Everythin’ was muffled in my ears as I walked up the stairs into the clubhouse. Only Ransom, Pigeon, and Carson, our prospects, stood in the main area, standin’ guard if things went to shit. I clapped Ransom on the shoulder as I walked by. He’d taken a bullet for the club a couple’a months back when I’d take a knife to the gut protectin’ Mei and the Old Ladies. It was only a matter of findin’ the time to fully patch him in ’fore he’d be a true member of The Fallen.
The Old Ladies and other women were in a room down the hall leadin’ to the bunkrooms. Zeus had a fuckin’ steel framed door put in to protect our vulnerable in case’a emergency, so I had to punch in a code ’fore I opened it.
Soon as I did, Mei was there, a martial arts-ready stance, a knife held in one hand, and a snarl on her pretty as fuck face. It’d taken a while to get used to the fact that such a small, delicate-lookin’ woman could land me on my ass, but I’d learned the hard way.
“Easy,” I told her, holdin’ up my hands. “It’s all good.”
She studied me. “You’ve got blood splatter on your face.”
“It’s old,” I assured her.
She lowered the weapon, and Loulou, Bea, Harleigh Rose, and Lila immediately surged past me to go to their men. The rest were slower to move, but I spotted Blue right away lookin’ uncomfortable in the back corner. I tilted my chin at her, and she pushed off the wall to make her way to my side. I tagged her hand without a word, pullin’ her into the hall and down to the room I kept at the clubhouse.
The second I pushed her inside, I closed the door and turned to yell at her. Only, she was lookin’ around the room like it was a foreign land, and she couldn’t wait to study the culture. Her fingers trailed lightly over the signed baseball in its stand on a shelf beside the door.
“Yankees? I wouldn’t have guessed,” she murmured.
“Are you married?”
The words fell between us like a defunct bomb, the threat alive but unpredictable. She froze, her fingertips still hoverin’ over the ball.
“Blue,” I growled, lungin’ forward to pull her hard against me. “You married?”
“Yes,” she breathed, fingers spasmin’ against my chest like she didn’t know whether to cling to me or push me away.
I held her tighter. “You always cheat on your husband?”
My anger seemed to spark somethin’ in her. “I haven’t seen that asshole for years. I wasn’t even sure he was still breathing.”
“Great, so let’s add desertion to infidelity.”
“Fuck you, Aaron.” She struggled against me, but I didn’t relinquish an inch. “I was a goddamn kid, okay? My dad married me to his vice president when I was sixteen years old because he was worried about Hazard making a move for his presidency. I was married for thirteen months before I got away successfully. I’ve beenhidingfrom both of them ever since. If you want to call that desertion, so fucking be it.”
“Jesus Christ.” I pressed my forehead against her, fingers clamped over her hips to keep her from headbuttin’ me. “Blue baby, I’m so damn sorry.”
“Yeah, well,” she grumbled, glarin’ at me with those huge, gumball blue eyes. “So am I. Otto threatened to take me to them when he robbed Evergreen Gas. I think the money was just a cover to kidnap me for Rooster. I never doubted he’d keep looking for me. He was always territorial.”
“Yeah, well, so am I,” I growled. “You don’t owe them shit.”
“Try telling that to them. The second time I tried to get away, one of their men found me, beat me, and delivered me to Rooster’s and Hazard’s feet. I couldn’t walk for a week after they were done with me.”
A roar built in my throat. “You’re not goin’ back to those bastards. You don’t wanna stay with me, fine. But no way in hell are you gettin’ within fifty fuckin’ kilometres of those fucks.”
Blue stopped breathin’ then, lookin’ up into my snarlin’ face like she’d never seen me ’fore. Her hands flexed against my pecs, then slowly curled into the fabric’a my stolen hoodie. “You mean that?”
“Fuck, yeah.”
The very thought of those motherfuckers even lookin’ at Blue again made rage blacken the edges’a my vision.
She swayed into me, soft breasts flattenin’ against my chest. “You’re a good kinda man, Aaron.”
“The best kinda trouble,” I promised. “Stay and let me show you. I swear to God or whatever the fuck power you believe in that I’ll keep you safe.”
She bit that plush lower lip, eyes searchin’ my face, but she didn’t answer.
I shook her a little. “Blue, I gotta ride out with the club to deal with some shit right now. Tell me ’fore I leave you’ll be here when I get back. You’ll give this thing between us a chance.”
“What thing?”
