Page 42 of Perdition (Unchained Hearts #4)

TWENTY-SIX

Later that night, after their fourth round of love making, spent and warm and wholly satisfied, the time for conversation had come…though she wasn’t quite ready for that conversation yet.

Nothing wrong with delaying the inevitable for a few minutes longer…right?

“What happens with Sarah? Are you really going to get her sent to prison?” Em asked, not curious as much as petty. She wanted that woman suffering by any means necessary, and if that was behind bars as some other woman’s bitch, then so be it.

Mads heaved a sigh, his hand on her back going still.

“More than likely I’ll send her south.”

Em pushed up on her elbow to look down into Mads’s face. “What’s south?”

“I have a contact an MC in Philly who owes me a debt. He’d come here to retrieve her and bring her back with him, make sure to keep her eyes on her so she can’t cause us any more trouble.”

That wasn’t far enough, in Em’s opinion. She’d rather have the woman in a mine in China, but Philly was better than Scranton.

“That seems like he’d be taking on a lot of responsibility for a long time,” Em noted, feeling sorry for a man she’d never met.

Mads hummed, tucking her hair behind her ear as he brushed his thumb over her cheek.

“Don’t feel bad for him, baby. I saved his life, so this is a life debt, one he’ll gladly pay.”

Em gasped, her eyes widening in shock.

How come she’d never heard this?

“What the hell?” she cried.

He chuckled. “That’s a story for another time, my love.” With a move that was all Mads and all sorts of sexy, he pushed up and flipped her onto her back.

Grinning that sexy, wicked grin down at her, he dropped his voice and said, “I need you again.”

She gasped, then groaned when he pressed his hardness against her aching core.

They didn’t come up for air until the phone rang the next morning.

It was Patriot, and he had bad news.

Tasha, a former club hangaround, was in the hospital, and it wasn’t looking good.

After the drama with her sister Sasha, and Stallion’s sister Jaime, when they betrayed the club and tried to break up Patriot and Cilla, Tasha had disappeared from the MC for a while, feeling guilty for having any part of her sister’s schemes.

Eventually, she came back and, patiently and determinedly, worked her way back into Cilla’s life.

They were somewhat friends now, and Tasha and Tornado had become close—though there was history there that neither of them were talking about.

That news having killed their mood, Em got up, showered, dressed, and headed into the kitchen to start the coffee.

Mads watched the entire time, not leaving her side for a moment, because they still had to have their conversation.

Do or die.

Steaming coffee mug in hand, Em lead Mads into the living room, and took a seat on the couch. She wasn’t surprised when he sat down right next to her.

Wearing only a pair of gray sweatpants, he was already a feast for the eyes with his cut six-pack, that drool-worthy V of muscles, and his hard, sculpted chest with a smattering of dark blonde hair, but when you added those lady porn sweatpants—sans boxer briefs—he became walking, talking, breathing sexual potency.

And he was sitting next to her, radiating heat and sex, and smelling like warm skin and all man.

He reached for her hands and pulled them into his lap, keeping her in place in case she decided to run, no doubt.

But she was done with running, with hiding. She was ready to face whatever Mads had to say, because she was tired of missing him, aching for him, feeling lost and angry and only half alive without him.

Mads planted a quick kiss on her nose, then said, “Now that the BBS is over—” Em snorted, rolling her eyes—“it’s time for my side of the conversation.”

Swallowing, she pinched her lips together and hesitantly nodded.

Lord, let me survive this, please….

Drawing in a slow breath, Mads waited for Emily to meet his gaze before he started.

“I understand why you cut down the tree,” he began, his voice tight.

His throat worked as the swallowed again.

This was hard on him, she knew that, but she’d been dealing with a lot of difficult things—alone—for more than a year.

“That was a sacred place for us, where we treasured all our firsts; where we first kissed, first said our ‘I love yous,’ where we first made love….”

Tears burned the backs of her eyes as, with each memory, the moments flashed in her mind.

Those moments were sweet, beautiful, sometimes sloppy, but always just theirs.

“I ruined that spot for us. I tainted the meaning of that tree, of that place, with my thoughtlessness. But I promise you, Em, that place will be pure again, just ours again—I’ll make sure of it.”

She choked on a sob. “How? Our tree is gone. I burned it. It’s ashes,” she whispered, her throat aching.

