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I knew Travis wanted me. I knew I wanted him. He wouldn’t deny me. At least, I didn’t think he would. But, looking back at the door again, I wondered if it would lead him to believe more was possible.

I knew I was using him right now. For comfort, for strength. But it was his idea. He sought me out, not the other way around. What could it hurt to have one more night? Something to take my mind off losing Dani on the first night I had to spend away from her.

I let out a heavy sigh. I wasn’t a bad person. Though you wouldn’t know it by how I’d been feeling lately. I was just tired of people letting me down.

First my parents. They were never really there for me at all. They allowed, even facilitated my sexual assault. Then there was Gunner. It devastated me when he left. I would have flunked out of my freshman year of college had it not been for Haizley.

Let’s not forget Zach. I counted him as a friend. He knew how I felt about working with people in an MC. Especially knowing why, since he knew my brother. Yet, he completely disregarded my boundaries and my feelings.

Then Danny and Dante. They both let me down in different ways.

Danny was a hothead at times. He was quick with his temper when he didn’t like the way things were going. He left without a word. Left his husband and his daughter with me, expecting I would just pick up the pieces.

Dante didn’t know any more than I did when Danny left. Yet, one phone call and Dante disappeared right along with him. Leaving his daughter with someone who she had only known a month.

I didn’t like this version of myself. The one who was angry at the world. I had dealt with my issues while I was in school. Part of our training was to see a therapist ourselves. The situation I found myself in was stirring up my own childhood trauma I had locked away. I needed to get back to who I was, and being in the clubhouse wouldn’t help me achieve that.

Decision made; I slipped the shirt over my head, letting it hang to my knees. When I opened the bathroom door, I found Travis in the bed. He laced his hands together behind his head as the blanket covered him from the waist down.

It crossed my mind he could be naked himself under there when he said with a grin, “Damn, I thought for sure you were coming through that door naked.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

“No disappointment at all. You’re still sexy as fuck.” He lifted the blanket off my side of the bed.

Wait, what? I don’t have a side.

Calm down, it’s the side you’re sleeping on.

I hesitated a moment as I argued with myself, but I noticed the black boxers covering his dick. Covering, but certainly not concealing.

“Come on. I want to hold you in my arms.”

“Travis,” I said, the anguish apparent in my voice.

“Melissa, get in the fucking bed and let me hold you.”

With a deep inhale and a slow exhale, I relented and slid into the bed next to him. He wrapped his arms around me, and I was asleep in minutes. My body exhausted from the emotional trauma of the day.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Melissa

Sleep wasn’t something that often eluded me. Not since my brother started sleeping in my room when I was seven.

When he joined the Silver Shadows and moved me into his apartment at thirteen, he placed both our beds in the same room until I felt safe enough to sleep alone. It only took six months for me to accept that I was safe.

Last night, I didn’t sleep well. Not because I felt unsafe, but because I was grieving the loss of the little girl who was given to me and then taken away.

I only had myself to blame. I knew better than to get attached. But come on, who wouldn’t get attached to the sweetest little girl in the world?

How did anyone take care of someone who was completely reliant on you for their every need and not love them?

Maybe it was because I was a woman. I was a nurturer. It’s what led me into the profession I chose. My deep-seated need to help people. To heal them.

To love them.

I wanted someone to love me.