Chapter 21
twenty-one
brENNA
I am a fucking idiot.
I have moments where I think I’m actually on top of my shit.
I kicked three grown men’s asses yesterday, right?
I must have something going for me, at least in the kicking department.
But the only thing I’m kicking this morning is myself when I wake to an empty bed and the first thought that crosses my mind is that I told Mac I loved him last night, and he turned his back on me without saying a word.
He's probably just gone for a morning run, the way he usually does. I know that, in my head. Tell that to my idiotic heart which is sniveling all over the bed. Why didn’t I just keep my mouth shut?
Just because he was there for me during a shitty day, giving me everything I needed and so much more, did I really have to break out the three little words?
“Fuck me.” I tell the ceiling. The small cracks in the white paint stare back at me and I swear they’re judging my midnight madness.
Unable to handle their verdict, I roll over and fumble my phone off the bedside table.
It’s almost nine. I’ve slept for nearly twelve hours.
I stretch and crack my neck. My body feels good: warm and light and pleasantly sated.
None of the weird soreness I felt after the fight.
The bruising on my knuckles has faded to purple and green.
When I flex my hand, there’s only a twinge.
I roll out of bed and do a couple of toe-touches to limber up.
My hip’s a little tight but after training with Kru for years, I know how to kick without aggravating my injuries.
Overall, my body feels good. It’s just my heart that’s dragging ass.
I pull on the T-shirt Mac gave me to sleep in last night, since I think his precious concert shirt was a one-off to make me feel better, and the owl-print socks I borrowed from Emily yesterday, wind my dreads up into a pair of space buns, and head downstairs.
The door to the great room is open and I can hear voices.
I take a moment before walking through to parse through the voices and compose myself.
I will not be clingy this morning, no matter fucking what. Shiny, shiny, shiny Brenna.
I plaster on a smile and march through into the kitchen. The bikers are already here, standing at the kitchen island, drinking orange juice that Logan’s probably just squeezed. He’s still torturing citrus fruit in his huge metal guillotine while Mac fries bacon and Emily works the waffle-maker.
“G’morning,” I say cheerily. “How can I help?”
Emily lifts her head and gives me her sunshiny morning grin. “Could you make coffee?”
“On it.”
The coffee machine’s on the far side of the kitchen from where Mac’s cooking the bacon and I don’t need to go near him to get there, but, because I’m an idiot, I walk over, stretch up on my toes, and give him a kiss on the cheek as I pass. “Good morning, Sir. Thanks for letting me sleep in.”
“Good morning, girl. Start the coffee and meet me in the bathroom. Rule seven.”
“Yes, Sir.”
It takes me less time to fire up the coffee machine than it does for him to finish the bacon, so I have time to get fidgety as I wait for him in the bathroom.
He’s wiping his hands when he walks in and closes the door behind him.
He takes a hand towel off the rack next to the sink and tosses it on the floor.
“Get on your knees and offer me your mouth, girl.”
His face is inscrutable. None of the softness of yesterday.
His eyes are a hot, August blue, but there’s not much warmth in them.
I can’t get a read on his mood and it makes me jittery as I get down on my knees, letting my gratitude for the towel to soften the tile show in my face, and open my mouth.
He doesn’t give me much time to lick and suck him before he’s going down my throat.
He pins my head between his hard abdomen and the sink, his hand cupping the back of my neck so I’m not whacking against the quartz countertop with each thrust. Despite that consideration, he doesn’t take it easy on me, fucking my face until the tears run down my cheeks and I’m fighting what little gag reflex I still have.
He doesn’t draw it out—this is just pure domination, although his groans tell me he’s enjoying it—and comes in my mouth in under five minutes.
He pulls out as he comes so I get a musky mouthful that stings my sinuses and have to slurp to keep it from dribbling out of the corners of my mouth.
“Hold it in your mouth and let me see,” Mac pants, shifting his hand so he’s cupping my chin. He’s held my eyes throughout the blow job and I’m still not sure what’s going on behind his. He looks almost angry.
Whatever his mood, his domination is doing it for me. I hang from his hand, a submissive puddle, my mouth open and my tongue cupped to keep his jism from spilling. He finally nods and I swallow gratefully.
“Real talk, girl.”
I swallow hard for a different reason. “Yes, Sir?”
“I heard what you said after we fucked.”
“Yes, Sir.” My stomach is in freaking free-fall. If I thought waking up alone and feeling like an idiot was bad, this is a thousand times worse.
