Page 30 of Perdition (Unchained Hearts #4)

EIGHTEEN

She really should have guessed that he’d come right in and make himself at home, since it was his home, but she hadn’t been prepared to find her husband, in full MC prez regalia of leather kutte, faded jeans perfectly molded to massive thighs and that meaty bulge, and a body hugging, dark blue Henley that brought out the color of his eyes and the perfection of his hard pecs, his sculpted six-pack, and thick, veiny biceps.

His short cropped blonde hair was just long enough for her to grip when he gorged on her pussy, and that dark, golden scruff on his jaw and chin was just coarse enough to leave those delightful red rub marks all over her body.

Damn.

She was fully dressed and in dire need of being naked again, because even her short-term memory of her husband didn’t live up the man who’d strode back into their house and made her all sorts of hungry.

At the sight of him, she’d gone from irritated at stubbing her toe to turned on as hell. It had always been like that with him. He was a beautiful, beautiful man.

And he was an asshole.

…just a fucking tree….

Those words still poured agony over her when she heard them in her mind, echoing like the dying screams of an animal caught in a trap.

It had taken her longer than she’d like to get dressed because even dragging she soft cotton fabric up over her hips and down over her chest made the painful awareness turn into burning arousal.

Needless to say, just sitting in the same room as her husband after so long without touching him, feeling his touch, or evening smelling his scent was going to be difficult as hell.

Which was why she took a moment, sat on the edge of their king-sized bed, and dragged up every painful, rage-filled, humiliating thing her husband had said and done in the last year.

The list was long, and her patience used to be just as long-suffering, but she was done with that now.

The missed calls, the read but unanswered texts, the lonely nights after broken promises of dinner at home, the excuses for why he didn’t call or text or come home, the neglect, forgetting about important events with her and the kids.

The crap he pulled with Locust and Nadia; forcing someone he cared about to go against their own nature—the desire to protect—in order to target an innocent woman.

Where had he even gotten the idea to do that?

That decision, that action—that was all Frost, the Unchained MC president.

That hadn’t been Mads behind the wheel. She knew that down to her bones.

And then there was Sarah.

Her breaking point.

Before that morning, just a few days ago, she’d been shambling along, a zombie—love starved and dying for a scrap of attention from her husband—but she’d been more alive than emotionally dead.

She’d endured, hopeful yet fading fast, determined to give him just one more chance to turn things around, to choose her and their family, their marriage… .

That was one of the unspoken, previously unacknowledged reasons she was bringing him those jeans that morning.

She wanted to “chance” upon him in his office, maybe slip inside and catch him in an unbusy moment, to nonchalantly ask him to come home for dinner, or—hell—ask him something as benign as “Did you sleep last night?” She been willing to lower her walls first, even just that inch, to see if he would be willing to climb over and just see her.

Remember her and what she meant to him.

To admit he was putting the club business before what should really matter to him.

And for him to stand up from behind his desk, wrap her in his arms, kiss her, and tell her he loved her.

Was that too much to ask?

Instead, she’d been faced with the total and utter destruction of her heart and pride.

And it was still a ravaged wound, pulsing, bloody, necrotizing, despite all she was doing and had already done to cleanse it. Stitch it closed. Cut away the dead parts.

…just a fucking tree….

Anger built inside her, but so did the hurt, and they battled for supremacy, easily dominating and killing off the arousal.

“You can do this, Emily Daisy Flowers,” she quietly declared. “You can’t keep letting this hurt you, letting him hurt you. Demand the truth. Listen. And then you can tear him a new asshole.”

Usually not one to use profane language, since Frost used up their marital quota, she was surprised at how good it felt to let that word slip.

Asshole.

A grim smile curled her lips as she rose to her feet and began her too short journey to the living room.

Mads was sitting on the couch facing the big TV he never used, so she sat on the loveseat, the cushion giving beneath the weight of her body and her heartbreak.

He was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, hands hanging limp between his legs, facing her, his intensely blue eyes—like killing frost—were pinned to her, watching her.

Devouring her.

Hell, she could feel that gaze of his—banked hunger of a captive predator—which was the same one he’d been wearing in the bedroom.

She knew that look like she’d known her own face and body were giving off “do me” signals like muscle memory. They were attuned—body and soul—to one another, without need for words to express their need for one another.

Just a look, a darkening of his eyes, the tightening of the skin around his mouth…the way his chest rose and fell, the way his arms flexed, and his hands clenched and unclenched, the way he spread his legs wide to make room for the thickening and lengthening of his glorious dick.

Yes, she knew her man, she knew he was just as ravenous for a good fuck as she was, but that wasn’t why she told him to come.

Not that you’d really mind getting poleaxed by a few good orgasms.

The heat in her core turned up expectantly, but she shut that down.

Nope. Not today, inner floozy! Today, the heart and mind are in charge!

They were seated, silently watching each other, and it was time to make or break….

“I need to know what happened, Frost,” she said, hating that her voice wavered, hating that she couldn’t speak his name, the name she revered and adored for twenty-eight years…since she’d first met him at twelve years old.

To her, right then, he was Frost. Not Madsen, her husband, but Frost, the President of an MC.

“I need you to tell me because I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep going with the worries, the what ifs, the whys, and the anger—so much anger….”

More than anger.

Rage.

“What happened a year ago that made you start pulling away? Did you even notice? Did you even care that you were becoming a ghost in this house, in this marriage? Did it even matter to you that your wife was becoming a side character in your life, like someone who could just disappear, and you’d never notice? ”

Stricken, his face pale, he threw up a hand. “Whoa—whoa, now wait a second,” he barked, “You need to give me a chance to answer. I get that you’re upset, and I want to answer your questions, but I can only do that if you slow down, breathe, and let me speak.”

