Chapter 8
Gage
I hate her. I hate this woman. I hate that she means something to me, even when she shouldn’t.
I hate that I’ve never been able to wash my hands—or my heart—clean of her.
I hate that even now, even after I’ve vowed to hate her and send her on her way, seeing the undisguised pain and regret flickering on her face, her bleeding heart laid bare for just a split second before she grabbed those fucking papers again, I hate that I’m lost.
Helpless.
That I can’t stop myself from doing what I’ve wanted to do since I first saw her on our wedding day.
I want to plunge my face into the sensitive crook of her neck and inhale her sweet, feminine scent. I want to know what her arousal smells like. Tastes like. I want to know the silk of her skin beneath my rough fingertips. The many ways that her body plus mine would equal pleasure.
I take my fill of her mouth with a kiss that is punishing, angry, aggressive. I demand all of her, that she yield to me, that she finally, finally be mine. I want her surrender. Her hands splayed across my chest, her hot, breathy pants against my mouth. They’re just a start.
I twine my fingers in her hair, tugging hard so that her neck snaps back and gives me better access to her mouth.
My tongue sweeps in and tangles with hers, tasting her, stroking her, owning her.
She moans and her hips thrust against mine, grinding, searching for relief from a burn she’d probably never admit to even feeling.
She’s sweet and soft. Her curves feel like heaven against the hard steel of my body. I’ve imagined her like this, fucking dreamed of her like this—pliant, lush, responsive, panting and writhing with the force of her lust, her skin hot and sweaty against my own.
My hand wraps around her waist, so narrow that I could probably encircle it with both hands.
I sweep it lower, over the cotton covered swell of her ass.
I grip her hard as I plunder her mouth roughly, bruising her lips.
My hand sweeps lower, to the bare skin of her thigh and I can’t suck back a groan.
She swallows it down as her tongue sweeps out, trying to push through the seam of my lips.
I deny her, suck her bottom lip into my mouth, and nip it hard in response.
She mewls and rocks into me and I let my hand blaze a rough path up her silky thigh.
I push the hem of her dress up and trail my fingers over the edge of her panties.
They’re soft. Cotton. I imagine what she’d look like wearing just them, how I’d rip them off of her with my teeth before I feasted on her sweet cunt.
I let out a groan and boldly stroke my fingers over her panties, tracing the wetness spreading over the center, over her folds and then gently along her slit, where she’s wettest, tracing her from front to back.
She lets out a strangled sound that I mistake for unfettered pleasure, but then she jerks away, ripping out of my hands. Her mouth tears from mine and the second the sweet heat of her lips leave, I feel that absence like a brutal loss. It’s like someone just kicked me in the stomach.
She stumbles back, eyes wide, her lips a shocking cherry color and not because of the lipstick that I chewed off within five seconds of capturing her mouth.
Her eyes are wide, her pupils blown, her cheeks flushed, her hair mussed.
She looks every bit a sexually charged creature, but her eyes aren’t wide with satisfaction or lust. They’re misting over with horror.
Her nostrils flare and mine echo the motion.
I scent the fear in the air between us. I’m not the kind of man to feed off of it.
I’m not a clean cut bastard by any means, but I’m also not a sick fuck.
I was raised rough by people who should have done and known better.
I’m not the beast they should have turned me into.
I’m no monster and those tears that flood her eyes and trickle down cheeks that are suddenly ashen, tear at my insides.
I should hate her.
I should, but at the moment, I can’t find it in myself.
“This was a mistake,” she whispers, in a heart wrenchingly shattered voice. “I can’t do this.” She raises a hand to her trembling lips and blinks, like she just noticed me still standing there. “I’m sorry.”
She darts past me, a blur of black as she stoops to pick up the papers that I so carelessly discarded on the floor. She rams them into the tote she goes for next, then whirls, gripping it against her shoulder, her knuckles white, like it’s a lifeline and she’s going to sink without it.
“I can’t, Gage… You deserve better. You always deserved better.” She shakes her head, more tears brimming and spilling down her ghost white cheeks.
I can’t let her go. Not like this. I know if she walks out that door that I’ll never see her again. That she’ll never come back to Helena. I don’t want to lose her again, even if I never really had her in the first place.
She tries to slip past me and I reach out blindly, grabbing onto her upper arm.
I curl my fingers like steel, but relax them the second she hisses as they bite into her skin through her too thin cardigan.
She’s a mess, but she’s a hot mess. One that I can’t seem to tear my eyes away from or actually form coherent words.
I stare into her dark eyes, trying to convey some kind of message, one that I’ve never been able to find language to express.
“Is it just your husband that you won’t let touch you, or is it everyone? How many, Ami. I want to know. Is there someone else now? Is that why you’ve finally come back with these papers?”
It’s not what I want to say, and I despise myself when her face crumples.
She sucks in a steadying breath, though, and tries to tug her arm free.
Because I’m a bastard, I dig my fingertips in a little harder.
Her lips thin out into a hard line and as always, she defies me by staying silent.
I barely refrain from shaking her, sure that there is someone.
A man. Out there. Waiting for her. Probably some punk who thinks he can make her happy.
A man she’s let into her house, her bed, her life, her heart.
