Page 38 of Wild Side (Vicious Reapers MC #3)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

ZADIE

I’m glad I didn’t go to bed naked. Really glad, because after I stumbled sleepily to bed, I passed out immediately. I was expecting to be woken by Chase’s mouth or hands… something, but I never was. As my eyes open, and I look around, I realize he never actually came to bed anyway.

So I would have been sleeping alone and naked, and I don’t know, that just makes me feel some kind of way. Throwing my legs over the side of the bed, I sit up, staying there for a moment, just trying to wake up a little more.

I stand, move toward the door, and open it, but instead of just walking out into the hallway, I look from side to side for any sign of human life. There is nothing. Frowning, I make my way to the bathroom and take care of business, then decide to go look for Chase.

I’m leery of where I’m going to find him, though. Maybe I don’t want to know where he slept, but it’s a need. I have to, because now that my imagination has started to run a little wild, there is no way I will ever be able to not know.

The bedroom door next to ours is open, and I peek my head inside. Goose is in there, face down on the mattress, a club girl lying face up, her entire naked body on full display beside him. Wrinkling my nose at the sight, I flick my gaze around the room, and that’s when I see Chase.

He’s sitting in a chair facing the bed. His head lolled back, his lips parted, and his eyes closed. He’s asleep, but why there? He’s just a few feet from our room.

Why is he there?

Frowning, I stand there for much longer than I should, just staring at him. Wondering. A million thoughts fly around in my head, but the only thing that remains constant is why.

Why?

I stay there long enough that he must sense my stare. I watch as he turns his head toward me, smacking his lips together a few times before his eyes open. God. He’s stunning. Absolutely gorgeous, even after a night of partying and sleeping in a chair.

He blinks a few times, then his lips curve up into a smirk. “Mornin’, honey,” he rasps sleepily.

I don’t say anything. I’m not sure what to say. So, instead of speaking, my body moves. One step backward, then another, until I’m in the middle of the hallway. Wordlessly, I walk back into our shared bedroom… which is kind of a joke considering we didn’t actually share it last night.

Chase follows me, but not quickly. Every other step he takes, I hear him groan, which would be funny if I weren’t so hurt by him.

I walk into the bedroom, our bedroom, and sink down on the edge of the bed, folding my hands in my lap as I try to calm myself down. I’m fully aware that my emotions are ramped way up right now.

My mind is spinning, and I’m imagining a million different things, but at the same time, I’ve had a lot of shit going on in my life the past few weeks, completely and totally life-altering shit.

So I’m trying to remain calm and rational, but walking into that room, seeing him there, is making it difficult to be logical in any way whatsoever. I twist my fingers in my lap, my attempt at finding a distraction for my body that feels as if it’s going to implode with emotion.

“You good, Zadie?” he has the nerve to ask.

Good?

“No,” I quip. Turning my head, I lift my gaze to meet his. “I am not good.”

This time, he doesn’t ask me anything, but he dares to look at me with a confused expression on his beautiful face.

What. The. Hell?

Inhaling a deep breath, I hold it for a moment, then let it out slowly before I speak.

I try to keep my tone calm. I know I don’t have the right to really ask any questions.

This is a man’s world, and I’m just a woman living in it.

However, it’s also something we’ve discussed, and promises were made.

“What were you doing in there like that?”

The question hangs in the air around us. It’s thick, almost like a living, breathing thing, but I don’t look away as I watch. As I wait for a response. Then the response comes, and it’s nothing I imagined.

“I don’t remember anything from last night. I was at the bar, then I was opening my eyes and looking at you.”

I don’t like that answer, but thankfully, or maybe not thankfully, he continues. “Trent and I used to…” His words trail off.

“Used to?” I ask.

He clears his throat, standing in front of me, and I watch as he shifts from foot to foot, as if he’s nervous. When he continues, it’s only after he inhales a deep breath, squares his shoulders, then lets that breath out in a slow and long exhale.

“Share women.”

“Share… women…” I say the words.

The girls told me they did that. I knew about it, and yet hearing it in his own voice, there’s something about it that hits differently.

I can’t comprehend why it is different, maybe because it’s essentially in my face.

I’m also not sure I want details. I don’t think I’d be able to get the images out of my head…

probably ever. But when I open my mouth, words come spilling out anyway.

“Did you do that last night?”

Chase’s gaze connects with mine, unwavering. When he speaks, I believe everything he says, and I don’t know if that makes me the biggest fool on the planet or not, but I do.

“I haven’t done that since you got here. I have no desire to do that. It’s you for me, honey. Nobody else.”

I open my mouth to say something, although I’m not sure what I’m going to say. Thankfully, another voice speaks from the doorway. It’s Trent. “He didn’t do anything last night,” he states.