“Do you need me to say those words?”
“I—uh.” I’d like him to. If he means them. If he feels them. Not if he doesn’t, of course. And if he doesn’t, then I need to stop saying them. “I’m guessing you don’t want to, Sir?”
I phrase it as a question. Maybe if he doesn’t feel pressured—
“No, Bren. Do you understand why?”
I thought my heart cracked over Naomi but I didn’t know how deep and wide the chasm in my heart could be.
The Marianas fucking Trench opens in my chest. I might have been a little muddled and vulnerable last night, but I meant what I said.
I haven’t told a man I loved him since Edz and at least he said it back.
I haven’t said it since. Not to Ten; not to Rob; not to a single person who has topped or fucked me.
Now I find my Sir and he doesn’t reciprocate my damn feelings? What the fuck is wrong with me?
Mac’s eyes harden even further. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” I’m on my knees with my head pressed against the sink cabinet and my mouth still full of the taste of his come and his wet dick hanging six inches from my face. What the hell does he think I’m doing?
“Don’t pull back from me. I’m not rejecting you, girl.”
He’s not? Because it sure as fuck feels like rejection. It stings and seers and rips just like every other rejection I’ve ever felt only this is deeper because I fucking let him in when I never let anyone in and this is exactly why.
“Talk to me, Bren,” he says. “Is this a big thing for you?”
Is it? Isn’t it? Isn’t it a big thing for everyone?
“Are you—are you still in love with Amy?” I force out.
“No,” he says slowly. “She killed those feelings long ago. But those words are reserved in my mind for my wife and daughter.”
A tear spills before I can blink and I dash it away with the back of my hand, which reminds me of the bruises decorating my knuckles. Idiot. I take a deep breath. Shiny, shiny, shiny Brenna. He’ll never tell me he loves me. So what?
“Okay, Sir. I understand.”
“Do you?”
I square my shoulders and when he doesn’t stop me, push up off the floor, grabbing the towel as I rise, dusting it off, and hanging it back on the rail. “I do, Sir. It’s fine.”
Mac’s eyes narrow. “Nothing any woman’s called fine actually was.”
“This is,” I say firmly. “I hope me saying it last night didn’t freak you out.”
“No, girl. I wasn’t freaked out.” But the slight wildness in his eyes says he was, and I feel the trench in my heart open a little wider.
“Yesterday was a lot to handle, Bren,” he says as he tucks his cock back into his sweatpants.
He didn’t even undress for his blow job, just pulled his pants down enough to get his cock out.
At any other time, that would add to the shivery excitement of being treated like his fuck-hole, but this morning it just makes me sad.
Sadder.
“It was, Sir,” I agree. “But that’s not why I said it. I do feel that way about you. I won’t say the words if they make you uncomfortable, but I’m not ashamed of what I feel.”
“Girl.” He shakes his head and reaches for me. I put my arms around him but it feels stiff and awkward. “I’ve gone about this wrong. I wasn’t trying to make you feel ashamed. Those words are special. They shouldn’t be said lightly or without commitment.”
I didn’t say them lightly. Or without commitment. But I’ve seriously had enough of this conversation.
“Yes, Sir. I understand.”
“I don’t think you do.”
I understand enough. I understand that I’ve idiotically thrown my heart at another man who doesn’t—or doesn’t want to—love me back.
“No, I get it. Those words are reserved for marriage for you. I know how seriously you took your vows, Sir. I admire you for that. I’m not trying to compare my feelings with what you felt for your wife.
Maybe those are the wrong words.” I certainly won’t be saying them to him again. “I’ll try to find better ones.”
Mac shakes his head, but he doesn’t say anything more. When I pull away, he lets me go.
He stays in the bathroom for a moment to wash his hands and when he joins everyone at the table, I could swear his eyes are red and look wounded. What does he have to be wounded about? I’m the one who just got her heart kicked back between her freaking teeth.
But I’m shiny, shiny, shiny. I pass the waffles and the bacon and make another pot of coffee after the first one runs out.
I laugh at everyone’s jokes and make a few of my own.
I assume an appropriately serious expression when we recap—again—what happened yesterday.
Napa tells us he’s gotten through to the Imperial Wizard of the Fairskin Knights via whatever mysterious means bikers have.
Although he also told Napa to fuck off several times, the Wizard swore any action against me or Missing Ink was not Knight business.