Chapter 9
9
Rogue
The sky over the ocean is turning white, and the sun will rise soon. We’re sitting at the end of the empty pier, our feet dangling off the edge. She’s leaning on my shoulder still holding onto my arm, her fingers interlaced with mine.
I’ve told her more about myself than I’ve ever told anyone in one night. At this point she probably knows more about me than all my friends currently do. And I have a feeling I know more about her than hers do as well.
But she hasn’t told me everything. I know that too. She always steers the conversation back to me when it gets too personal. It’s fine. It’ll keep.
When she said she’d go out with me tonight, my plan was simple. Dinner, followed by a quick drink and then back to the clubhouse. Or her place. Whatever. Just as long as I could add a couple more layers to all the ways I already can’t stop thinking about her. Namely, seeing her naked, knowing what she tastes like and the all-important seeing her come on my cock. I figured taking care of that would help get her out of my mind. Instead, I poured my heart out to her, and I’m already planning our next three dates. The Ferris wheel currently still and dark behind us will definitely feature in one of them. As for the sex, I’m sure that’ll be more amazing than my fantasies. Which is saying something.
I just wish I hadn’t told her so much about Angel. Women I date don’t like hearing too much about her. I tried to keep it to a minimum. It wasn’t so difficult to do that tonight.
“Will we see the sunrise from here?” she asks, startling me. She’s been so still and so quiet for a while that I figured she’d fallen asleep.
“Yeah, over there,” I say and point to the east.
“Good,” she says and burrows closer to me. “I love dawn. Especially watching the sun rise over the ocean.”
“Dawn does have this fresh and clean quality to it, I’ll give you that,” I say. “I never much cared about that stuff until recently though.”
“Yeah? What changed?” she asks.
“I don’t know, maybe it’s because the man who killed Angel now finally died in agony.”
There I go talking about Angel again and saying more than I should. She gasps.
“Death’s overrated,” she says. “So final… but I agree, sometimes it’s just the only way to live on.”
“I’ve been living on…” I say, wanting her to know that while Angel is a huge part of my life, she’s not the only part. But I can’t find the words.
“The man responsible for my family’s deaths only got six months. So, a friend tracked him down and killed him. He was coked-up when he plowed into my family, but he was also the owner of the trucking company and had deep pockets and very good lawyers.” She tells me all that in a very distant voice. Like it hurts her to talk about it still. “I didn’t ask for it. He just did it because I couldn’t sleep knowing he was out there walking free.”
“Now that’s romantic on a whole other level,” I say, not sure how I feel about it. But mostly I feel jealous. “This some Devil’s Nightmare MC guy?”
“Yeah, his name is Edge” she says. “Not sure he’d want it called romantic, that’s not what it was about. He just wanted me to feel better. But yeah, I suppose in a way it was romantic. Terrifying too.”
She shudders and it’s not just from the Santa Ana wind that’s picking up again.
“So, this Edge guy… he’s your ex?” I ask.
She lifts her head and looks at me, smirking. “Are you getting territorial?”
Yes. The answer is yes. God help me.
“He’s just a friend,” she says and lays her head back down against my shoulder.
What is it about this woman? First she pries all my deepest and darkest secrets out of me and now she already has me getting possessive. Which I never do. And I haven’t even kissed her yet.
That last part’s the only thing I can do something about.
So I lean down and fix that.
And man, I knew kissing her would be something. But I didn’t expect it to be sunrise, noon, and sunset all rolled into one. And everything good in between.
She kisses me back, not hard, but with the kind of urgency that tells me she’s been waiting for it too. I lift her into my arms and deepen the kiss.
And for the next what feels like forever everything but the feel of her lips on mine and her fingers in my hair is all there is. And all there needs to be.
For the first time in a very, very long time I feel hope again. It’s such a soft, tiny little thing, hope. Easy to miss. Easy to forget about.
And I have.
But right now, I have hope that the future will be a lot brighter than the past has been.
Then she goes and pulls away, smoothing down her shirt which I’ve lifted as I slid my hand under it.
“This was great. I had a great time, but I have to get to work now,” she hastens to explain, her eyes still all soft, her lips glimmering from the kissing, but her words the ones you say when you want to end things.
“What? You just got off,” I say, chuckling even though I don’t even feel like smiling.
She laughs. “That’s the life of a first-year resident doctor. I think I have a day off in a couple of weeks. Maybe.”
She’s already standing, the sun rising behind her, coloring the horizon a bright yellow.
I stand up too.
“I’ll take you home then,” I say, since what else can I say?
“Just to the hospital, thanks,” she says. “All my stuff’s still in my car. I don’t have a home here yet.”
Now there’s a lot of reactions I could have to that, but the strongest is sadness. For her. Because she has no home. Because I think that’s what she meant.
“You can stay at the clubhouse until you get settled,” I offer. Or forever. I’d like that second one better.
She smiles, but it fades quickly as she shakes her head. “No. Thank you, but no. I’m good.”
Then she starts walking away, the wooden boards creaking under her feet, audible even over the crashing waves below us.
I have to jog to catch up to her, because I spend way too much time rooted to the spot, thinking that hearing her retreating footsteps so clearly was some kind of omen.
There’s lots I still want to say to her. To tell her. To hear her tell me. But this feels like a goodbye. And I never did know what to say when it came to those. I don’t even try.
But the way she holds onto my waist as we ride back to the hospital doesn’t feel like a goodbye. It feels like the start of something I didn’t even know I wanted.
I try to kiss her again as we’re saying goodbye in front of the hospital. But she averts her face and her eyes, mutters something about not wanting to kiss anymore because she likes it too much.
And then she’s gone.
Following the sound of a wailing ambulance, which just rolled up.
And despite the head-splitting noise of the siren it all kinda feels like a dream. One I don’t want to forget. But all dreams get forgotten. That’s just the nature of dreams.