Chapter Nine
T rouble stared at the woman sleeping in the hospital bed.
He was angry, so fucking angry…but he was also weary. So fucking tired. Tired of thinking of her, of wanting her, of wishing he’d never pushed her away. But he’d done it for her—it had all been for her . He’d admit that how he’d pushed her away was ugly, but he couldn’t think of anything else he could do to make her leave. And she had to leave, her future wasn’t with him. If she’d stayed with him, she’d have lived a life of mediocrity, a life that was less than she deserved. With him, she’d have never reached her full potential, and Liz Simpson was a brilliant, beautiful, strong woman. She’d deserved the chance to become all that she had dreamed of being, and he would have just held her back. He’d been a war-hardened, twenty-eight-year-old asshole, who’d been raised by the king of assholes—what could he have offered a kind, sweet, smart twenty-one-year-old with her whole life ahead of her?
Nothing but disappointment.
That didn’t stop the regrets, though. Nor the rage. He was angry at himself for being such a thoughtless piece of shit ten years ago, and he was angry at her for keeping such a devastating secret from him.
Erika.
He was a father .
He had a daughter . A little girl. Half Liz, half him—but she had his eyes and his hair. It was like looking into a tiny, feminine mirror. He couldn’t say how long he stared at the pictures of her Skathi that Fae had texted him of her “sleepover” with them. Hours. He’d stared for hours, taking in every atom of her features, memorizing them, soaking them into his marrow. He’d never met her officially, but she was as much a part of him as his own heart and soul.
And Liz never planned to tell him about her. If those Russian bastards hadn’t beat the shit out of her, he never would have known about his own daughter.
Checking the time on his cell, he noticed it was only ten minutes after the last time he’d checked. How long would Liz be out? Understandably, with the head injury, the pain meds, and the exhaustion from healing, she’d probably be in and out for a few days. Could he wait a few days to ask her about Erika?
Yes. After what she went through in her own home, she needed that time to rest and heal, but that didn’t bank the bitterness and anxiety raging through him. Nor the pulsing fear.
She could have died…. He could have lost her.
And that thought made his mouth dry and his stomach twist. No, she was no longer his, but…the world without her in it was a world where he wasn’t whole.
She was yours once, asshole….
Shit. Now was not the time to think about that. About what he gave up, and how he hurt her, and—honestly—how he kept hurting her. He wasn’t a fucking idiot; he knew that every time she came around the clubhouse and he made a point of making a scene with Amelia, it was like slapping Liz in the face. And it didn’t help that Amelia felt she had the right to be a bitch to Liz just because Amelia was his regular piece at the club. She was getting clingy, thinking she was working up to owning his ass and wearing his property patch. The thought of making Amelia his ol’ lady never crossed his mind—honestly, taking an ol’ lady was about as probable as him striking oil by stubbing his toe on a rock. For years, he’d been adamant that uncomplicated fucks were all he was capable of…then he’d remember Liz. He remembered how it felt to care for someone, to care about someone. He remembered how sex with her was the most mind-bending, heart-stopping pleasure he’d ever felt—how it was lovemaking and not just rutting. He remembered how it felt to lie beside her, holding her, and watching her sleep…as he did now. He remembered…he’d had an ol’ lady, and he’d lost her. No…he’d tossed her away.
In the dark of the night, when he lay awake in his bed, thinking on life, all the bullshit that came with it, and what his future might look like, Amelia wasn’t the woman he saw on the back of his bike, wearing his patch…and his ring.
The antiseptic scent and the bad lighting disappeared around him as a memory, haunting and stark, ripped him from the present and dropped him into the past.
He sighed as the groan of the A/C compressor turning on filled the room, and the cool air it spit out drifted over his sweat slick skin. He lay in the bed, his woman beside him, naked, her skin as sweaty as his—which it usually was after a long, savage bout of fucking.
Liz Simpson. He’d met her at Tipped three months ago, and it only took him a split second to know she was different. He’d been at that bar, ready to burn the night away with booze and barflies, but then a curvy goddess with long blonde hair in a messy top knot, bright blue eyes, and an easy smile slammed into him on his way to the table. He’d grabbed her arms to steady her. She looked up at him, he looked down at her, and the world tilted on its axis. In that moment, he knew he had to have her.
Smiling down at her now, in their bed, she returned his smile with one of her own. It was sleepy, satiated.
