Chapter Thirty-Three
Melissa
I laid on Travis’ chest, drowning in my grief, when a soft knock on the door startled me.
“I’ll get it.”
I turned away from whoever was there. I didn’t want to speak to anyone. I heard Amber’s voice when the door opened.
“I need the crib. We’re putting Danny and Dante in another room,” she whispered.
“No,” I said, standing up. “They should stay here. Dani knows this room. It’s important for her to be somewhere that’s familiar.” I looked at the rumpled bed. “I can change the sheets and make up the bed for them.”
“I can do that,” Amber offered.
“Please, let me do it.”
She nodded and disappeared down the hallway.
“Princess, you don’t have to.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I need to do this. For me.”
He watched me for a moment and I pleaded with my eyes. Begging him not to ask me why. I wasn’t sure I could adequately explain why this was important to me.
“Ok.”
Amber returned, and the three of us quickly stripped and remade the bed. I swiftly packed my belongings from the dresser and bathroom into the duffle bag that had been my one constant thing over the past two weeks, other than Dani.
Travis took my bag in one hand and me in the other and led me from the room. My feet halted when I saw Danny and Dante in the hall. I couldn’t speak. Danny held Danika in his arms and glared as he passed by me into the room they would share with her.
Dante stopped in front of me.
“Melissa.”
I cut Dante off before he could say anything more. “She has nightmares. If she sleeps alone, she wakes up. Let her sleep with you and Danny,” I rasped. Clearing my throat I added, “Co-sleeping has proven to be beneficial for children with trauma.”
Dante looked at the open door Danny had taken Danika through.
“She didn’t have them before,” he said, his brow pulled in confusion.
“They started after you left. It’s common in children...” I paused, afraid to be honest. “It’s common in children that have lost a parent.”
“She didn’t lose us,” he whispered.
“She didn’t know that.”
Dante looked at me and nodded. I wasn’t trying to be cruel. I didn’t want either of them to feel guilty about what they felt they had to do. But at the same time, they needed to understand that their actions had consequences.
At two years old, Dani’s awareness of time was undeveloped. From the time she was rescued, she had been with one or the other every minute. Danny leaving was her first experience of a loved one being gone. When he didn’t come back right away, she thought he never would. But she still had Dante. Until he left and she went through the same thing again. Her subconscious believed they were both gone.
“Come on, Princess.” Travis placed his hand on my back and led me away from Dante.
Consumed with my own thoughts, I paid no attention to where Travis was leading me. I blindly followed the man who led me to another room.
My eyes focused on the clothes hamper in the corner. The bathroom counter littered with soap and shaving items was visible through the open door. The sneakers tucked haphazardly under the end of the bed.
“Travis, someone is using this room. I can’t stay here.”
“Princess, this is my room.” He closed the door behind him, dropping my bag on the floor, and waited.
“I can’t stay in your room.”
“Why?” he asked.
“I can’t sleep in that bed with you.”
“I slept in your bed last night with you,” he countered.
He was right. He had slept in my bed last night. But that was different. Surely, he understood that.
“That was different,” I muttered
“Why?”
Damn, why did he have to be so freaking sexy? He stood there, back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. Waiting. For what, I wasn’t sure.
You know what he’s waiting for .
“You know why,” I said, crossing my arms, mirroring his stance. I knew what I was doing. Subconsciously putting up a wall around my heart. But that wasn’t what Travis was doing.
He wasn’t closed off, trying to protect himself. Not from me. I studied his face. His expression gave nothing away. I prided myself on being able to read the body language of any individual, regardless of what they were trying to hide.
It was why I verbally attacked Danny. I recognized his weakened state as soon as he entered the clubhouse. Broken by whatever he had been doing. I wasn’t proud of taking advantage of his vulnerability, but I had to take my shot while I could. He had to understand the damage he had caused. I didn’t think I would have been brave enough to confront him if he had been himself.
Travis looked relaxed. There was no tension in his shoulders or hips. No indication that he needed to guard himself.
Unlike me.
Every muscle in my body was a tightrope. Every nerve was a live wire ready to blow.
“Explain it to me. What’s changed between last night and tonight?”
“A lot has fucking changed!” I shouted, throwing my arms in the air.
Travis straightened from the wall and stalked toward me. The way his eyes roamed over my body reminded me of the night we met. I knew I would be powerless against any advance he made.
“I told you, that night was one and done.”
“You did,” he agreed.
He placed his hands on my shoulders and slid them down to my wrists, pulling my hands up to rest on his chest.
“Travis.” My eyes closed, wanting to avoid the look of hunger in his eyes. A look that wasn’t there until he was standing inches from my body. Almost as though he could turn it off and on at will.
No one was that good. An Oscar-winning actor wasn’t even that good at schooling their emotions.
“I am not sleeping with you,” I said, refusing to open my eyes.
“You are sleeping with me. We just ain’t having sex.”
My eyes flew open and immediately narrowed at the arrogant son of a bitch.
“You don’t want to have sex with me?”
Travis threw his head back and laughed. I tried to pull my hands from his chest, and he only held me tighter.