Snapping her mouth shut, she glared at him, but remained silent.

Tipping her head in a “go on” motion, she waited for him to speak again.

Frost scrubbed at his face, looking weary, his shoulder tense under the weight of his choices—past and present.

She’d never seen her strong, fierce, decisive husband look so defeated. So vulnerable. Not even when he’d lost friends in the service. Not even when he’d come home carrying the memories of the things he’d done in the desert. Not even when his grandfather—the man he loved most in the world—died.

Sitting across from her now…he wasn’t Frost. He was Mads; wounded by his own hand, and letting the poison from the infected flesh slowly kill him.

Em opened her mouth, though she had no idea what she was going to say, but he finally began to speak.

“A year ago…fuck…that’s when this patch over business started,” he said, an edge in his voice.

“Tiburon came to me, offering what was left of the club resources, a few good men, and the opportunity to grow our ranks and income stream. The kids had just left home, you were at the shop more often than not, and I…I was left behind?—”

She gasped. “That’s not true!”

He snorted, shaking his head, a sneer on his face. “I know that, Em, in my head I know that. The kids were off to start their lives out of the nest, you were finally living your dream—full on—with your flower shop, and I felt like everyone else was doing something with purpose.”

Stunned, Emily reached over the gap between them, and placed a hand on his arm.

“You had the club, you had your family?—”

“The club was running well, no issues, nothing that could completely fill the void that you and the twins had left…when you left.”

“But we didn’t go anywhere,” Em argued, frustrated.

“The kids are still in the area, and I was still home every night—waiting for you , I might add.” And she had been, because she’d still been holding on to the beauty and stability and intimacy of their marriage.

Until he’d stopped calling, stopped texting, stopped caring.

“My head knows all that Em, but my heart…I don’t know what the fuck happened.”

She huffed, rolling her eyes. “I know what happened,” she claimed, “you were no longer the focus of our family of four, no longer the head of a full household, in control of your domain. Your subjects were ‘rebelling’—leaving the safety of your protection and control, and living their lives without your input or permission. You were a king who had quickly lost his kingdom, and you just couldn’t deal with not having something to control. To rule over.”

As she was speaking, he was shaking his head, faster and with more vehemence.

She nodded, and snapped, “Oh yes, and when the chance to do the patch over came across your desk, you snatched it up because it meant you had something to pour all that control and hurt pride into. It gave you a purpose you didn’t think you had anymore, because, somehow, your kids becoming adults and your wife channeling her empty nest energy into her business were no longer something you could take pride in.

Your family was no longer enough for you to feel like you mattered. We were no longer your purpose.”

The man looked wrecked, like someone had plunged a hand into his belly and showed him his own guts.

“You…” his voice cracked, “you actually believe that?”

God, why did it hurt so much? She knew it needed to be said, to be let loose, freed, but with that freedom came the pain. His and hers.

Truth hurt.

She dropped her hand from his arm and her gaze from his face. Recentering.

“Honestly, I have no idea what was going on in your head, but that is what I believe happened, yes,” she replied.

He pinched his lips together thoughtfully, his gaze going hazy.

What was he thinking?

The next moment revealed the answer.

“You’re right.”

Stunned. Floored. Flabbergasted.

This definitely wasn’t Frost the MC prez sitting across from her—that man never admitted weakness.

She recovered quickly. “I know I am,” she declared, cocking her head imperiously. “But I want you to give me more than that, Mads.”

At his name, his gaze lifted to hers, sharpening.

“I admit I lost myself. The kids didn’t need me anymore, you didn’t need me anymore, and the club had its president, but things were so easy, after all the work that went into building it, I felt like I was cruising…listless. Like a soldier without orders. A sailor without a compass. Ya know?”

Lord, the vulnerability in her expression, the pain in his voice…it nearly undid her. But then she remembered all he’d said and didn’t say that morning in the clubhouse with Sarah, and she shored up her defenses.

She refused to let him off easily, because she’d been dealing with all the hard on her own for too long.

It was time for Frost to have a ‘come to Jesus moment’…and she’d help them meet.

“Are you sure that listlessness wasn’t about you feeling like you missed out on something, like a different life; the life you could have had it you hadn’t settled at twenty-one, and instead left home to become something more than a young husband and father?”

At that, Frost shot to his feet, his body shaking, his face contorted in rage.

“No!” he growled. “Not in a million fucking years, Emily.” He cursed. “And the fact you think that about me….” He shook his head slowly, a look of devastation etching lines into his face. “You really think that?”

Did she?

“I…I don’t know, Frost. But what do you expect me to think when the moment the kids are gone and I stop being the house wifey, you start pulling away?

I thought that you were…I don’t know…finally realizing you were free.

The kids were grown, I had my business, you didn’t have to protect or provide for us, you could shake off the responsibility of the family you were burdened with when you were too young to know there were better choices. ”

“You are the only choice, Emily!” he cried, his voice breaking.

He reached for her, pulling her against his chest, to wrap his arms around her.

…you have options….

Again, Sarah’s voice from that office rendezvous—and Frost’s grunt of acknowledgement, carried on through her mind.

“I might have been then, Frost,” she began, “but I’m not now.”

He jerked as if struck, cursing under his breath.

“What happened with Sarah?—”

“Is a symptom of what’s wrong between us, Frost. This marriage is sick, and I am so tired of being the only one who can see just how sick it is.”

He groaned, pressing his forehead against the top of her head. “I can see it…now. And I want to fix things, Em.”

Suddenly, she was too tired to keep the last few bricks in her walls from crumbling to the ground.

“What if they can’t be fixed?” she asked, stepping out of his embrace to peer up into his pale face. “What if I don’t want to fix it?”