She hummed, sliding her hand over his bare chest, making goosebumps rise in its wake.
“I love you, you know that?” she murmured.
He knew that. She’d said it for the first time a few weeks ago. It had been as surprising and terrifying then as it was now. At first, it had been difficult to believe, but then he considered all that she hadn’t said…the way she looked at him, touched him, the way she smiled at him when she saw him, how her heart shined through her eyes. He knew she’d had a hard life, a lonely one, but she’d given him nothing but the best of her, the most of everything she did and said. Liz loved him, and he saw it every day. It humbled the shit out of him.
He leaned over and nuzzled her neck, inhaling the scent of sweat and orange blossoms.
“I know, baby…” he drawled, his voice rough from their fucking. He sighed, throwing his head back onto the pillow and closing his eyes. “And I wish…I wish I could say it back….”
She sat up and pressed a soft, gentle kiss against his jaw. “Why can’t you?” she asked, a hint of uncertainty in her voice.
Shit. He hated that he put that uncertainty there. Liz was a good woman; she deserved a man who could give her everything she ever wanted…especially love.
He snorted, reaching up to palm the back of her head. “Because I don’t have a heart, darlin’.”
After all he’d done…his chest was as empty as his list of good deeds.
“Yes, you do,” she said, her voice ringing out without a drop of doubt. He shook his head, and she stopped him with a gentle hand to his cheek. She rubbed against the stubble with her thumb. Her eyes, the color of sapphires, glinted with emotions so striking, his breath caught. “Yes,” she murmured, “you do. A man like you, who has done what he has done, has seen what he has seen, has fought and won and lost…. You didn’t do all of that because it was a job. You did it because, in the deepest parts of you, your heart was in it. You couldn’t not fight—win or lose, because you were loyal and courageous. Courage and loyalty take heart, Erik.”
His chest burning with the breath still captive in his lungs, he nearly blacked out—but not from the lack of oxygen.
She saw him.
She actually saw him.
She saw through the bullshit, the anger, the fear, and the swagger. She saw through the cloak of humanity and civility that, though in tatters around him, was heavy and thick. She felt him, the real him, and…she was still there.
Still in his arms.
Still holding him, touching him, letting him hold her…touch her.
Love her?
Could he, a man of violence and death, a child of broken and ugly roots, actually know…love?
He gazed down at her…the look in her eyes, the stark and beautiful emotion of her face…and he knew.
He loved her.
But was it enough?
When he looked into his future, when he laid in the silent and judgmental dark, his mind always wondered to the “what ifs.”
What if he hadn’t lied to her and pushed her away? What if he’d stayed with her and they built a life together? What if he just loved her, supported her, letting her stay in Vegas even though her leaving the city was a better option for her future? Would he have been there for Erika’s birth? Her first steps? Her first words? Would they be married, living in a moderately sized house in Henderson, raising their children—another daughter, and two boys?
That thought, that image of a life he didn’t deserve but wanted so fucking badly, slammed into him like an Abrams tank.
The what ifs didn’t matter, because no matter what his past had made him, no matter how his asshole, bastard father shaped him, his time in the service tainted him, his years as the Savage Raiders VP had hardened him, his future had always been with Liz.
It was Liz.
It would always be Liz.
But he’d fucked that up, purposefully tearing apart the best thing that ever happened to him.
For her, so she would leave his ass in Vegas, and set up her future at Stanford.
He remembered, like it was fucking yesterday, the official-looking letter in the pile of mail. A letter welcoming her and congratulating her on her scholarship to attend Stanford University. Before that, Liz was going to attend a second-rate program at UNLV, which couldn’t have been as good as what she’d get at a school like Stanford. But she would stay in Vegas and attend a second-rate school just to be with him. Because she’d loved him. And he loved her…which was why he couldn’t let her do that. So, he did what he had to do; he broke her heart; he broke them , and she left…just as he’d planned.
Striding from the bedroom he shared with his woman, he pulled his t-shirt on over his head and headed toward the kitchen to grab his keys from the peninsula. He had some shit to do for Odin that day, including heading to the property he was looking at as a potential clubhouse for their newly formed MC. The Savage Raiders MC were newly established in Las Vegas, but even with only six members, they were making a name for themselves. Every single brother in the club was former military or had a background in ass kicking, and every single brother was as loyal and deadly as a motherfucking wolf—which was why he and Odin had designed their club brand with the wolf’s head as the focus.
