Chapter 18
Cobra
The sight of Lynn sitting on the glossy black tattoo chair with only black cotton knickers on made me flash back to the sight of her leaving my room a week ago, bare-legged, beautiful, and furious.
With my cum on her thighs. I clenched my jaw to throttle a growl, which was a lot harder when I remembered I wasn’t the only one seeing Lynn like this.
Shade returned from where he’d had his back to Lynn as I hovered unnoticed in the doorway of the small, makeshift tattoo studio at the back of the clubhouse.
I watched with barely-repressed rage as he smeared a clear gel on her thigh.
The logical side of me knew this process well enough to recognise it as professional, platonic, and nothing even remotely sexual.
The animal side of me said Shade was putting his hands on my woman, and those hands should be immediately removed from his body.
What a shame I only had three knives on my person, none of them big enough to handle that job.
“There,” he said in the ultra deep voice I always felt more than heard, washing his hands at the cramped sink.
“That should—” He cut off when he caught sight of me.
Shade was extremely perceptive, and more emotionally intelligent than most of us.
In a single look, I bet he knew exactly what I was feeling, and why, and who for.
There were enough rumours about me and Lynn flying around the clubhouse that everyone thought we’d been fucking for months. Clearly, Shade decided the rumours were true, because he took a solid step away from Lynn, his eyes glued to me. Unsure how I was going to react.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Lynn spat, breaking our intense stare-off.
“It’s a tattoo studio, asshole,” I replied, trying to crush the threat from my voice because it wasn’t for her. “Take a wild guess.”
“Well, fuck off somewhere else,” she said, true anger in her voice. It pierced my ribs and stabbed the fleshy organ behind them.
“He’s up next on my schedule,” Shade input, trying to soothe tempers. A futile attempt, but it was amusing to watch him try. “I can make him wait outside—”
“No need,” Lynn said, jumping to the floor, fury coiled in every line of her body. I’d seen Lynn pissed off, but this was more. I sighed, and thumped my head against the door frame behind me. So I hadn’t just made her angry, I'd wounded her pride and probably hurt her feelings. “I’m leaving.”
I caught her waist as she tried to shove past me. “Not staying to put on pants?”
“No,” she snapped. “This is my look now.”
“Hot, but you might give my brothers a heart attack.”
“Good.”
She made a passing attempt at freeing herself, but she could have broken my nose or rammed her elbow into my kidney if she really wanted to get free. Which meant she’d probably missed me as badly as I missed her this week.
“Look,” I said, my voice pitched low. “I know I’m not an alpha, but I’ve still got that protective gene in me.
I don’t like that I retraumatised you, but you were right.
You fought those demons and won, and—that’s fucking insane, Lynn.
You’re strong as hell, and I didn’t mean to diminish your victory. ”
Her mouth thinned, arms crossed over her chest, but the brown crystal of her eyes shone a little brighter. “Yeah, you were a dick.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“If I couldn’t handle it, I would have told you to stop,” she replied at the same volume, the words only for me.
“Maybe I’m the one who can’t handle it.”
She stared at me, clear brown eyes piercing flesh and bone right down to the heart of me. “You could have said princess at any time.”
I made a throaty noise. “You were fucking heaven, Lynn. As if I would stop.”
Her throat bobbed, a shadow chasing through her eyes as she glanced away. “I can protect myself. Don’t forget that.”
“I know.” I made a slow pass over her hip with my thumb. “What if I want to protect you, too? What if it’s second nature to keep you away from that dark shit?”
“We’re making a scene,” she muttered, her cheeks pink.
“Shade’s a vault of secrets; he won’t tell anyone. Answer my question. What if I want to protect you, too?”
Lynn groaned, scowling at me. “Fine. If you want to, I can’t stop you. But don’t make decisions for me.” She grabbed my throat, so quickly I didn’t see it coming. “If I tell you not to hold back, you stop fucking holding back.”
“Fine,” I echoed in the same tone, admiring the feeling of her hand around my throat. I checked Shade was still out of earshot and said, “I usually like my partners to fight me, so I can overpower them. It—it’s the reverse of what happened to me.”
“I get it,” she said with zero judgement, which was exactly why I liked her.
Doubt struck, making my stomach twist. “It’s wrong.”
“Shut up. What if we need the same thing?”
A low laugh ruptured my chest. “Doubt it.”
“Putting me back in that place,” she said slowly, “allowed me to beat the shit out of that memory, and make it feel good instead of painful and dark. It made me feel powerful, Cobra. I liked it. The memories themselves make me want to throw up, but kicking the door shut on them and finding my way back to what’s happening in the present… I felt strong in that moment.”
“You are strong,” I murmured.
“I want to feel it again.” She held eye contact.
“I want you harder, rougher. I want you to bark and push me to my limits, because I can face those memories and beat them. And I think what you need is what I need, too. We’re both—victims,” she spat, hating that word as much as I did.
I smiled. “And maybe we deal with it in different ways, but I don’t see why those ways can’t complement each other. ”
“I put myself in the other person’s shoes; you put yourself back in that place but with a different outcome.”
“Yeah.”
“But with strict boundaries,” I said, my voice hardening. “Non-fucking-negotiable, asshole.”
She smiled. Tightened her hand around my neck. “Yeah, fine.”
I gripped her hip harder in response. “I expect you in my bed again tonight. None of this sleeping apart shit.”
Her smile sharpened into a smirk. “I’m tempted to stay away just to spite you.”
“Try it,” I warned, closing the space between us. “See what happens.”
Almost a week of waking up cold and without her was hell. I’d hunt her down and invite myself to whatever bed she tried to escape me in.
I was deadly fucking serious.