All while she cut me out. I’m nothing, nothing more than trash or a bug she can cruelly step on and grind into the sole of her shoe.
I’m her past, an annoyance, a loose end that she needs to deal with to be free.
Anger steals my breath, and I speak before I think. “Bring your papers over here tomorrow night. Same time. I’ll sign them then. I don’t need to stay married to a woman who hates me. A coward and a whore.”
The transformation that she undergoes is shocking. Her shoulders straighten, her spine snaps up and her head rears back. She rips her arm from my grip with a savageness that surprises even me.
“Why won’t you sign them now?” she snaps, striding back a step, out of my reach.
I don’t go to capture her again. She’s right. This is for the best. We both need our freedom. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking, kissing her like that, like I had any right to do it.
I whirl, giving her my back. The only part of me she fucking deserves. “Because,” I snarl, a wounded animal. “I can’t even fucking look at you at the moment.”
“Well,” she snaps right back, always up for a fight. “That’s perfect, because the sight of you has always made me sick.”
She’s wounded too, an angry bear with a thorn in her paw, but she’s always been like that.
Always. Even before she met me. What hope did I have with this woman who has a temperament like a rabid dog?
If someone else wants her, they can damn well have her with my fucking blessing.
The asshole obviously doesn’t know what he’s signing up for.
Did he give her his balls in a bag when he met her or is that coming? I almost feel sorry for the bastard.
This time, when her steps scrape past me, I don’t stop her.
***
It takes a few hours, but eventually I pull my head out of my ass enough to realize it was my wounded pride, years’ worth of it that’s to blame for the poisonous words I spoon fed her right before she left.
I don’t really think she’s a whore. If she has someone else, then honestly, I guess that she just has someone else.
We were forced to come together and sign that marriage document.
We weren’t ever a real husband and wife.
She might have given it a chance if Tracker hadn’t got to her first. Maybe.
Either way, it turned out the way it did.
Our club and the Olson clan almost came to war, but we didn’t.
Those marriages produced two happy unions and I’m glad for my brothers.
I don’t even hold it against Tracker, who is still working hard every day just to stay clean.
Not a single one of us chose our upbringing.
We didn’t choose our birth or the circumstances surrounding it.
We didn’t choose to grow up with alcoholic, addict, abusive, neglectful parents.
We didn’t choose to get chewed up and spat right the fuck back out by the system.
Every single one of us would have picked a different path, but here we are, all us men, brothers, a part of Steel Riders.
No matter how we started or even what road to hell we were on, we’re a part of this club now and that means something.
Tracker might have been using when he decided to betray The Riders.
He might have been desperate and hatched a deal with a rival who wanted to either beat us or join us.
He might have tried to sabotage everything out of a warped, coke-induced desire for revenge, but in the end, Steel and Edge made the decision to get him help and keep him as a brother.
He’s doing better now, and I honestly don’t hold what happened against him.
I knew everything that Ami told me, but I wanted to hear it out of her mouth.
I wanted to hear her say the words. Tell me that it wasn’t me.
Tracker already confessed everything, after Ami, Leena, and Steph’s dad shot him and gave him back over to Steel.
My brothers know it wasn’t me who hurt her in any way.
They know that I took a bullshit beating myself, just to prevent war from cropping up between our club and Ami’s father and brothers.
They know that I did what it took to make it right because I’m a Rider and whether that means marrying someone I don’t even damn well know, doing my job every single day, or getting pounded on because it needs to be done, I’ll fucking do it.
The Riders, my brothers, are everything I thought I’d never have when I turned up at the clubhouse wanting to prospect back when I was a twenty-year-old with no hopes and no future.
Seven years later, I’m still here.
So yeah. Once I had an hour to think and unglue my head from between my own ass cheeks, I know it wasn’t Ami who was in the wrong.
She wants a divorce? I’ll give it to her.
Shit hasn’t exactly been easy for her or fair for her this past year.
I made everything worse acting like an asshat sack of dicks because I had my panties in a twist.
I’ve heard the words from her mouth now.
I feel like I can just let it go.
Let go of the past.
As I peel out of the driveway on my bike, I realize that I still don’t want to let go of her. When I think about her with another dude, a guy who is probably a pussy who couldn’t even protect her if his life depended on it, I start to grind my teeth.
By the time I make it to Wraith and Leena’s place, I feel like I’ve worn the enamel completely off.
I don’t even know what I’m doing there, exactly.
What I really want to do is demand to see Ami.
I want to tell her that she’s my wife and that she’s mine and that I felt her kiss me back.
That maybe we could have had something. That maybe we still can.
That I never would have chosen to get married if I hadn’t been forced into it and maybe she wouldn’t have either, but it worked for Wraith and Wing, so maybe it could work out for us, even if we’re stubborn assholes who hate each other.
The second I tore my head out of my own ass, though, I realized that wasn’t a good idea. None of that will ever get put out there to see the light of day. I guess I’m here to tell Ami that I’m sorry and that I’ll sign her stupid papers and that will be that.
At least that’s my plan.
Until Leena answers the door looking confused and tells me that Ami texted her an hour ago, telling her that I signed the papers so she’s going back home to Tampa.