Come on, little mama.Come back.Beat my ass.Do whatever you have to do.Just come back to me.”
I count the seconds in my head as flickers of life work behind her eyes.The more pain I see from her because of my actions in the past, the more I question if I made the right decision back then.Questioning myself is something I don’t do, so it’s a testament to how fucked-up her pain has me.
Fire sparks in her emerald depths and anticipation licks up my spine.
Come on, baby.Give me hell.Bring the inferno.
Birdie places her palms in the middle of my chest and shoves with everything in her.My body stumbles backward, the wound in my side pinching.
“You dirty bastard,” she growls, advancing on me.
I bite my lip with a groan when my dick twitches behind my jeans.
Fuck, yeah.
“You promised you wouldn’t get hurt.Then I have to hear from my sister that you are.So, what do I do?I run to the last place I want to come to so I can check on you.What do I find?Your pathetic ass with some other bitch’s hands on you.”She drills a finger into my chest as she snarls, “Again.”
“Hey,” Cookie starts from the side.
