Chapter 15 #3
He sighs, his breath warm against my neck. “It means I don't know what the fuck this is, but it's not just sex.” His arm tightens around my waist, pulling me closer. “I don't let women stay over, Cece. I definitely don't let them move in.”
I turn toward him, searching his face. A shielded look has taken hold there, a quiet caution that hints he’s deciding what pieces of himself to show me.
“I've never been good with words,” he admits, his thumb absently stroking my hip. “And I'm not gonna promise shit I can't deliver. But...” He pauses, his jaw tightening. “This feels different. You feel different.”
I hold my breath.
“I'm not looking to complicate your life more than it already is,” he continues. “But I am a selfish bastard who can’t bring himself to let you walk away either.”
I swallow hard, his words settling into my chest. Different. I feel different with him too.
“My father said things about you,” I whisper, my fingers tracing the edge of a tattoo on his chest. “About your past.”
His body tenses slightly beneath my touch, but he doesn't pull away. “I figured he would.”
“He mentioned an arrest. For assault.” I force myself to look up, meeting his gaze. “Said you put someone in the hospital.”
Brayden’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t look away. “That’s true. Guy was roughing up his girlfriend outside a bar. Wouldn’t stop when I told him to. So I made him stop.” His voice is calm, unapologetic. “Broke his jaw and three ribs.”
I should be shocked. Horrified. But instead, I nod slowly. “Would you do it again?”
“In a heartbeat.” His stare is steady, unwavering. “I don’t regret it. Never will.”
I absorb this, trying to reconcile the violence with the man whose arms are cradling me so carefully. “What else should I know?”
A humorless smile tugs at his lips. “You asking for my rap sheet, princess?”
“That depends,” I say, tracing a pattern on his chest. “Are there a lot of pages to go through?”
He chuckles, but there's no humor in it. “More than you'd think, less than your dad probably implied.”
I push myself up on one elbow to look at him properly. His expression is guarded, but not shut down. It carries the sense of a man offering me an exit if I want it—one last chance to step back before I wade deeper into his world.
“I don’t need your entire history,” I tell him. “Just the important pieces. What I should know if I’m going to be here.”
He studies me for a long moment, trying to decide whether I’m steady enough to hear what he’s kept buried. At last, he exhales—a slow, resigned breath.
“I've done time. Twice. Once when I was nineteen—possession with intent to distribute. Did fourteen months in county. Second time was for the assault I just told you about. Got six months but served four.”
My stomach tightens, but I force myself to nod. “Drugs?”
“Not anymore.” His answer is immediate, firm. “Haven't touched that shit in years. The club doesn't deal either. Not since Big took over as president.”
I absorb this information, trying to reconcile it with the man holding me. “What about now? What do you do?”
“Officially?” His lips quirk up. “I'm a mechanic. Co-own the garage with Domino.”
“And unofficially?”
“Even with my colors on your back, princess, there’s only so much I can tell you about the club’s business.”
His reluctance makes me wonder what exactly the Heaven's Rejects do that he can't talk about. A hundred possibilities run through my mind.
“Can you at least tell me if it's...legal?”
“Some of it is. Some of it exists in gray areas.”
“Gray areas,” I repeat.
“Look,” he says, shifting to face me more directly. “The club protects its own. We handle problems that the law can't or won't. Sometimes that means operating outside the lines.” His hand finds mine, thumb tracing circles on my palm. “But I'm not going to lie to you. We're not choirboys.”
I almost laugh at the understatement. “I figured that much out on my own.”
“Does it scare you?” he asks, studying my face with an intensity that makes me shiver.
“A little,” I admit, because there's no point in pretending. “But I'm more scared of going back to being who I was before.”
He nods slowly, as though he understands every part of what I’m not saying. “Sometimes the devil you don’t know is still the safer option.”
“Are you calling yourself the devil?” I smile, trying to lighten the mood.
His answering smile is sharp enough to cut, “Your devil.”
“Can you show me?”
“Show you what?” His fingers pause their lazy exploration of my skin.
“Your world.” I sit up straighter, pulling the throw blanket from the back of the couch to wrap around myself. “The club. The parts of your life you can share.”
His expression shifts, wariness replacing the relaxed intimacy of moments before. “Why?”
“Because it's part of who you are.” I reach out to trace the outline of the raven tattooed on his shoulder. “I don't want to be kept in some separate box, away from everything that matters to you.”
“The club isn't a tourist attraction, princess. It's not something you visit like a petting zoo.”
“I'm not asking to pet anything. I'm asking to understand the man I'm...” I hesitate, not sure how to finish that sentence. Sleeping with? Living with? Falling for?
Brayden watches me struggle, clearly entertained by every second I spend trying to articulate my feelings for him. Bastard. “The man… you’re what?”
“The man I'm choosing,” I finally say, because it's the truest thing I can offer right now.
Brayden studies me for a long time, unreadable, as though he’s weighing whether I truly mean every word. The silence stretches until I start to think he’s going to shut the whole idea down.
Then he nods once—slow, deliberate. “I need to check in at the clubhouse anyway. Might be a good change of scenery for you.”
A flicker of warmth stirs in my chest. “So you’ll take me?”
He exhales through his nose, the sound carrying a hint of resignation. “Yeah. I’ll take you.”
Some part of me already knows I’ve just agreed to far more than a ride.