35. Rae
35
RAE
My back collides with the wall beside my bedroom door, Tyke’s fingers combing through my hair to push it free of my face, my legs wrapped tight around his waist.
“Fuck that asshole, baby girl. Don’t care if he’s my blood. Seein’ him touch you like that…”
"I'm okay." I lean in and gently kiss his bearded jaw. "Just breathe, Tyke."
He sighs, forehead falling to my shoulder. “It’s been a day, Rae.”
“That it has.” I knead the knots in his shoulders, fingers massaging their way up to the strong column of his neck. “But we’re alive. And we’re okay.”
The mantra I tell myself every goddamn month when the anxiety and fear grip me by the throat.
"What's Digger going to do?" He left the room when Tyke helped me to my feet, exchanging a look with his brother that spoke volumes to the Reaper president but was undecipherable to me.
Other than the definite promise of violence.
“Nothin’ you need to worry about.”
I turn my head and glance at the wall to my right. A handful of rooms separate us from Tyke’s son. Mere feet between us and Kane’s penance with his uncle.
I’m tired of being the reason families fight. Tired of being the thorn in everyone’s side.
“Hey.” Firm fingers find my jaw, and I allow Tyke to turn my face back to his. He searches my gaze with thinly veiled concern. “Don’t go there.”
“Where?”
"Wherever you were just now, that wasn't with me." He nods slightly, peering at me from under a stern brow. "Eyes on me, yeah?"
“Okay.” I lift my hand and trace the firm lines of his face: along his cheekbone, down his jaw, across his brow.
His eyes hood, a sigh sweeping between us as he relaxes at my touch.
“You’re amazing,” I whisper. “You know that?”
He drops a huffed laugh. “Hardly.”
“You don’t believe it?” I press my head hard against the wall to read him better. “Tyke…”
"We can talk about it later." I'm swept from the restriction at my back as he turns us and heads for the bed. "Right now? I need to feel you, baby girl." He bends, abs tight, as he lowers me to the mattress. "I need to know that this is real. That you're here and you're all in one piece." Tyke leans over me; one strong arm braced beside my head. "That you're still with me."
I take a moment to drink him in, in all his rugged masculine glory, before I whisper, "I'm still with you, Tyke."
Not many other places I’d rather be.
His mouth curls, a boyish grin tickling his lips before he drops his head and steals my mouth in a punishing kiss. His contact is borderline brutal, as though he needs to fucking devour me to convince himself that they didn’t win.
That I’m here—in his club, in his arms, and not planning to run.
Hands against his head, I thread my fingers through his dark locks and hold him to me as I push into the connection.
It floors me, realizing I don’t want to go anywhere. After all the shit that's gone down the past twenty-four hours, none of it swayed me. I had my doubts. I allowed my fear to take stock of the situation and plant its spiny needles into my brain, but fuck it all; I came out the other side surer of one thing than I’ve ever been in my goddamn life.
That I’m loved. Truly loved.
As I am and as all I will ever be.
I urge Tyke back, tip his head, and press my forehead to his. "I need you to know something before we do this."
“Tell me.” The words are growled low in his throat.
My goddamn twitching pussy takes notice. “I’m so grateful you said you’d help me that day. That you took me in and gave me a chance here.”
He pulls away, rising off the bed and standing at my bent legs. I raise myself on my elbows to see him better, confused as to why he took offense to what I said.
“Shit, Rae.” Hand scrubbing over his head, he paces away and then back to me before confessing, “You do understand why I let you in here, right?”
I frown. “Because of Terry.”
“Because of what you could do to him,” he stresses. “Because of what you can do.” Tyke laughs. “I ain’t a good man, Rae. Don’t confuse me with one. I know I promise to keep you safe, but shit, I can’t promise that I won’t ever hurt you with the things I do.”
“You won’t ever do it intentionally.”
His gaze drops to the floor, one eyebrow cocked. “You sure about that?”
Fuck him. “No you don’t.” I shove myself to the edge of the bed and rise to my feet. “You shut up. You hear me?” My fist collects his shoulder. “You don’t get to do that, Tyke.”
“Do what?” He sets one foot back to brace himself yet doesn’t give an inch; his brow tugged tight.
“Make yourself out to be the devil.” I shunt him in the same spot with the flat of my hand. “You don’t get to manipulate me into believing what I feel is a lie. You can’t tell me how I feel about you."
His hand captures my wrist, pulling it high to force me close to him.
Our chests collide, his other arm snaking around my lower back to keep me in place. “And how do you feel about me, Rae?”
“I already told you.” My bravado crumbles under his dominance.
He leans in and whispers against my ear. “Say it again.”
My breath is loud, sawed into too-tight lungs as I do the math on why the fuck I struggle just to say it. Because it makes you vulnerable. The truth screams loud, pointing to the obvious answer.
I am scared to be hurt again. To be let down, left behind, and forgotten.
I'm worried that leaning into what I know—that I love this man before me—means the good thing has already happened. That the inevitable bad thing will follow.
“You gotta say it, Rae.” His head brushes the side of mine. “You can’t truly believe it if you can’t say it.”
I close my eyes, visualize that fucking cliff, and take a step into the abyss of my emotions, the fear as real as though I genuinely were falling, given how my heart races. "I love you." Three words said without urgency in the privacy of a room with just me and the man to whom it applies. The fear recedes. "I love you, and it hurts me how much I do. What's worse is it confuses me how quickly I fell for you," I explain, running with the thoughts as they come. "You fucking barreled into my heart with such intensity," I stress, "that it scares me to know I could lose you so easily. And through no fault of my own. It scares me to think I wouldn't be strong enough to survive that, to survive without you."
"But you would." He cups my head, fingers knitted in my hair as he kisses my temple, pulling me back from the edge of hysteria. “Can’t you see it? You already are strong enough, and if anything did happen to me?” He sighs. “I feel right knowing Digger is there for you too.”
“But what if?—“
He shushes me, fingertips to my mouth. "What if nothin', baby girl. Learned pretty quick growing up in this life that you can't dwell on the future. It'll come whether you want it to or not. All you gotta do is make the most of what you have now." He hitches me against him again. "And right now, I got you."
"I love you." I say it again as I cup his neck, thumbs beneath his jaw. I say it again to prove to myself that I can. That it's not as scary as I make it out to be.
I say it because this man before me? He deserves to hear it.
Most of all, he deserves to hear it from me.