Chapter 13 Slade
Slade
Unfortunately, Bane keeps his word, and we cook and eat together for both lunch and dinner.
Each time, Liam led me to the kitchen to meet him, as if I couldn’t be trusted to navigate the clubhouse myself or needed a shadow to protect me.
The Bunnies were cleaning up the meal for the rest of the MC and glared at me until Bane walked in and took all their attention, quickly turning them into simpering flirts.
The man has clearly not been a Club Pussy-abstainer—not that I give a shit, nor do I expect anything less. That’s what the Bunnies are here for, and the bikers are manwhores, case in point, my own sperm donor.
I ignored the faint stirrings of jealousy, though, just like I ignored the women and Bane. Both times, he gave the Bunnies a warning look that sent them scurrying, and we were left alone. He didn’t push me to talk while we made our meals and didn’t seem bothered by the silence.
Right now, it’s close to midnight, and I’m hungry again, specifically for sugar, as my stash of candy is gone. Knowing that everyone will be in the bar, I decide to go to the kitchen. When I open the bedroom door, Jez is standing there.
The thump of the music from the bar can be heard, as can feminine squeals. The image of Bane with a Bunny or two in his lap doing dirty things pushes into my head, and that jealousy is back, stronger and more insistent about blooming to life.
Bane is your jailer and a manwhore, you asshat.
I’m a fucking idiot.
Shoving the emotion down, mentally and violently, I glare at Jez.
He shifts uncomfortably. “Everything okay?”
I don’t answer, just close the door and walk down the hallway. I go the back way, so I don’t have to pass the entrance of the bar and see Bane inside there doing whatever Bane likes to do.
When we get to the first floor and turn the corner to the kitchen, Bane is standing there.
Tall, solid, and devastating.
Devastating, because the lust I’ve been trying to keep repressed surges forth like a mob lurching forward to touch the rockstar.
“You texted him,” I accuse Jez.
He shrugs. “I got orders.”
“Go.” Bane jerks his chin at him. “I’ll let you know once Slade returns to her room so you can resume your post.”
“I do have a lock on my door, you know,” I remind them as exasperation and frustration flickers within me.
Of course, now that I’m back around Bane, my ability to repress everything is weakened.
He’s my Achilles heel. My kryptonite.
And he’ll be my undoing if the heat in his hazel eyes grows any more than it already has.
“You’re hungry again?” Bane asks when Jez leaves.
“You food shaming me?”
He smiles, and I fight the lust and need that swells within me when he does. “My little bottomless pit.”
“I’m not your anything. And stop with the nicknames.” I push past him into the kitchen and catch a whiff of his scent—leather, pine, and faint gasoline…and a heady perfume.
Jealousy, so potent and intense, along with rage surges and overwhelms me to the point of making me shake.
I whirl around to him. “You fucking cunt.” Shock ripples over his stupidly attractive face and his goddamned scruffed jaw that I have an insane burning desire to feel scraping the insides of my thighs. “You just finished fucking the Club Pussy before coming to me?”
I shouldn’t be feeling the lust I am since I suspect he’s been with another woman. I shouldn’t be feeling lust at all. Or rage.
Just like the oxygen’s been sucked out of the room in a backdraft, followed by a sudden, violent fireball exploding, the roar fills my head. The Numbers’ screams and memories of what happened to them will soon overwhelm me.
I stumble, feeling like my world is tilting off its axis and about to spin out of control, slamming me into a different orbit that will snap my mind and dissociate me from my reality forever.
But rather than that happening, big, powerful hands grip me, keeping me tethered and in place.
“Slade, look at me.” Bane gives me a hard shake. “Look at me, baby.”
My eyes focus, and I see him close, leaning down and cupping my face.
I feel my control returning.
He looks dismayed but relieved at the same time.
“Feel, Slade. Feel.” His hands tighten on my face. “Let yourself feel something, anything, even if it’s anger. I’ve got you. You’re safe. You’re safe to feel with me.”
The numbness settles over me, returning like a familiar cloak.
“Slade.” My name sounds pained on his lips.
Breaking contact, I step away from him and feel everything inside me go back to the way it should be. The way it needs to be.
“Go back to Beatrice.” Acid eats at my newly returned control. “Or whatever Bunny you were fucking or whoever was sucking your cock.”
“What?” He genuinely looks confused.
“You reek of perfume.” There’s no denying the accusation in my voice.
“That’s Sunshine’s, but she had only given me a hug when I was coming to the kitchen. I wasn’t with her; I haven’t been with any of the Bunnies since you arrived.”
