Chapter 45
FORTY-FIVE
L ivvy’s venomous voice was instantly recognizable. Sage didn’t even have to wonder how she had gotten her number. Livvy had texted her numerous times when she had worked under her at Hollingsworth.
“I’m not going to talk to you.” She pulled the phone from her ear but could still hear Livvy’s loud voice as she started to press the end key.
“You hang up on me, I’ll call your fucking sister and tell her what a fucking slut you are!” She had given her Glory’s number as her emergency contact.
Sage sat down on the bed and put the phone back to her ear. “If you use my contact number to harasses my sister, I’ll sue you for harassment.”
“I’ve lost my job, and I don’t have Kent. There is no way I’m going to let you have everything that is mine! Did you let yourself get pregnant? Is that why he married you?”
“Livvy, calm down—”
Sage jumped when the phone was taken from her.
“Livvy, if you try to contact Sage ever again, or her sister, or even come within five miles of her, I will make sure you regret it. Unless you’re willing to spend the generous severance money Garrett gave you to pay legal fees to defend yourself against embezzlement charges, I would delete Sage’s number. ”
She might be unable to hear Livvy’s response to what Creed had said, but from his reaction, he wasn’t disturbed. In fact, he seemed bored.
He ended the call before he handed the phone back to her.
Then he picked up the clothes he must have laid on the bed and headed to the door. He wasn’t even going to bother apologizing for his ex-girlfriend calling to harass her on their wedding night? Maybe it wasn’t a traditional wedding night, per se, but he could at least ask if she was okay.
“How did she know we got married?”
“I don’t know. I told several people at work yesterday. I didn’t keep it a secret. One of her friends at work could have told her. I didn’t care if she knew or not, to tell you the truth.”
Her smoldering anger at his deception regarding Livvy flamed hot again.
“What’d you do, Creed? Flip a coin?” she asked sarcastically.
“Excuse me?”
“I heard you with her! You seemed much more comfortable having sex with her than me. What made you to decide to marry me instead of Livvy if you wanted to get married so badly?”
Creed tossed his clothes back onto the bottom of the bed while moving closer to her until they stood abreast of each other. “You really want to know?”
A chill radiated down her spine at the way he looked at her.
“Yes!” she yelled at him, pushing her fear aside.
“Then I’ll tell you.” His jaw clenched. “You weren’t the first or last woman I’ve had to use when I needed something accomplished. You want to know what sex means to me? Nothing. You said Twister told you he had sons? Did he also tell you he belonged to a motorcycle club?”
“Yes.”
“I bet he didn’t tell you the part where my mother, who was pregnant with me, and my brothers were taken hostage until he managed to retake control of the club.”
“No, Twister didn’t tell me that.”
Creed gave a sarcastic snort. “I bet he didn’t.
It’s not a pretty story to tell. My mother died because they wouldn’t take her to the hospital to give birth to me.
The clubwhores took turns feeding and changing me.
Other than that, they would put me and my brothers in a back room so they wouldn’t hear me. ”
Sage sat back down on the bed, wanting to cover her ears.
“I wouldn’t have made it to my first birthday if it hadn’t been for my brothers.
Somehow, they managed to keep me alive until Twister was strong enough to take control of the club.
By then, we were used to club life. It was better with Twister as president, but it was still a hard life.
Twister didn’t have much, and he refused to sell guns and drugs like most of the clubs do to get by.
He worked his ass off to buy a home so that if we wanted a regular bed, we’d have one.
“My oldest brother joined the service. Wraith is now the president of Phantoms. I had no desire to join the service. With Wraith as the president, I was happy where I was. When I graduated, however, Wraith wouldn’t let me stay with the club, and Twister wouldn’t let me live with him. They gave me one choice—college.
“They said they wanted me to live a normal life before deciding if I wanted to live the club life. Club life was normal to me. No attachments except to the brothers who would take your back every fucking time your life depended on them. You don’t feel anything for any woman you fuck.
Emotions will get you killed in a club like the Phantoms. That was Twister’s downfall—my mother.
