Chapter Fifty-Three
Grace
A few hours earlier...
I stood frozen in place as I stared at the woman who had given birth to the man I loved, only to leave him. My feet felt as if they were encased in stone. My body flinched when Colleen stood beside me, her hand on my back.
“Is that...?”
“I think so,” I whispered, knowing the question she couldn’t ask.
Was this why the sheriff had to go back to the clubhouse? To pick up Darcy Murphy?
“How are you here?” Duncan asked against her hair as he held her close. Then suddenly, he grabbed her arms and pushed her back. “Where the fuck have you been?”
“I’ll tell you everything, but not until I’ve told my sons. They deserve at least that much.”
I snorted without thinking. Then, I bit my lip when Colleen gently pinched my waist. Darcy narrowed her eyes at me. I wasn’t starting out on the best foot with my old man’s mother.
“And you are?” she asked, looking around Duncan.
“Grace is King’s old lady,” Mac announced. I looked over at him, and he winked. “You want to be a part of your son’s life, Darce, better make nice with the missus.”
I didn’t need her to make nice with me. I didn’t need anything from her. I looked at Maureen. “I need to get back.” She nodded and looked at the sheriff, who was already shaking his head.
“Not until he comes for you, sweetheart.”
“He won’t come here. Not tonight.” I looked at Darcy again. “Not now.” I didn’t care if my words hurt her. She’d hurt King, and Jackson.
“Then he’ll send someone else. Until then, you stay put.”
I sighed wearily. Declan was right. I couldn’t leave. Not without an escort. I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
“Darcy, we’ve all missed you so much,” Maureen said.
Darcy smiled softly, but her eyes were still on me. When the baby moved, I reached over and picked him back up. I needed something to do. Something to take my focus off the woman in front of me. Something to stop me from screaming at her.
“You hurt him,” I blurted out, holding Bennett against my shoulder. I sniffed the baby’s head, and something snapped. I imagined King as a baby. A toddler, growing up believing his grandparents were his parents.
“Grace,” Duncan warned.
“No, she’s right.” Darcy moved closer to me. “I know I hurt him. But what I did was to protect him. He may never understand that, and he may never forgive me for that. But if I could go back, I wouldn’t change it.” Darcy looked over her shoulder at the sheriff. “It was the right thing to do.”
“And Jackson?” I asked. I didn’t know what had gotten into me, but I suddenly felt very protective of my old man’s brother. “Was that the right thing to do as well?”
“Yes.” That was all she said before she turned her back on me. “I should go. I need to get a room somewhere.”
“Nonsense,” Maureen said.
“Baby, we don’t have space here. One bedroom is for Bennett, and Colleen is in the other one.”
“Colleen can come to the clubhouse. She can have my room.”
Colleen inhaled beside me; I knew I was speaking for her. But I knew King. If he thought Darcy didn’t have a place to stay, he would offer her a room at the clubhouse, and I didn’t want her there. Not yet. I needed to talk to him first. I turned to look at Colleen. She nodded.
“Are you sure?” Maureen asked, her eyes moving between the two of us.
We both nodded, and Maureen smiled. “Okay then. Colleen, run upstairs and pack some things.” Maureen moved closer, and when she stood in front of me, she lowered her voice so only I heard her. “He’ll need you tonight.”
“I know. I need to go home.”
“Soon, honey.”
A loud knock on the front door startled the baby in my arms. When the sheriff opened it, King’s father stood in the doorway. I’d never met him. I’d never even seen him. But as he stood there, his face filled with confusion and anger, all I saw was King.
“Why?” he growled.
“Sal,” Duncan warned. The sheriff stepped back, as though he wouldn’t stop whatever was about to happen.
“Fuck you, Duncan. She kept my son from me,” he snarled.
“I kept my son from your father,” Darcy snapped back. Sal took a step toward her, and I passed the baby to Maureen.
“Grace,” Mac cautioned, but I ignored him as I stepped in front of King’s father.