“It’s been, what, a little more than forty-eight hours?” I slow clap. “Give the man and his starved dick a hero cookie.”
A smile lights up his face. “Jealousy looks good on you, baby.”
My hands drop to my sides and ball into fists. “I’m not jealous, just pointing out a fact. And stop calling me baby.”
He smirks, then goes to the pantry and disappears inside. When he emerges, his arms are full of snacks—chips, a few containers of nuts, jerky, and my downfall, which is Rolo chocolates and Swedish Fish candies.
He lays it out on the island, and I grab a package of Rolos and pop two into my mouth.
Chuckling, he opens a bag of chips. “My weakness.”
“Try it with the Rolos,” I suggest. Anything with sugar is better.
He does so and grins. “Game changer.”
As he chews, he turns serious and leans his elbows on the counter. Those hazel eyes—that feel like they can see through my walls and right into my soul—regard me closely. “What happens to you when you start to spiral whenever you feel something?”
“Nothing,” I lie.
“Telling me could help you.”
“Nothing can help me, Bane.” The words are out before I consciously decide to say them.
Damn this man.
He frowns. “I think you’re wrong. I can help you; I’m the only one who has been able to make you feel something, aren’t I?”
I don’t like where this conversation is going, nor do I like the truth of his words. “Is Ash back?”
“Stop deflecting.”
“Stop pretending like you give a shit about me,” I snap, then squash everything that flared up inside me. “You care about the MC and pussy, that’s it.”
His jaw ticks like I’ve pissed him off. Good. Maybe he’ll leave me the fuck alone.
Then he relaxes. “Trying to push me away won’t work. You’re staying put, so you might as well make the best of it, little one.”
His persistent use of a nickname makes me grind my teeth. “I’m staying put, for now. I need to talk to Ash.”
Or convince Pix, Army, or Digits to talk to Ash, but I haven’t seen them today. It’s becoming increasingly clear that Bane won’t be the ally I need on the Council to help convince their Prez.
Unless maybe I confess all my sins, but the thought of trying to verbalize the absolute hell I endured at the hands of the most evil human I’ve ever known makes sweat coat my skin.
If Bane knew what happened to me, he wouldn’t be like my brothers where their guilt would trap me here because they’d want to protect me. But Ash would. Therefore, revealing my dark secrets to get Bane to help me is a no-go.
He reaches for the package of Swedish Fish and opens it, dumping half the contents into his big hand before offering the rest to me. “Let’s make a deal.”
My eyes are riveted on his lips as he pops the candies into his mouth, then his words register, and I lift my gaze to his. “What kind of deal?”
“You let me help you try to feel something—”
“No.”
“Let me finish.” He looks down at my clenched hand on the island, and I realize he’s looking at my wedding band. He lifts his gaze back to mine. “I’m not talking sex or anything sexual—I’d never try anything with you being married. Plus, I’m too old for you.”
“Look at the ego on you,” I deadpan. “You’re assuming I’d even consider being interested in you.”
He smiles. “I’ve been around the block a time or two. Let’s just say I can tell when a woman reacts to me.”
“I feel nothing, Bane.”
He leans closer. “Maybe most of the time, but you can’t deny I make you feel something, including lust, even if it’s just a flare.”
“I’m married,” I lie, lifting my hand with my fake wedding ring. “I don’t cheat, like the rest of you dicks.”
He looks insulted. “I’m nothing like your dad, Slade. I’d never do that to you—make you an adulteress.”
“How about a murderess?” I hike my brow. “Because you’re making me feel all kinds of stabby, Bane.”
He tilts his head back and laughs. The sound is deep and and fills the kitchen. It stirs something in me that I refuse to acknowledge.
Once he’s finished, he looks at me. “Back to my deal. You let me help you try to feel something—to help you overcome whatever happens inside you when you do—and I won’t be sexually involved with any of the Club Pussy or any other woman while you’re here.”
Inwardly, I jolt at how his words flare satisfaction and relief within me. Which is utterly ridiculous, and I mentally kick my ass. It’s just as utterly ridiculous as the thought that Bane would keep his dick in his pants for even a few days.
But then I see my in…or, more accurately, my out.
“I agree with one non-negotiable condition.”
“I’m all ears.”
“If you are with any other woman sexually, which you’ll fail because you’re like the rest of them and can’t keep your dick in your pants, especially when any variety of holes are on display and offered”—he remains silent as I taunt him—“then you convince Ash to let me leave.”
He holds out his hand. “Agreed.”
I slip my hand into his, and we shake on the deal.
I have my out.
So why does it feel like the door just slammed shut with a resounding bang?