Page 43 of Perdition

Frost had known he was fucking shit up, but he kept doing what he’d been doing, expecting Em to come to him, to compromise, to bend—fuck, when had Em ever really been bendable? That woman was the strongest person he knew. All the months alone, raising the twins, keeping the home fires burning while he was gone overseas. All those nights alone, being a wife and mother, MC club queen, and all-around powerhouse while he was away doing club business. Em didn’t bend, she was made of steel and grit and devotion and determination, and it was one of the things he most admired about her. It was one of the things that made loving her so easy, because he knew he could depend on her, lean on her, trust her with everything he held dear.

And she’d been able to do all of that because, despite not being there in person due to circumstances out of his control—deployment and club business where the president’s presence was required—he was stillthere, still her support, her husband, the father of her children, her best friend, her most trusted and most devoted person. When her ship began to tip during life’s storms, he’d been the one she’d call or come to to right the vessel and bring it safely back to port.

In a world where faith, trust, true love, and honesty were a rare commodity, Em and Mads had been fortunate to have it all. They’d met young, fell in love, and built a beautiful life together,but somewhere, somehow, that ship he’d been righting for years starting taking on water, and now it was so close to sinking, he and the woman he loved were being sucked down into the dark and deep by the drag force.

So why the fuck had be been giving any part of his trust and attention to a woman who wasn’t her? Why had he expected that Em would still be there, holding shit together, even though he’d stopped being her savior in stormy seas?

A firm hand on his shoulder pulled him from his thoughts, and he turned to look at the concern on Stallion’s face.

“Whatever happens, know that I’m around if you need someone to talk to,” Stallion offered, a glint of understanding in his eyes.

And he would understand; both of them having spent years of their lives in the service, surrounded by hardasses who would rather die than show a millimeter of weakness. But they both knew that asking for help, and leaning on someone else wasn’t weakness but rather a show of strength.

A skyscraper couldn’t withstand an earthquake without the miles of steel rebar holding it up.

“Thanks, brother,” Frost rasped, grasping Stallion’s shoulder in acknowledgement of the man’s gift.

Just then, Stallion was called away to deal with an invoicing problem, leaving Frost alone to drown his self-made sorrows.

Checking the time, he realized it was already past dinner time, and he’d hadn’t had an actual meal in two days, not sense the morning he’d been caught fucking up his own marriage in the clubhouse office.

Just remembering that goddamn bullshit made his stomach twist.

Why was it only after he’d let his marriage slip through his fingers that he’d woken the fuck up to all he’d been doing?

You never know what you have until she’s gone….

Fuck. Em.

His Em.

His Bloom.

The very breath in his lungs and the blood in his veins, the heart in his chest, and the other half of his wicked soul.

If she didn’t let him explain, if she never gave him a chance to make it right, how the hell was he supposed to survive without her?

Hell, he’d barely survived the months away from her during the first years of the marriage during his deployments.

He remembered the first time he’d returned home after his first six-month deployment. He’d gotten off the plane in Fort Drum, driven the two-hundred miles back to Wilkes-Barre, and headed straight home to the apartment in a building beside the busy highway.

The city had softened into a low hum by the time Mads closed the door behind him. Rain traced slow, deliberate lines down the windowpanes, blurring neon into watercolor streaks. The trailer smelled faintly of jasmine and the vanilla cake Emily had left cooling on the stove, a domestic sweetness that made the ordinary feel like an offering from a goddess to a mortal.

A goddess he wanted to kneel before and worship.

Fuck, he’d been gone too long, had missed so much.

She was now several months postpartum, and her face was fuller, her breasts were bigger, her thighs and ass and hips were plumper, rounder, sexier.

Immediately, his cock thickened in his utility pants.

Emily was by the window, one hand resting on the sill, back to him. The silhouette of her shoulder was a familiar map he could read in the dark. She turned when she heard him, and for a moment their movements were the same — two parts of a single, easy conversation. Her smile arrived before words did, soft and full of something like home.

“You’re back,” she rasped, tears filling her beautiful eyes.

It was nearing midnight, so she was dressed in one of his old t-shirts, and a pair of sleep shorts. Her hair was damp from the shower, and the t-shirt was stuck to her chest where drops of water from her hair had caused the fabric to cling to her unbound breasts. Her nipples were hard, poking through the shirt to greet him. Her skin was flushed, and she looked fresh and pure but still sexy as fuck.

His mouth watered—she looked fucking edible.