Twister made a nest outside of the club, and it was torn away from him.
“You think I flipped a fucking coin to choose between you and Livvy?” Creed bark of laughter was harsh.
“I didn’t need to toss a coin to figure that out.
You think I just decided to get married, and you were the chosen one?
Be real. I’ve never fucked Livvy. I made her come, let her jerk me off a few times. ”
“Shut up! I don’t want to hear what you and Livvy did!” Putting her hands over her ears, she couldn’t bear to hear the intimate details of their relationship.
Creed grasped her wrists and pulled her hands away from her ears. His body leaning over hers made her rear back until the mattress prevented her from moving any further away.
“I didn’t have any trouble walking away from her, either.
I sure as fuck don’t miss having to brush my teeth numerous times so I can get the taste of her out of my mouth.
When I started seeing you, I expected you to be the same as any other woman.
I wanted you when I saw you in Matthias’ kitchen.
I told myself all along I would be able to walk away from you …
I didn’t expect you to walk away first. You want to hear a real shocker?
I found out what that pain felt like. Let me tell you something else.
I can fucking take pain that can put another man down . ”
Creed’s piqued pride had her gaping at his loss of control. He was practically yelling at her, and he rarely ever raised his voice from his monotone level.
She watched, stunned, as he took a deep breath, and the angry glitter in his eyes returned to normal.
“With you, it was different. You swept the ground out from under me, and I’ve been digging myself out ever since.
“I love you, and I’ve never said that to any woman in my entire life. That’s the God’s honest truth. All I’m asking from you—if somewhere deep inside of you … if there is even a tiny part of you still in love with me—is to give our marriage a chance.”
She’d never expected Creed to tell her he loved her. She had no idea the Twister she had known had led such a chaotic life or been so deeply involved in the motorcycle club.
His sons . Finding out how hard their childhood must have been hurt her deeply.
She’d been able to be there for Colby and Tinsley during Glory’s illness.
No one had been there for Twister’s sons.
They had been on their own, at the mercy of others with no familial ties to the three boys.
She could only guess the terrible things the young boys had witnessed.
It could have been horrific what they had been exposed to.
Held hostage, their mother having to give birth without a medical professional, no one to hold them, give them a mother’s touch.
She had a terrible feeling those were the least horrible things they had endured.
Fathers and mothers were the ones who taught their kids values, right from wrong, who were an example on how to have normal, healthy relationships. Creed and his brother hadn’t had those. They’d had outlaws.
Her hands came up hesitantly to touch his face, as if they belonged to another person.
There was no doubt in her mind the man staring down at her was the real Creed.
This man held a hint of cruelty plainly visible in the small lines next to his piercing eyes.
Eyes that told her they’d experienced brutality and had survived.
There were also secrets hidden in their depths of the ruthless man the club had created.
The firm set of his lips gave her the biggest hint about his nature—a pitiless hardness of spirit of the man within who would rather die than break.
Her fingertips moved over the hard angles of his face with a softness meant to warm the man who had been left out in the cold for too long.
“Don’t you fucking feel sorry for me!” he snarled.
Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes.
“I can feel sad for what you had to go through without feeling pity for you. I feel sad for what Glory has had to go through, but I don’t feel pity for her.
You carry your scars on the inside; Glory carries hers on the outside.
Both of you have been hurt and have survived.
How could I feel pity for something I admire? ”
Creed’s hard expression didn’t ease. “Glory wasn’t the one who hurt you. I did.”
His forearms went to the mattress beside her to take his weight, his chest settling over hers as his mouth tentatively met hers, waiting for her reaction. One of her hands slide to the back of his head to bring his lips harder down on hers.
Tenderly, she kissed him, unable to hold back the love she felt for him.
Yes, Creed had hurt her deeply. Yet real love, not made up in a fairy tale, wasn’t easy to be extinguished because it had been stomped on.
Embers would remain underneath the surface until the final moment when there was nothing left.
And there was one ember left burning inside of her for Creed.
She could either let him tend the fire and bring it back to life or extinguish it completely.