I whip my head to the side, my eyes find his, and I’m sure I look as surprised as I feel at his presence. Chase clears his throat but doesn’t speak. Instead, Trent continues.

“He was blitzed out, trashed. He stumbled to that chair and passed out. If he wanted to share a whore yesterday, today, or tomorrow, he wouldn’t be doing it with me.

What you have now, I get it. I understand why he said he was done with that part of our lives.

Got no desire to do that with my brother anymore. ”

Trent doesn’t say anything else before he turns around and walks out of the room, disappearing down the hallway. Chase moves toward me, crouching in front of me, his hands wrapping around my thighs as he looks up into my eyes.

“Chase,” I breathe.

“I love you, Zadie.”

And my breath… It stops. My entire body is frozen.

Before I can say anything, his hands leave my thighs and cup my cheeks.

He leans forward, his knees touching the floor, before he straightens slightly, and I feel his lips against mine.

He doesn’t deepen the kiss. Instead, he keeps his lips against my own as he speaks.

“I love you. I can’t imagine my life without you, and I am going to do everything in my power to show you that every fucking day, honey.”

Warmth fills my entire body. It flows through my veins. When Chase slips his tongue inside my mouth, filling me, I feel that love. He isn’t just saying these words because I’m pregnant with his children. I don’t think a single man in this building would ever do that anyway.

Words, vows, promises—they mean something here, and Chase would never say something just to say it. He means it. When he breaks the kiss, he rests his forehead against mine, his eyes closed as we just breathe.

“I love you too, Chase. So damn much.”

MAVERICK

Standing against the side of the house, beside the front door, I watch Brake and the moving van pull in. I knew he was coming, but what I didn’t know was that there would be a passenger sitting beside him. One that is not supposed to fucking be here—ever.

My brother is on his way over to help, along with Lightning and a couple of prospects. I already know from Brake that there isn’t much there. He brought all her furniture and packed up her shit, and it fits in a small U-Haul truck.

Zadie must hear the truck pull up, because she opens the door behind me. I want to tell her to go back inside so she doesn’t have to see the cunt sitting in the front seat of the truck, but I decide against it. There’s no point. She is going to know Sable is here at some point in the day.

“What the fuck,” she whispers beside me.

Clearing my throat, I push off the wall. “Yeah, that’s about what I was thinking.”

The doors of the moving truck open, and both of them jump down. Ignoring the bitch moving toward us, I arch a brow in Brake’s direction. He fucking knows she is not welcome here. And judging by the expression he’s wearing, he’s about as unhappy as I am right now.

“She fucking stowed away,” Brake growls. “I was too far into the trip to turn around.”

When he approaches me, he holds out his hand to shake mine. It would make me an asshole if I didn’t take it, but when I do, I squeeze a little harder than I should. Before either of us can say a word, Sable starts speaking. Unfortunately.

“I’m sorry,” she says, the two words rushing out of her. But she doesn’t stop there. “I did something fucked up, but I just wanted to protect myself. Nobody is going to protect me but me, and I wanted to become invaluable. It was wrong, I know it was, and I need to apologize.”

I don’t say anything. What I do know is that she is likely feeling the brunt of her betrayal now that she’s been at home, and she’s not welcome anywhere near Reapers’ property. The man she was trying to align herself with, for what she claims was protection, is dead.

I know from reports that her father has banned her from the club and his home. She’s alone. And she’s feeling that. I also know that I don’t feel the least bit sorry for her, and neither does any other man in that club.

Because fuck all of that. Fuck the kind of woman she is. I want no goddamn part of it, and the Vicious Reapers won’t accept that shit, no matter what state the chapter is located in.

“I appreciate your apology. I forgive you, Sable,” Zadie says.

“So, we’re cool?” Sable asks.

There is a moment of silence, a pregnant pause, and then my woman speaks, and when she does, I swear to fuck I fall a little deeper in love with her.

“We are absolutely not cool. But I still forgive you and appreciate your apology. Please don’t contact me or come here again, though.”

Sable opens and closes her mouth a couple of times, but thankfully doesn’t say anything. Brake snorts in the background. Sable turns, and I watch as her head hangs as she walks back to the moving van, climbing inside the front seat.

I’m unable to control myself. I turn toward my woman and cup her cheeks with my palms before I lean forward, touching my mouth to hers. Everyone around us melts away in this moment.

Zadie is everything. She is the world—my world.

“I love you, honey. Proud of you.”

Her lips curve up against mine, and her breath hitches slightly. “Thank you for loving me, Chase. You are everything.”

She might think I’m everything, but whatever is bigger than that, that’s what she is to me. We can overcome whatever is thrown our way. I will catch it with my bare hands and throw it right fucking back.

No part of the world outside of the two of us will ever stick.

Not when we have one another to deflect it all.