Chapter Three
Edge
“Had it coming,” I mouth, as soon as Harley perches on the edge of the couch I collapsed onto the second she helped me from the car to the house.
“No.” She shakes her head, her eyes wild, rage and sorrow rolling off her with every move she makes. “You didn’t.”
“I did.”
She has a wet cloth in her hand and a bowl of warm water that she’s filled up in the kitchen.
She knows her way around this house better than I do.
I never brought her here alone. Ever. Figured the temptation would be too great for both of us and I always wanted to treat her with respect.
I never wanted to do anything to hurt her.
I would have moved heaven and hell to keep her from falling in love with an asshole like me, but I couldn’t protect her from her own heart, just like I couldn’t stop mine from beating for her.
She dips the washcloth into the water and wrings it out.
Suds trickle between her knuckles, her soft, perfect, slender hands.
Hands that I want touching me more than I’ve ever wanted anything, wanted it like an ache, a sickness, straight down to the marrow of my bones, but not like this. I never wanted her to have to see this.
To take care of me like I’m a fucking child.
To clean up the mess I’ve fucking created.
But I know she’s not leaving. I can’t do or say anything to drive her away and I don’t have the strength to force her to leave. If I kicked her out of the house, I know she’d sit on the porch fuming for a few hours then probably just break a window to get back in.
It’s pretty much a metaphor for how we’ve been for the past few months since we realized we both felt the same way.
I’ve treated her like she’s made of glass.
Like she could shatter, or rather, like I could shatter her.
I’ve been so careful. Never done anything more than kiss her, because she’s my world and if I’m going to hell, I’m going to pave that way with gentle words, with nights spent watching the stars, with just being beside her, craving her to the point of breaking, but always keeping myself apart.
She dabs at my face with the washcloth, cleaning away the dried blood. Probably the fresh shit too. I fucking leaked blood all over her car, stained those ugly cloth seats, making them even uglier. I want to kick my own ass for doing this to her.
“Fuck, Harley,” I breathe. I wait until she’s looking at me before I continue.
“I don’t know what I was thinking. I saw you in that parking lot as soon as you drove up and I dragged you off to those trees because I couldn’t not kiss you.
I should have stopped. Should have been more careful. None of this should have happened.”
Her lips purse, but she says nothing. Her hair is ruined, the long tendrils escaping the pins and trailing down her back.
Her makeup is even worse, dark streaks stained on her golden cheeks from her tears smudging her mascara and eyeliner.
Her lips tremble, plush, full lips that I bruised with my kiss, my teeth, my tongue.
Fuck. Didn’t know it was possible to feel like I just got run over with a literal fucking truck and still pop a boner. My cock throbs, so swollen and hard that the head presses against the underside of my jeans, the fucking zipper bruising me right through the barrier of my boxers.
Since Harley’s straddling my lap as far as her dress will allow, I check to see if she feels it and let out a sigh of relief when I realize her legs are planted firmly on the couch and she’s leaning up too far.
Harley wrings out the cloth, the water turning a sickening shade of red. Her eyes flick back to my face. “I wanted to think that if we waited until I graduated and came back to Helena he might see sense.”
“I hoped he’d stopped seeing you as his little girl.”
Harley snorts. “Yeah, that’s not gonna fucking happen.”
Somehow, even though she was raised around a band of tough as fuck men, brutes who have a heart of gold but still get drunk and fuck and swear, she rarely ever uses bad language, so I know how upset she is, even though she’s trying to play it down at the moment.
Her face is a mixture of tenderness, anger, and a fierce protectiveness that bruises my heart and makes my chest clench up tight.
She’s not some fragile princess that I have to handle with care, though I’ll always treat her that way, because she’s my whole fucking world.
Harley’s tough. Tougher than anyone I’ve ever met, man or woman.
She’s a different kind of touch. She’s physically strong, always did track at school, since it was more of an independent sport that she didn’t have to worry about hearing for.
She’s a good runner. Fast as hell. I’ve seen her work on her car with Steel.
When she was working at the shop over the summer, she insisted that we show her how to do stuff, even though her job was supposed to be helping out with the admin.
But it’s more than just physical strength, she’s mentally tough as well.
She’s grown up all her life not being able to hear.
She’s lived silently in a world made for sound.
She’s the daughter of a biker too, so it was never easy for her at school.
She used to get bullied, even well into her teens, but when she was fifteen, she just stopped caring.
Stopped coming home crying. She learned how to hold her own, and other kids were impressed and attracted to that, and after it, she had a hell of a lot of friends.
She’s always had the old ladies, but having Leah around really helped.
Harley never had a real sister, and I’ve watched them, watched Leah love Harley in ways that I can’t, both because I couldn’t let myself get close enough and because she’s a female, and it’s swelled my heart up with so much love that I thought there were times it would burst and fucking kill me.
Harley rinses the cloth out again. Her eyes flick up to me, and she takes everything in, and I know that I don’t look real fucking pretty at the moment. She doesn’t wince when she looks at me. “You should have fought back.” Her eyes are glistening with unshed tears.
“No. I wronged your father. He has the right to use violence against me as retribution so long as he doesn’t kill me. Club code.”
“That’s a fucked up rule.”
“With a bunch of men prone to violence, sweetheart, it might sound fucked up, but it’s surprisingly effective.”
