Chapter 45 Bane #2
“She won’t say. Just tells me and her brothers to fuck off whenever we ask.”
Breaker meets my eye over Slade’s head, and I see his concern about his sister.
I’m Slade’s rock, her foundation, her tether to the shore in the riotous, violent sea. I was the only one who’d made her start to feel something again. I was the one who gave her strength to battle her demons, and I’ll be the one to help her through this.
Four long strides bring me to come up behind her. I don’t touch her; I let her sense that I’m here. And it doesn’t take long.
I watch as she inhales deeply, as if catching the scent of her mate.
She slowly swivels on her barstool, resting her back against the bar. She studies me, her eyes cold and flat, detached. Like she’s studying a specimen under a microscope.
Concern and worry rush over me. What the hell happened while I was gone?
“Let’s get out of here so we can talk, baby.”
Her brows pinch, and anger leaps into her eyes. A certain amount of smug, sick pride fills me that I make her feel emotions when no others can get her to when she’s working so damn hard to repress everything again.
“I’ve told you before not to call me baby.”
True, but that was before we had…progressed. Now, it’s a pet name that she responds to—often by melting against me and allowing me to make her sob from multiple orgasms.
“And I told you…” I step closer, forcing her to tilt her head back, and my legs knock against her knees.
I lean down, ghosting my lips over the shell of her ear, speaking only so she can hear.
“I own you, baby. Your body, mind, and soul.” And hopefully, one day soon, her heart.
“Now be a good girl, and let’s go, so you can tell me what the fuck is going on. ”
I step back, waiting for her next move.
What I’m sure is lust, followed by disgust, passes over her face. Okay, the lust I get… But the disgust?
What the fuck is going on?
“Take your dick”—her eyes rake over my torso, down to my jeans, and stop pointedly at my cock before lifting them back up to mine—“and your BDDE and go fuck someone who wants it.”
“BDDE?” Sten wonders, and Breaker cuffs him upside the head with a warning look.
I ignore them, my eyes only on Slade, but I’m acutely aware of every eye in the bar on us.
“I’m not doing this here, Slade. Let’s go, and you can tell me what the fuck is going on.”
“How about…” She hops off her stool and grabs the bottle of tequila that Breaker is holding. She brings the bottle to her lips and takes a long pull. She doesn’t wince as she lowers it, just glares up at me. “You go fuck yourself, Bane.”
She shoves past me, knocking her shoulder into me as she does. “Come on, Liam.” She looks over her shoulder at me, but speaks to him. “Since you’re my assigned shadow, you can stand in as my shadow daddy.”
My teeth nearly turn to dust as I clench them, glowering at Liam. “You touch her and you fucking die…slowly and painfully.”
His throat works as he swallows, his head twisting between Slade and me, unsure of what to do. “Bane… You know you can trust me, VP. I know she’s your woman.”
“Fuck that,” Slade says. Then, she turns and faces the bar, where everyone is staring and watching this interaction with rapt attention.
“Attention Club Pussy, you’ll be happy to know that Bane and his big dick are back in the whore rotation.
” She holds up the bottle of tequila and the middle finger of her free hand. “Peace be with you, bitches.”
Then she strides out of the bar area into the clubhouse, presumably up to her room. I storm after her like a hurricane blowing in.
I grip her arm and spin her toward me just as she reaches the stairs, and Liam trails close behind me.
“What the fuck, Slade?” I demand.
Her answer is to take another pull from the bottle. I can see she’s trying to repress every emotion and to feel that absolute nothingness again.
I can also see the wall she’s put up between us right now, and I know that no amount of pushing and ramming against it will make it crumble tonight.
So I concede. For now.
I grip her chin, forcing her to look at me. “You can be angry, fucking pissed, at whatever you think I’ve done, but don’t you dare revert to feeling nothing at all, Slade. No one, not even me, is worth losing all the progress you’ve made.”
I can’t help myself, and I smash my mouth down on hers. I kiss her, even though she’s pushing air through her nostrils like an enraged bull, and I’m expecting the bottle of tequila to smash over my head.
I break the kiss before her body overrides her mind with lust, because the kiss wasn’t to prove that her lust is stronger than any other emotion at the moment.
The point was to remind her that she’s mine.
“We’ll talk in the morning.”
“The fuck we will,” she snarks, but I’m pleased to see her face flushing with anger and her eyes flashing. Then she spins on her heel and stomps up the stairs.
“Go, Liam,” I order. “No one gets into her room except me, her brothers, or any of the Council.”
“You got it, VP.” He starts up the stairs, but I stop him.
“Where is Jez?”
He shrugs. “He left as soon as I arrived to take over with Slade, and I haven’t seen him since.”
“Go.”
Ash joins me as we watch Liam hurry up the stairs to catch up with Slade. “You okay, brother?”
“No.” I shove my hand through my hair. “I want whatever footage Digits has from the security cameras today.”
“I figured as much. I already gave him a heads-up.”
“Thank you.”
Ash grips my forearm. “We’ll figure out whatever this is and what happened.”
Yes, on top of every fucking other thing we need to figure out.
But at least the Cutt threat to the MC and Slade seems to have been dealt with. Small blessings and all that shit.
“I’m determined to get to the bottom of it,” I say darkly. “Because I meant what I warned everyone about, Ash—anyone who hurts her, physically, mentally, or emotionally, is dead.”
And I know without a shadow of a doubt that the person who hurt her to cause this was not me.