Chapter 14
SIENNA
I woke up and I was happy. Excited even to begin the new day. I don’t remember the last time I woke up feeling that way. Or felt that way at any point during the day or night.
And the source of that happiness is sleeping beside me, still fully dressed like he’s about to wake up and leave.
I don’t like the thought of that. At all. It makes my stomach twist and knot the way it used to for months, years even, after he disappeared from my life.
I won’t let him disappear again now. Even though I fear he might be planning to.
I’m just about to lean down to wake him with a kiss when his eyes shoot open. Bright blue like the cloudless summer sky and as pure as glacier ice.
“Good, you’re awake,” I say. “I could murder a cup of coffee. And a croissant. A chocolate one.”
His eyes glaze over. Maybe murder was the wrong word to use, which is why I added all that about a croissant.
“I don’t think they have any of that here,” he says in a groggy voice.
“I also think we should find somewhere nicer to stay,” I say. “We’ll get some breakfast and then I’ll go pack my things and get my wallet from my house, and we can find a nice hotel.”
Again with that glazed look in his eyes. It’s like the drab grey clouds gathering, bringing nothing but rain for days. I hate those clouds.
“I’ll take you to get your things, but afterwards—”
“Great, let’s go,” I say and leap off the bed, looking around for my dress and shoes.
I don’t want him to say that afterwards he’ll just leave me there. I don’t want to hear that. So I just won’t let him say it and that will be that.
He’s watching me as I dress, that ice in his eyes maybe a little softer than it was a second ago. But he looks away as soon as I lock eyes with him. Then he rises slowly as though every bone in his body aches.
“Will that husband of yours be home when we get there?” he asks, gazing out the window at the cloudy grey sky. His eyes are full of clouds too. The dark kind that promises thunder and lightning.
“Probably not,” I say. “He usually works all day.”
That’s the one stroke of luck in this life—that my abusive husband is also a workaholic. How sad is that?
“Pity,” Zane says and stands all the way up. “I wouldn’t mind having another chat with him.”
I freeze in the act of putting on my shoe. Bent double I look up at him, wondering if he’s saying what I think he’s saying—that he’s ready and willing to kill for me again, kill someone who’s been hurting me. I’m also wondering just how wrong it is that the idea excites me.
He turns away and starts stuffing his belongings into the saddlebags before I can decipher any kind of answer from his eyes.
A few minutes later we’re walking out of the room, down a dark corridor and across the silent barroom. The only people left in there are either sleeping, passed out, or dead. Given how noisy everything was last night, the quiet is eerie and surreal.
The parking lot outside is packed with bikes, which makes the silence inside even more eerie. But once we leave this place behind, I’ll never have to think of it again, so that makes it all right.
“Leaving already?” a man asks from behind our backs somewhere, startling me so hard I stumble.
“None of your business, Poison,” Zane mumbles while attaching the saddlebags to his bike. “How many times do I gotta remind you of that?”
Poison laughs and comes over, checking me out in much the same way he did last night when we arrived here. But stops as soon as Zane looks at him.
“What?” Zane barks.
“You did me a solid a few times back in the day, so I just wanted to let you know that we, the Forsaken Outlaws MC, that is, finally found a place to call home. Out in the desert, far away from anything and especially anyone hunting us. You’re welcome to swing by.”
“Yeah? I doubt that,” Zane says.
Poison shrugs. “Not interested? Fine by me.”
He gives me one last lust-filled gaze as he walks away, though on the whole he sounded offended, I’d say.
Zane doesn’t seem to care one way or another as he hands me his jacket.
“You don’t make friends easily, do you?” I ask as Zane climbs on his bike. “You used to.”
“No one’s your friend when you’re alone and on the run,” he says harshly. “I learned that the hard way once or twice. Whatever Poison and his buddies want, they’re not getting it from me. Climb on.”
I give him the address of my former home as do. But I don’t say what’s really on my mind. That the existence he described is possibly the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. I’ve pried enough. He’s not ready for more.
But I mean to change that sad, lonely existence for him. I just have to make him let me stay first.