“Hi, I’m Grace.”
Sal peeked down at me, then his eyes went lower as he noticed my cut. “You’re my son’s woman.”
“I am. And I understand why you’re angry.”
Sal scoffed as he sent daggers back toward Darcy. “My mother kept me from my father. Well, more so kept my father from me. I knew him when I was a kid, but I thought he was my uncle. He showed up tonight.” I bit my lip again. “I haven’t spoken to him. Instead, I kicked him in the balls.”
Mac barked out a laugh, and Sal snapped his gaze toward me before he took a step back.
I smiled, thinking how much he was like his son.
I looked over my shoulder at Darcy, then back to Sal.
“You can’t kick her in the balls. You can’t even touch her.
She’s his mother, and despite being pissed at her, and likely not wanting to talk to her right now, he will at some point.
And if you do anything to her, he’ll never forgive you. ”
“He won’t fucking forgive me now, and I didn’t fucking do anything wrong,” he snarled, looking at Darcy again.
“He will. It will take time, but he will. She’ll help him understand.”
“What?” Darcy gasped behind me.
I turned around and glared at the woman myself. “You owe him that. You owe them both that. They both have fathers who are desperate to have a relationship with them, and neither of them will give an inch, and that’s your fault. You need to fix it.”
“She’s right, Darcy,” the sheriff inserted.
She opened her mouth to speak but another loud knock on the door made us all freeze. The sheriff walked over and opened it to find Jingles on the other side. I smiled at him. “I knew he wouldn’t come.”
“Grace,” he began, trying to defend his president.
I shook my head. “It’s okay, Jingles, honest.” I looked back at Darcy one more time. “I knew it would be too much.” I turned back to Jingles. “Colleen is coming with us.” I pointed to her bag, then looked at Sal. “She’ll fix it. If she doesn’t, I will.”
“And what about your father?”
I shrugged. “Depends on what he has to say. But it won’t be tonight.”
“Can I hug you?” My eyes snapped up to Sal’s.
I felt the burn of tears but blinked furiously as I stared at the ceiling.
The fact that he asked me before putting his arms around me told me he knew what happened.
I nodded, and when I found myself pressed against his chest, I wrapped my arms around his waist and asked, “Can you be my dad?”
“You’re my son’s woman. I’m already your dad.” He kissed the top of my head and stepped back.
“Grace,” Darcy called.
I shook my head. “I will encourage him to talk to you. But you made your decisions, and it sounds like you’ve owned them. I won’t tell him how to feel.”
I didn’t let her answer; I hugged Maureen and said goodbye to the others before walking out the door with Jingles. He opened the passenger-side door for me. And once he and Colleen were inside with me, I blew out a long breath.
“Well, tonight has been interesting.”
Jingles threw his head back and laughed as Colleen chuckled in the backseat. “Interesting is one word for it,” he said.
“Is Uncle Stephen still at the clubhouse?”
“He is. Brandy will put him in a room for the night.”
“But he’s sitting in the main room waiting for me to come back,” I muttered as I stared out the window. I couldn’t talk to him tonight. King needed me. I needed him. So much more than I ever realized.
“I have instructions to sneak you in through the back and deliver you to his room without anyone knowing.”
“Like a dirty secret?” Colleen huffed.
Jingles opened his mouth, but I placed a hand on his arm. He stared down at it before smiling at me. I smiled back. I was getting there.
“No, everyone in the clubhouse knows we’re together. You’ll be staying in my old room. King knows I don’t want to talk to my father,” I told her as I looked over my shoulder.
“Yeah, we’re gonna need to talk about that. There is so much I don’t know,” Colleen said.
“You and me both, sister. You and me both.”
Jingles drove into the lot and pulled around back. We snuck inside, and Jingles offered to show Colleen her room while I made my way to the third floor.
I crept upstairs and stood in front of his door. I turned the knob and stepped inside. I didn’t see him at first, didn’t register the water running until it turned off. I closed the door behind me and clicked the lock.