“Baby, can you put on the coffee pot?” his woman called from the bedroom, her voice never failing to make his cock twitch. It was just the right amount of raspy and yet also mesmerizing. She could speak about the most mundane shit, and he’d sit enraptured. Her voice—and her tits and ass—were the first things that drew him to her. But ocne he sat down with her, talked with her, he’d known she was his. His one. With her shoulder-length wavy blonde hair, her sparkling blue eyes, her peaches and cream skin, and those lips that were made for wrapping around his cock…and kissing with abandon, she’d quickly and easily become his obsession. There wasn’t a second that he wasn’t thinking about her, and that was terrifying as fuck. A man like him, what he’d done in his life, what he’d seen, and what he’d have to do as the VP of the Savage Raiders…he wasn’t the type of man who deserved a gorgeous, intelligent, kind, compassionate, amazing woman like Elizabeth Simpson.
And with every beat of his heart, he was scared shitless that he was going to lose her.
“Yeah, babe,” he called back, remembering she’d asked him to turn on the coffee. He switched on the coffee pot, then turned to head out the door, when his kutte caught on a pile of mail on the counter, knocking it to the floor.
“Shit,” he grumbled, then crouched to pick it up. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Liz swan into the room. She was dressed for comfort, as always, which he didn’t mind. He’d prefer his woman didn’t flash what belonged to him by wearing clothes like the women in the club-owned bar did…or the women who’d been inducted into the club as the first round of clubwhores—of which he did not partake.
Reaching down, he gathered the mail—and his his gaze caught on a letterhead that made his heart jerk in his chest.
Stanford University.
Liz had been talking about going there, about their amazing medical school program. He could hear the yearning in her voice when she spoke about it, so he knew it was important to her.
But…just last night she was making calls about her classes for UNLV, like she was attending there in the fall. That didn’t make any sense.
Pulling the letter from the pile, he quickly scanned it.
….congratulations…scholarship…our medical school….
Fuck! She’d been accepted to Stanford—and she had a motherfucking scholarship! Why wasn’t she talking about classes there ? Why the fuck would she choose to go to UNLV instead of her dream school?
Then he remembered….
“I love you…” she’d said, “I can’t imagine my life without you….”
His insides wanted to crawl up his throat and become his outsides.
Shit. She was choosing to stay in Las Vegas…for him.
Fuck.
No.
He couldn’t let her do that. Going to Stanford was important to her, it was the better school, and after all the shit Liz endured in her life, she deserved a school that would help her have the career of her dreams. He refused to be the reason she stayed in Vegas, but…what the fuck could he do about it?
And then…he thought of something.
After that, his plan was set in motion, a plan that was slap-dash but necessary for getting Liz the fuck out of Vegas—because he loved her, so fucking much, and knowing she was giving up her future to stick with a hardened, blood-soaked asshole like him? He couldn’t live with himself.
So he did what he had to do, and in doing so, he carved his own heart out of his chest, and left it bloody and barely beating on the floor of the bar’s office.
“Bonnie…let’s go back to the office….”
“Be nice and loud. Tell me how much you like it….”
Bonnie hadn’t hesitated a moment—helping him fuck over Liz by being the willing slut he knew her to be.
And when it was all over, when Tosser had texted him to tell him Liz had left, he’d pushed Bonnie away, vomited into the trash can, then spent the night getting shit faced.
After that night, he deleted Liz from his contacts, deleted every picture of her in his phone, and abandoned his shit in her apartment—all to cut off that part of him that was bleeding, an open wound that still hadn’t healed nearly ten years later.
God, how was he any better than his fucking father, a man who hurt his wife, the woman he was supposed to love? He was no different—no, he didn’t use his fists as his father had, but breaking Liz the way he did had to have hurt just as much. And he knew from her expressions every time she saw him, especially with Amelia, that the wounds he’d inflicted still hadn’t closed. They were fresh, just as his were.
He’d hurt the woman he loved. Must be a Skaarsen trait—asshole men who damage their women.
He’d regretted what he’d done every fucking day of his life. He’d foolishly thought that cutting her out of his life would be easy; if she wasn’t there, he’d eventually forget about her. The wretched truth was there wasn’t a single day that passed in ten years when he didn’t think about her. She was there, rooted in at the deepest part of him. To completely cut her out, he’d have to rip the heart out of his chest and set it on fire.