Forty-Six
Linc
Cursing, I sat up after opening my eyes and staring at the ceiling for a few minutes. My hand went to my rib, and I winced.
“Fucker had better be dead,” I snarled.
“Afraid not,” Luther drawled.
My head snapped up, and I glared at the bastard standing in the doorway of the room Burl had left me in after giving me enough pain meds to knock me out for hours.
“Then, I will finish the job,” I threatened.
He’d cracked a damn rib. I’d had too much to drink and actually let the motherfucker crack a rib.
Luther smirked at me. “You’ll try.”
“I’ll be sober next time. But you’re gonna pay for my rib.”
He pulled up his shirt to show me his wrap, which was identical to mine. “You already did. It was an even fight. Except you cracked one of my molars. Thanks for that. I fucking hate going to the dentist.”
A hiss came from between my teeth as I stood up. He sure as hell didn’t look like he was in the same shape I was, but Luther rarely showed any signs of pain. It was part of his sadistic DNA. His father had been the same way.
“What do you want?” I snapped.
I didn’t want to have to look at his face first thing after waking up from a drunk brawl with him.
“Eh, cure hunger, to be fifteen years younger, Margot Robbie and Megan Fox in a threesome—you know, the basics.”
I held in my groan as pain shot through my ribs when I straightened.
“Doc left pain meds.” He nodded his head toward the counter to the left of him.
My eyes swung to see a cup of water and two large pills. Thank fuck. I went over to them and swallowed both, then finished off the water before tossing the paper cup into the trash can. Luther was still standing there.
“Would you get out of my face?”
Jesus, he could annoy the fuck out of a person.
“I could, yeah. But I think there is something you need to know,” he said, then leaned his shoulder against the doorframe.
“Then, tell me and get the fuck away from me.”
“First, answer me truthfully,” he replied, as if this were a goddamn game. “You attacked me last night because?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. Was he serious? Yes, I had been drinking. But he pushed me. Said shit he knew would set me off. I’d felt exposed and raw from the look on Branwen’s face when she fled. Fuck, I reached up and rubbed my chest with my fist. That was even harder to think about sober.
“You know why,” I replied. The anger in my tone was directed more at me this morning though. I’d fucked up.
As much as I had planned on hurting her in the beginning, that idea no longer appealed to me. In fact, it was making my chest hurt far worse than my rib.
“Is it because you want her, or that you have feelings for her that go deeper than your cock, or that she’s your baby momma and that makes you feel possessive?”
I said nothing. It was all three, but I’d be damned if I admitted that to him.
He nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
He winced as he shifted his stance. I was glad to finally see some pain on his face.
“Seems, five years ago, you were having a threesome here, and someone buzzed at the gate. It was a woman. She was here to see you. I figured it was one of your usuals who was hard to shake once you fucked them a couple of times. I gave her details on what you were currently involved in at the moment and told her when you needed another cunt, you’d give her a call. I vaguely remember it.”
I stared at him, waiting for him to get to the point.
“Anyway, it wasn’t one of your flings. Well, I guess, technically, it was, but she hadn’t come here to fuck. She’d come here…” He paused, and a flash of regret crossed his expression. It was so out of place on him that I almost questioned it. “To tell you that she was pregnant.”
That last sentence replayed in my head over and over again. Then, what he had told me all began to click together and sink in. For a moment, I didn’t think my heart was beating. I didn’t inhale a breath. I stood, unable to speak or move.
She’d come here. She had found me and come to tell me. Even though I’d left her the note and the pill. She would have planned on admitting her identity. Knowing that I’d question how she had known my name. How she had found me.
I sucked in a breath when my lungs began to burn, and my eyes bored into Luther’s. “How do you know?”
If he’d known all this time, I was going to go get my Glock and end his life. Blaise could string me up if he wanted to, but I wouldn’t be able to forgive that.
“Recently. The night we drank wine and played darts. She’d said it as if it wasn’t important. As if you wouldn’t care either way. I realized she had no idea that was the only thing holding you back from going caveman and laying claim on her ass. More than just sexually, of course.”
Remorse, regret, guilt. Fuck, I didn’t know what this was slamming into me with such brutal force that I would be bent over with my hands on my knees, gasping, if my broken rib wasn’t in the way. Turning, I gripped the counter and held on tightly. Rage pounded through me, and if I could pick up the goddamn table and hurl it at the wall, I would.
“Yeah,” Luther drawled. “That’s the reaction I expected. So, I’m gonna go on upstairs now.” His words were muffled by the thudding in my head—or was that my heartbeat? I wasn’t sure.
She had come to me.
Those five words repeated over and over in my head until they chiseled their way into the wall I kept around me. Then, I felt it. The first crack. The one that would lead to the crumble. The wall that protected me from feeling anything that made me weak. Anything that had the power to hurt me. The wall I had constructed years ago. The one that had eventually sent my ex-wife away.
It was in danger of being brought down for the first time since I’d firmly put it in place.