Her forehead scrunches up into a frown. My eyes drop down to her dress, a simple, tight fitting black number that hugs her curves gently, dips down low between the valley of her perky breasts, but not low enough to be indecent.
It’s open in the back, with a trail of beads and lace leading from her ass to the ground.
It’s the prettiest dress I’ve ever seen.
A man like me doesn’t give a shit about dresses, but I cared about this one, because it was Harley’s.
She and Leah picked it out. She was so excited for me to see her in it.
Now it’s ruined, stained with dirt and blood, torn at the hem where she stepped on it.
“I’d kick my own ass all over again for being responsible for your dress being ruined.”
She doesn’t even blink as she goes back to mopping me up, so careful and gentle that it makes me, a grown fucking man, want to get choked up.
“I don’t care about the dress. I care about you.”
“And your dad and Leah.” I sigh hard, my shoulders lifting up. It fucking hurts my face just doing it, but I don’t care.
“Yes. Of course.” She dabs at the cut on my cheek.
I looked at myself in the rear view mirror of her car on the drive here, and god, it’s astounding how much damage a fist can do, even without rings on, since Steel wears them on his left hand—a small mercy.
“This is a fucking mess. All of it.” I reach up and grip her wrist. “Never should have done any of this with you. You should have found someone your own age at college.” Just saying the words makes me want to die from the pain that they cause, panic and rage, sorrow and fear sweeping through me at the thought of losing her.
Harley pulls back and looks at me. “Shut the fuck up.” She enunciates every single word, so that it comes out loud and crisp and clear.
I try to smile, but when I do, it cracks my lip open again and I groan.
I go to reach up to wipe the fresh trickle away, but Harley drops the cloth.
Her hands shoot out to my wrist, stilling me as her warm fingers wrap around it.
She leans in, her hair fluttering around her shoulders like a dark halo, my beautiful dark angel.
A fallen angel, since she’s come to hell to try and save me.
Her breath is warm on my lips, a whisper and a promise and like every day before this one, she slays me. Her tongue trails along my bottom lip, licking over the wound, lapping up the blood dribbling from the split.
It stings, but that pain, all the pain, mingles with the roar of desire that hammers through me, lethal and deadly.
The force of it plows me over and it’s all I can do to contain a caveman yell, grip Harley by her slender hips, and slam her down against my cock, which is struggling to punch a hole in my jeans.
I want her to ride me. Dry hump the fuck out of me until that dress is split right down the sides from it, until her panties are fucking soaked with her cream, until I’m shooting my load in my jeans like a horny fucking teenager.
“Harley,” I warn, the word torn from my throat, guttural and achy, when she pulls back. I know that she can’t hear me, but her eyes darken when they meet mine—at least the one that isn’t swollen shut.
Her eyes rake over my face as her hand cups my cheek, the undamaged side.
Her touch heals the wounds ripping at my insides.
I watch as those beautiful gray irises tear up, the moisture leaking out of the corners when she blinks to run down her cheeks, past the salt-stained mascara streaks from before.
“I love Leah and my dad,” she whispers, the sound all wrong past her raw throat.
“I love them, but I’m an adult. I’m twenty-one, for fuck’s sake.
My dad can be angry if he wants. It’s not going to change anything.
My life is with you. We waited so long for this.
Don’t let him take it from us. We knew he’d be pissed.
I thought I could talk him down, but there’s still time.
I’m going over there in the morning and I’ll figure this out. ”
“Not alone you aren’t.”
She smiles at my possessive tone, even though she can’t hear it. “I definitely am going alone. Unless you want a repeat of what just happened.” Her hand caresses my cheek. “You still have the good side of your face. Don’t ask for that to be fucked up too. You don’t need matching black eyes.”
Her lips curl in a hint of a smile, and I’m amazed that she can still smile at all.
My hands curl around her waist. “I want you in my bed, Harley, but not like this. Not with bad blood still flowing and looking like I was just put through a fucking meat grinder. Don’t want that to be your memory of our first time.”
“Shhh,” she whispers as her fingers trail, whisper light, over my lips.
“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. Ever.
I’ll lay beside you tonight, because we’ve waited so long for this, I feel like I’ve waited my whole life, and I know it’s important to you that it’s done right.
So we’ll go to your bedroom, and I’ll pretend I’m not fucking amazed by it, because I’ve never been in there.
I’ll get out of this stupid dress, and I’ll put on one of your t-shirts and we’ll go to bed lying side by side, because that’s how it’s always going to be.
It’s official now, Edge. You’re stuck with me. ”
“Fuck,” I groan as she leans in to rest her forehead against mine. Somehow what we’re doing now, fully clothed, is more intimate than any of the kisses I’ve ever stolen from her, than anything I imagined doing to her.
She manages to slide off my lap and when she offers a hand, I take it.
She waits for me to pull my ass off the couch and follow her.
Follow I do, because I might be nearly as fucking big as Steel, nearly as scary, the VP of the club, a man other men respect, a man some fear, a man entrenched in this life through the spilling of blood, but this woman will always have the power to bring me to my fucking knees.
I know that this night is going to be torture, and not just because of that beating Steel handed out. Tonight I’ll lie beside her this one last time and not touch her.
Tomorrow though…
Tomorrow, I’ll claim her, mark her, bend her to my will, love her fucking good and proper until she’s screaming my name, shaking and trembling, her cum running down my fingers, her legs, coating my lips and my cock.
Tomorrow can’t come soon enough.