He stepped out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped low on his hips.
Water droplets clung to his skin, and my mouth was suddenly dry.
I now fully understood the meaning of a thirst trap, because I was fucking thirsty.
I wanted to lick the water off his chest. The hum coursing through my body surprised me.
I honestly didn’t think I would ever feel aroused again.
“Hey, baby.”
“Hi.” My eyes were locked onto his chest as I absently said, “Colleen is here.”
“Why?” He moved closer—close enough to touch. All I had to do was reach out and trace the path the water took. I could follow it with my tongue, all the way down to where it disappeared beneath the towel.
“Your mo—” I stopped. “I mean, Darcy is staying at Maureen’s tonight. I offered Colleen the room I had been using. I hope that’s okay.”
“Of course that’s okay.”
When he stepped closer, crowding into my space, I reached up and let my fingertips do what my tongue wanted to. I didn’t think I was ready to be that bold, but I needed to touch him.
“I want you, King.”
“I’m right here, baby.” His hands held my hips, but he didn’t pull. He was waiting for me.
I looked up, tears filling my eyes again. “I don’t know if I can.”
“We don’t have to do anything, baby. I just want to sleep next to you. I want to hold you in my arms. Can we try that?” My eyes dipped down to focus on his lips. Lips that just a week or so ago were all over me. I nodded, but I wasn’t sure what I was agreeing to.
“Let me put something on.” He went to the dresser and pulled out a pair of boxers.
I thought he’d go into the bathroom, but instead he turned his back to me and let the towel drop.
I bit my lip, hoping to hide the whimper that escaped.
He’d done the same thing with his jeans the first time he slept in my bed.
“Go change, Grace.” He spanked my ass lightly, and I chuckled. It sounded foreign but good.
It was progress.
I wasn’t ready to undress in front of him. Most of the bruises had faded, but there were still some cuts that hadn’t fully healed. I slipped into the bathroom and stared at my reflection.
“You can do this,” I whispered to the girl in front of me.
“He’d never hurt you.” I didn’t need to tell myself that, but I needed to tell her.
I needed to tell my mother. Her voice had been constant in my head ever since the waterfall.
To the point I almost made an appointment with Haizley because I felt like I was going crazy.
Maybe I was.
Was it crazy to want him so soon? It had been less than two weeks since my assault, but King wasn’t some random man I’d gone on a date with. He was the other half of my soul. He was the only person who could make me whole again.
Still, I hesitated.
When I opened the door wearing his shirt, I saw the hunger in his eyes. When he lifted his knee, I knew it was because he thought the idea of his dick hard beneath the blanket might scare me.
And it did.
But it also called to me.
I wanted him. I wanted him to love me. I wanted him to make love to me the way he did in the shower the morning everything happened. It was the only way I’d survived that day. That memory was what kept me sane while it happened.
I loved what we did the night before, too. The way he took me without asking. The way he dominated me. But I wasn’t ready for that. I hoped someday I would, but not tonight
He lifted the blanket, and I crawled in next to him, laying my head on the hand that covered his heart. He wrapped one arm around my back and the other behind his head.
“I don’t think my mother was who she said she was,” I whispered, stalling, but also not wanting to push him about his own family dynamics.
“Reaper thinks you might be related to his mother.”
“That’s what Donna thinks too.”
“Popeye’s the only one who has the answers.”
“Popeye?” I asked, looking up at him.
“Uncle Stephen. He’s retired, but he was once the VP of the Soulless Sinners.”
“So my father was in a club; I just had the wrong club.”
“It doesn’t change a damn thing, Grace. Nothing that has happened changes the way I feel about you. Or the fact that you’re my old lady.”
“King?”
“Yeah, baby?” He looked down at me, and everything I needed to make the decision for us both was there in his eyes.
“Will you kiss me?”
“Baby, you don’t even have to ask.”