Page 3 of Carver (Satan’s Angels MC #8)

“Don’t,” I plead. “Just… I can’t right now. Not ever again. Don’t you understand that you being here, you with your bleeding heart—that’s what’s killing me? You’re torturing me. It’s too much. You’re harming me, not healing me. I need you to hear me. I need you to stop.”

Hurt flickers across her face, white hot bright and blinding. I’ve just branded her with that same pain that festers inside of me. I wanted to spare her ever having to feel what I’ve felt. I wanted to protect her. It kills me that I have to cut her to try to keep her safe.

Bronte never needed me to shield her. Nothing can diminish her fire.

She closes in on me. I can’t bring myself to dodge away. I’ve fired the last of the shots I have and there’s nothing left. No shields, no ammunition, no defenses.

It’s just me and the raw minefield of my soul when Bronte’s hand reaches out and strokes the right side of my face. Her fingers graze over the scars.

It’s the first time she’s touched me since it happened.

It’s the first time I’ve allowed her to get this close.

Her palm is fire, scalding me, the pain so brutal and joyous that my eyes tear ducts fill and threaten to spill over.

Honey brown eyes with enchanting green spokes and whiskey soft flecks trace my face, caressing, softening, gentling . I’m a pillar of fire, about to combust until there’s nothing but ash, and she’s cool, still waters that run deeper than I can comprehend.

The agony of her bleeds into every cell.

My lungs collapse, drawing thin, wheezing breaths.

I’ve kept her away because I knew what would happen if I didn’t.

I compartmentalized, folding her up and tucking her neatly into a box that I shoved to the furthest reaches of the black pit of my mind, where I stuck all the other shit that it hurt too much to unpack.

“I’m coming to Hart,” she says softly, her hand still burning, burning through me. “If you don’t tell me where you are, I’ll figure it out. I’ll camp out on the doorstep of that clubhouse if I have to.”

I open my mouth to protest, but she shushes me, pressing her fingers to my bottom lip. I want to open my mouth and lick them. Drink her in. Surge forward and devour her mouth, even though it wouldn’t be like before. Even though I’m repulsive and she’d taste it.

“I’ve reached my limit on letting you assume that you know what’s best for me.

I’ve given you time. I’ve tried to be here for you when you were struggling.

I thought that there was only so much I could do.

That you had to save yourself. You had to decide for yourself that you wanted to live again, but fuck that.

It was sweet for a day, that you loved me so much you didn’t want me to suffer with you, but it’s been patronizing ever since.

You’re not the only one strong enough to carry the weight of this. ”

She’s always been the stronger one. I’ve never once debated that. What she doesn’t understand or refuses to see is that she’s wrong. I need to break. Fully. I need to put myself back together.

“I want to be there,” she reiterates, her voice firm and rough, harder than I’ve ever heard it. “You need friends and family, even if you don’t need a lover. I’m not letting you go, and neither is my family. We’re always going to be there for you, even if you’ve got blinders on to the whole world.”

“You’re so utterly exhausting,” I groan, finally finding the self-preservation I need to jerk away. I stumble across the kitchen like I’m drunk—which I certainly never fucking am, not after seeing what it did to my dad and uncles.

“Good. I need to have the stamina to outlast you.”

Since I was a kid, I’ve been conditioned to the cruel ugliness of the world. Poverty, injustice, violence, addiction, the basic struggle for survival. I was the epitome of fucked up and unloved, but Bronte saw me. She’s always been patient and kind.

Her family should have hated me for her, but they didn’t. They loved me like I was their own kid. They accepted that I was Bronte’s choice and trusted her so implicitly, that they believed that even at fourteen, she knew what she was about.

She knew what she wanted and what she wanted was me.

She’s never wavered.

Neither have they.

This is all on me.

Bronte crosses her arms, face grim and set with determination. “I’ll find you whether you tell me where you’ll be or not. I’ll always find you, Dominic. Even if I have to travel to the deepest dark of the underworld to pull you back.”

Bronte’s as into literature as her mom. She reads the heavy stuff, the old stuff, the shit no one else is reading, and she gets it.

“Even if I have to force my way into your underworld…”

Yeah. She fucking gets it. She gets me.

“I’m not going to tell you and you’re not fucking going to Hart. I don’t want you there. If you show up, I swear on my dad’s grave that I’ll never speak to you again.”

She shakes her head, her teeth biting into her bottom lip until it’s crimson from the pressure. “Fuck you, Dominic Hale.”

The door bangs shut and claps back a few times, since the frame is so decrepit you have to lift it and use force to get it to close properly. The sound of Bronte’s truck door opening and slamming, the old engine groaning to life, and the tires spinning in the gravel are all magnified.

I stand at the useless old single pane window and watch her leave, the very tail end of her truck obscured by the new cobwebs on the outside.

She didn’t mean it. She’s entitled to her frustration, her hurt, her anger, and if I’m being honest, she’s equally entitled to her love, her compassion, and her hope that refuses to die.

She didn’t mean it, because she knows I didn’t mean it. My dad doesn’t have a fucking grave. And I’ve tried my darndest to push Bronte away and failed . There’s never going to be a world where all that I am stops loving her, and we both know it.