Page 30 of Asking for Trouble

I cocked a brow. “That thing that’s tellin’both’a us we’re meant to be together.”

“Romantic,” she snarked, but I shook her again.

“Nah, no jokes this time, Blue.” I bent my knees so I was closer to eye level with her, needin’ her to see my sincerity. “Already lost one woman I cared about in this life, I won’t lose another if she doesn’t want to go. You get me?”

“Yeah, Aaron, I get you,” she whispered breathlessly. “Kiss me, okay? Kiss me before you go. I wanna feel like I’m yours.”

The words seared through me, scarrin’ me, brandin’ me. I knew as I bent my head to claim her succulent mouth that I’d never be the same after this night. Blue’d transferred some’a herself to me, and I’d guard it and whatever else she’d give me preciously ’til the day death took us.

“Be mine,” I murmured against her lips before lickin’ into her mouth. “Stay.”

“I’m yours,” she agreed before rockin’ to her toes to deepen our kiss.

I still felt the impact’a it minutes later when I was stalkin’ through the clubhouse and out into the front lot to borrowWiseguy’s Harley ’cause those fuckers had slashed the tires on mine back at Evergreen Gas. Pigeon was already on the way with the tow truck to pick it up.

Maybe ’cause I was so hooked on the phantom taste’a her kiss, I didn’t realize she hadn’t promised to stay ’til I was starin’ into the flamin’ remnants of Morton BBQ with the rest’a the men.

And even though I raced home ahead’a the group without askin’, by the time I stormed back into the clubhouse, Blue was nowhere to be seen.

BLUE

I wonderedif it was the right thing even as I snuck out of the clubhouse and into the night. Either option was upsetting, but at least if I went back to what I knew, where my blood said I belonged, but my heart hated, I knew what to expect. The awfulgrim reality of life in an MC with a prez who hated my guts as much as he loved me.

My dad.

I didn’t go to him right away, but I knew I didn’t need to. He’d found me through Otto, and he’d find me again. I had two weeks left of class at cosmetology school. I refused to let him run me out of my education again, so I stayed around the area, sleeping in my old Mazda I recovered from my apartment. I didn’t contact Grouch even though I knew I was leaving him in the lurch at the gas station and, even more, that he’d be worried sick about me.

I should have known that was how Rooster would come for me.

When Grouch called me two weeks into my self-imposed exile, Rooster spoke through the phone and threatened to maim my friend if I didn’t meet him in Carrick, a small town forty-five minutes away from Entrance.

When I arrived at the truck stop, he was waiting alone.

It had been eight years since I last saw him. Nearly a decade even though it felt both longer and shorter than that in my head. I’d lived an entire other life since Axe and Cedar helped me runaway, but the memories of my youth were branded so deeply into my brain I knew no length of time would fade them.

Rooster wore the time poorly, though.

While I’d come into myself, he seemed to have faded out. His once firm features were softened by extra weight and folded wrinkles that draped over the edge of his eyes and jaw. Years of exposure to sun and wind had turned his skin to creased leather and yellowed his white streaked hair like aged lace. Still, he was a big man, thick in the neck and wide in the shoulders like a minotaur. Like something trapped with me in an endless maze to harass me for the rest of my days.

I’d been foolish to ever think that wasn’t my fate.

The true psychopathy of my father revealed itself the moment he caught sight of me walking in my wedges across the dusty asphalt to his side.

He smiled.

A great breaking open of his craggy features to reveal radiant smile lines and square, white teeth. He looked thrilled and relieved to see me.

And when he stepped forward to drag me into his embrace, his arms were gentle as the enclosed me against his chest.

He smelled the same and something about that nostalgia poured vinegar into my wounds and made tears spring to my eyes. How strange to find comfort in the arms of your abuser. How contrary to want to hug him back because my instincts as a daughter always interfered and cried out for love from the same man who loved to hurt me.

I didn’t hug him back.

I even tried to stop breathing so that rich cigarette, leather, and Old Spice scent of him wouldn’t make this any more confusing than it had to be.

“Faith,” he breathed into my hair as if all his prayers had been answered when I knew he’d never prayed in his life. “Thank fuck, I found you.”

“I wasn’t stolen,” I said, forgetting myself because it had been so long. “I ran. I wasn’t for you to find and you know that, otherwise you wouldn’t have taken Grouch and forced my hand.”