“I’ll find a way, no matter what it takes,” he promised, pressing a kiss against her knuckles.

As another sob broke free, Mads wrapped his arm around her and pulled her into his chest, resting her head against him.

“I know I’ve said it before, but I need to say it again—I am so fucking sorry, baby.”

There was anguish and guilt and fear in his voice, and that made her feel worse. She hated that he was hurting, and that it was because he’d hurt her first.

They were a mess.

“Why did you do it? Why did you let her in, Mads?” she asked, pleading for an answer that would make the pain stop.

He was silent, but she could hear the unsteady beat of his heart against her ear. She could hear every time he breathed. Like a slowly dotted ellipsis as she waited for him to answer….

Finally, his voice soft yet heavy, he said, “For years, even before we got married, I have been the protector, the provider, the leader, the doer, the one you counted on for everything. I fucking loved that you depended on me for so much, it fueled me, fed me, and I ate it up every time. And then the kids came along, and I felt like fucking Superman. You all needed me, and I needed you, so fucking much, and I was so goddamn happy I couldn’t believe what we had was real.

You and me, Em, we were the dream, we were what everyone thought about when they pictured marital bliss—and I was so fucking proud to be your husband… to be their father.”

Her hand on his chest itched to stroke him, to help ease his pain, to comfort him.

“So what happened to that man?” She barely recognized her own voice for the thinness of it, like ribbons pulled too tight for too long, then left to hang in the wind. “Where did I go wrong?”

He grunted, his body tensing as he growled, “You didn’t do anything wrong—it was all me. The moment it felt like you didn’t need me anymore, like I was no longer the protector and provider, I felt like I didn’t matter anymore.”

“That’s bullshit, Mads!” Emily snapped. “The kids and I will always need you! So what if the kids go off to school and don’t need their dad to give them rides, or check out their dates, or kick their bullies asses—you are still the one they come to for advice, for a cool head in a hot situation, and for help with their car problems. Just knowing you will be there when they need you is enough for them.

Hell, Mads, you should be proud of yourself—raising two incredible, independent, respectful, and responsible adults. ”

A soft smile curled his lips, and she smiled at him in return.

“They are pretty amazing…but that was mostly you, baby. You were with them, raising them, while I was gone all those months in the Army. Without you, they’d never have survived to be toddlers let alone college students.”

She snickered. “Yeah, War would have killed Sorsha in a freak potty accident, or Sorsha would have offed her brother using any one of her colored pencils or paint brushes. He would have bled out in no time.”

Chuckling, Mads replied, “Blood isn’t what they mean with they talk about creative juices.”

Laughing, Em looked up into her husband’s eyes, and saw a desperate yearning, one her own heart was aching for.

Her smile dropped, and his did too as reality returned.

“What about you, Em? Do you still need me?” he inquired, strains of hope in his voice.

Her tears fell in earnest now, the laughter only holding them back for a moment.

“Yes, Mads—I will always need you. Just because I got busy with Flower’s Blooms didn’t mean I stopped needing my husband.

You’re my best friend, and when you stopped coming home, I didn’t have anyone to share my day with, to share my victories and failures with—and I didn’t have someone to celebrate with when I reached my quarterly goals.

I didn’t have my rock, my protector, my safety net when I had a shit day. ”

She whimpered as a memory surfaced. “There was one day I really needed you….” She closed her eyes, and recalled, “I was making wreaths and arrangements for a funeral.

I was late to work that day because of an appointment that morning, so when I went in, I just started on the order, not really paying attention to the name of the deceased.

Then…when the friends of the family came in to collect the order, I recognized them.

“They were people I knew from the community, and they were collecting the funeral arrangements for a woman I knew personally, a wonderful woman who’d been one of the first customers through my door after the shop opened.

She had been one of the most kind, welcoming, and compassionate women I’d known… and she was gone.”

She sniffed back tears, wiping at them with her fingers.

Mads tightened his arms around her, his chest rumbling with a sound of comfort.

She continued, “I texted you that day…and you didn’t answer. I called and I got your voicemail. And when I got home, I waited for you…all night, in desperate need of my best friend, my husband, to come and hold me while I cried.”

“Fuck, Em, I am so fucking sorry,” Mads choked out.