“Princess, I want to bury my cock so far into your pussy it’ll take days to find it. But tonight, you need sleep.” He pulled the blankets down and continued, “Last night, you didn’t want to sleep alone because Dani was in her crib. How much harder is it going to be when she isn’t in the same room?”
My shoulders sagged at his words, and my eyes watered. He was right. This would be the first night in almost three months that Dani wasn’t with me. She was with her dads.
“I am not sleeping in this bed. Who knows what’s on those sheets,” I said, crossing my arms again.
I refused to admit out loud that I didn’t want to sleep alone. Apparently, I didn’t need to. Travis knew what I needed without me having to ask. Without me even realizing it myself.
I hadn’t given it any thought when we left the room that Danny and Dante would now share with their little girl. But now that he brought it up, I had to admit to myself that having his arms around me while I slept would help.
“One.” He held up a finger in front of my face. “Amber changed the sheets this morning.”
“Why is Amber—”
Placing a second finger up with his first, he held them against my mouth.
“Two, I haven’t had a woman in here in months.” Then he winked.
That goddamn wink hit me every freaking time. But he didn’t say he hadn’t slept with a woman in months. Only that he hadn’t done it in here.
Can you really hold that against him?
My inner voice could really be a bitch at times. The truth was, the only reason I hadn’t slept with anyone was because I had Dani. I hadn’t been out to a bar since Dante left.
“A few of us guys pay Amber and the other girls to clean our rooms for us. Once a week she comes in and strips the bed, does our laundry and vacuums.”
“Why don’t you do it yourself?”
“’Cause I don’t fucking want to. We pay them good money for it. They appreciate the income, and we appreciate not having to waste our time cleaning.”
“What if you get married one day and your wife doesn’t want to clean? You plan to have the club girls you’ve slept with cleaning her house?”
“I haven’t slept with Amber. Ever.” He turned away and grabbed my duffle from the floor where he dropped it. “And if my princess doesn’t want to clean, then I’ll hire a fucking maid.” He set my bag on his bed. “Now, here’s your bag. As much as I loved you asking me to hold you last night, we ain’t going to bed in our fucking clothes. I would prefer you naked, but I know you’ll only cuss me out. So go put something on.”
Grabbing my bag, I walked toward the bathroom. Before I closed the door, Travis informed me with a grin, “Normally I sleep naked, but I will leave my boxers on for you.”
Shaking my head, I closed the bathroom door and dug through my bag. Pulling the T-shirt out, I held it in my hand. Looking from the shirt to the bathroom door, I considered my options.
I knew Travis wanted me. I knew I wanted him. He wouldn’t deny me. At least, I didn’t think he would. But, looking back at the door again, I wondered if it would lead him to believe more was possible.
I knew I was using him right now. For comfort, for strength. But it was his idea. He sought me out, not the other way around. What could it hurt to have one more night? Something to take my mind off losing Dani on the first night I had to spend away from her.
I let out a heavy sigh. I wasn’t a bad person. Though you wouldn’t know it by how I’d been feeling lately. I was just tired of people letting me down.
First my parents. They were never really there for me at all. They allowed, even facilitated my sexual assault. Then there was Gunner. It devastated me when he left. I would have flunked out of my freshman year of college had it not been for Haizley.
Let’s not forget Zach. I counted him as a friend. He knew how I felt about working with people in an MC. Especially knowing why, since he knew my brother. Yet, he completely disregarded my boundaries and my feelings.
Then Danny and Dante. They both let me down in different ways.
Danny was a hothead at times. He was quick with his temper when he didn’t like the way things were going. He left without a word. Left his husband and his daughter with me, expecting I would just pick up the pieces.
Dante didn’t know any more than I did when Danny left. Yet, one phone call and Dante disappeared right along with him. Leaving his daughter with someone who she had only known a month.
I didn’t like this version of myself. The one who was angry at the world. I had dealt with my issues while I was in school. Part of our training was to see a therapist ourselves. The situation I found myself in was stirring up my own childhood trauma I had locked away. I needed to get back to who I was, and being in the clubhouse wouldn’t help me achieve that.
Decision made; I slipped the shirt over my head, letting it hang to my knees. When I opened the bathroom door, I found Travis in the bed. He laced his hands together behind his head as the blanket covered him from the waist down.
It crossed my mind he could be naked himself under there when he said with a grin, “Damn, I thought for sure you were coming through that door naked.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“No disappointment at all. You’re still sexy as fuck.” He lifted the blanket off my side of the bed.
Wait, what? I don’t have a side.
Calm down, it’s the side you’re sleeping on.
I hesitated a moment as I argued with myself, but I noticed the black boxers covering his dick. Covering, but certainly not concealing.
“Come on. I want to hold you in my arms.”
“Travis,” I said, the anguish apparent in my voice.
“Melissa, get in the fucking bed and let me hold you.”
With a deep inhale and a slow exhale, I relented and slid into the bed next to him. He wrapped his arms around me, and I was asleep in minutes. My body exhausted from the emotional trauma of the day.