Page 29 of Perdition

The fuck?

He stepped back. His mouth tightening. His body pulsing will ill tidings and guilt.

It was his fault that Sarah felt she had the right to touch him, to speak to him like that, to offer him something he would only ever accept from his old lady.

Curious, he turned to look over his shoulder, immediately spotting what had made Sarah go from Jekyll to Hyde.

Em’s kutte.

Shit!

Sarah saw something she shouldn’t—Emily’s kutte where it wasn’t supposed to be—and now she was thinking all sorts of things he knew his brothers were going to chew his ass about, because they’d been warning him, hadn’t they?

Sarah was not Emily.

It was too bad he’d realized his fuck up too late.

Not too late—it can’t be. Em just needs time, and I need to fix what I broke.

“If I’m tense it’s because I’m here instead of at home with my woman, a woman I did wrong yesterday by letting you flap your gums about shit that doesn’t have anything to do with you. My wife overheard you yesterday, and she also didn’t hear me tellin’ you that you were full of shit. So, now I’m in the goddamndoghouse with my old lady, and I’m not feelin’ all that charitable to you.”

Sarah pouted, wrapping her arms around her waist, her eyes going wide and doe-like. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen this sequence of reactions. The first time, she’d just been rejected by Tornado who’d been strangely distant from club women lately. She’d climbed into his lap, he’d removed her, and she’d pouted, and he’d promised to find her the next night. The second time, she’d been trying to start a threesome with Tiburon and Malo, two of the brothers from Bone Dogz that she’d transferred with. They’d turned her down because they were headed out that night on a run. She’d given them the big eyes and pout, and they’d taken her to the picnic tables out back and fucked her. The third time was when she’d come on to him that first night, and he’d turned her down. She’d pouted, but he didn’t relent. He could remember how shocked she’d looked, like she couldn’t believe he didn’t change his mind.

And now that he was thinking clearly after treading through mucky water for so long, he could finally see it for what it was.

Same lippy pout. Same vulnerable body language. Same doe-eyed look.

Practiced.

Fake.

It was all fake.

How had he not seen that before?

In voices that sounded like Patriot, Locust, and Redtube, he heard,“Because you liked being wanted by someone who could have anyone she wanted. You liked the attention without the responsibility that came with acting on it. You liked that she fed your need for validation, polished your pride, and was offering you something you thought you were missing.”

But he hadn’t been missing anything, not really—he’d walked away from it, slowly, in purposeful steps in the opposite direction.

And Emily had stayed behind, steady, steadfast, rock solid. An anchor in their home, keeping the home fires burning, yet still building and sustaining a thriving business. No, she hadn’t been around the club a lot over the last year, but that wasn’t because she’d lost interest in the club, it was because she felt her family and her dream business were more important. The MC was Frost’s dream, his baby, so why couldn’t Emily have her own?

And now you realize that, shit for brains? Now when things have already gotten so bad you’re living out of the clubhouse like a bachelor?

What a fool he’d been.

He needed to find his wife.

She’d be at work, so he’d go to Flower’s Blooms and talk to her.

She probably won’t listen; she’ll be mad.

But he had no other options; she wasn’t answering his calls or texting back, and she fucking locked him out of his own house, putting all his shit into his truck.

She’d kicked him out of his own life, and he had only himself to blame.

“Come on, Frost, you can’t blame us for that. If she overheard us it was because she was eavesdropping on our private conversation. Besides, it was only the truth, right?” Sarah replied, her tone flippant.

“We shouldn’t have been having a private conversation, Sarah,” Frost admitted, scrubbing a frustrated hand down his face. “It isn’t like that between us—it shouldn’t be, anyway. I’m married, and I let things go too far.”