My breathing hitched, and I turned my focus back to Sly. His eyes were on me as he watched my reaction, studying the way my demeanor changed despite me trying to remain aloof. Quickly, I snapped out of it—somewhat—and leaned forward to kiss him. “Tell him to get the hell out of my bar, would ya?” I laughed, but even to my own ears, my laugh sounded fake.
As he had when he first came into my office, Sly narrowed his eyes slightly, as though he could read right through me. “Fino a stasera, mia preferita,” he told me as he titled his head to kiss my cheek.
With one more beautiful smile, Sly slipped through my office door, heading in the direction of my worst nightmare and most vivid dream.
CHAPTERFOUR
My finger felt numb as I laid sprawled out on the couch, skipping through the movie catalog on Netflix while I tried to find something to watch. It was nearly three in the morning and I should have been in bed, but after one of my bartenders called out tonight, I had no choice but to get my ass behind the bar and start serving. My feet felt like they were on fire after pouring drinks all night in heels, but what I was really irritated about was how my brain wouldn’t go into shutdown mode. My eyelids were heavy, exhaustion plaguing me to the point where every cell in my body begged for sleep, but I just couldn’t.
Closing down the bar meant I was far too tired to drive my ass across town to my condo, so I found my way to Sly’s room instead. He was asleep when I let myself in, and rather than disturb him, I stripped out of my clothes and tossed on one of his t-shirts before padding down the dark hallway to the large space the club used as a living room. I needed to let my brain unwind and watch a little T.V. before I’d be able to fall asleep.
They kept their space simple and had only decorated their living room area with a couple of worn-down black leather couches and a seventy-five inch flat screen mounted to the wall. There wasn’t even a coffee table anymore, since someone—Damon—ended up too drunk a few months ago and fell on top of it, smashing it to smithereens from his body weight, just like in the movies. I wasn’t there that night, but I saw the aftermath, and the poor coffee table didn’t stand a chance against the big, bad biker.
The room was cold, and I regretted not grabbing a blanket from Sly’s room to bring with me as chills pebbled my skin. A momentary lapse in judgment had me reaching for the blanket draped across the back of the couch.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Cain’s deep voice drifted through the doorway. Propping myself up on my elbows, I peered over the top of the couch to look at him. He leaned against it, arms resting above the doorframe. His shirt was off, tattoos and muscles on full display for me to drool over. He knew what he was doing. “I walked in on Nix earlier and he had the blanket wrapped around the waist of the woman riding his dick.”
Fucking Nixon.
Another one of the club's gorgeous playboys who took every girl he could for a ride on his cock like it was the newest attraction at the amusement park. I loved to hate that guy and busted his chops whenever possible, but also appreciated the way I knew he’d have my back whenever needed. He was the club's teddy bear. Well, maybe just bear. Big and huggable, but absolutely vicious if you actually tried to hug him.
“What do you want, Cain?”
“You seem to ask me that a lot, Rose. I usually have the same answer. Do I need to keep repeating it?”
“Your answer is stupid. You will not getme. I’m not a possession to be had.” Kicking my feet over the side of the couch, I sat up, turning my back to him as I clicked off the remote. If he was invading my space, I’d be leaving it.
“You’re right. You’re not a possession. But you’re wrong if you think I won’t have you, Rose. You’ve always been mine, even when I was too blind to see it.”
His words were like a knife to my heart, slicing through the organ clean through. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping just this once the phrase ‘out of sight, out of mind’ would have some truth to it.
Maybe if I ignored him, he’d go away.
Wishful thinking.
The wrinkled leather cushions dipped from Cain’s weight as he sat down beside me. Our thighs touched, and though he kept his hands to himself, they balled into loose fists. “Can we please just have a conversation, Rose? This cat-and-mouse charade we’ve had going on for the last couple of months has been fun and all, but I’d really rather discuss the skeletons in our closets, so we can move past this.”
“Stop calling me Rose, Cain.”
“You told me once you hated the name Rosie because it was too delicate. Has that changed?”
I said that to himonetime over seven years ago.
He was right, though. The name Rosie never felt like me. Too sweet, too delicate. The name on my birth certificate was actually Rosalynne, but that didn’t feel right either. My mom always called me Rosie growing up, so that’s what stuck, and I only continued to introduce myself as Rosie because the only person who’d ever called me Rose was Cain. Even after he squeezed the life out of my heart and stomped on it, some sick part of me still wanted to keep the name reserved for him, and I never reinvented myself.
“No, that hasn’t changed,” I confirmed, not wanting to meet his gaze with my own. Sitting straighter in my seat, I went back and forth with whether I wanted to entertain him by finally allowing the conversation he’d been asking for. It was petty, I know. It'd been years. We were young and dumb, making our own rules as we went throughout our twenties, but there was a piece of me still unwilling to let go completely. It was a grudge I’d held for so long, and though I’d moved past it, I was admittedly too afraid to let him get close again.
Hypocritical since I not only forgave Brent over the years for his numerous fuck ups and constant disrespect, but with Brent I knew he was a relationship of convenience. I’d set the bar so low with him, it was lying on the floor. I mean, we literally broke up every other month, and I say broke up extremely loosely because we were never really in a full-fledged relationship.
But with Cain… Cain made mefeel. I’d never been a woman who envisioned a white picket fence, a diamond on my finger, and a baby on each hip, but when my feelings for Cain developed all those years ago, it made me wonder if I was destined for adifferenttype of forever.
Hearing him vocalize my every fear that night six years ago broke something within me, and it took a long time to heal from it. “You can call me Rose,” I whispered, lost in my own thoughts as I realized that maybe the way to finally let go of the past was to let Cain share his side. It didn’t mean I would give him my heart or trust him again, but maybe what I needed to get past my scarred emotions was to let him in, just a little.
“What I said that night…I felt cornered. You were Brent’s girl. I was stuck between loyalty and love, Rose.”
The wordlovestartled me, and I whipped my head to him, seeing the look of someone just as haunted by the past as I was staring back. I shook my head slowly as a thousand and one thoughts flooded my mind. “You didn’t love me, Cain. You barely knew me.”
“How many nights did we stay up, just the two of us, talking until the sun rose? And all those times Brent was at work and we’d hop on my bike and just drive, only stopping to fill the tank or get a bite to eat? Those moments weren’t just a means to pass the time, Rose. I’m not ashamed to admit that I fell for my brother's girl. Back then, I should have stood up to him. I should have fought for you.”
