Chapter Twenty-Five
Raff
I was crossing the street to head back to the clubhouse, trying to convince myself to let her have her space, that pushing was only going to backfire, when I stopped, glanced over at the motel, and sighed.
“Fuck it.”
Then I started in that direction, deciding I’d given her enough space.
I was done wondering, done hoping for the best. We were going to hash this shit out once and for all.
And she was going to feel whatever way she wanted, make whatever choices she thought were best for her.
And I was just going to have to fucking accept that.
Case closed. No more ambiguity. No more uncertainty. No more crushing sensation in my chest.
There was something close to anger inside me as I rounded the back of the motel, knowing guests were notorious for taping down the door catch so it never locked like it was supposed to.
But all that anger evaporated the second I focused on the scene in front of me.
Lula on her hands and knees on the pavement with Drake behind her, suffocating her.
Then I watched in horror as Lula deliberately pulled up her arms and fell face-forward toward the ground.
I reached for my gun without thinking about the noise, about how many people might be inside the motel, about how close everything was in this main part of town to the police station.
All I cared about was getting that motherfucker off of Lula.
So I pulled the safety, aimed, and put an entire lifetime of target practice to good use.
After that, things moved fast until I had Lula safely nestled in Slash’s car and was driving carefully toward the clubhouse, not wanting to catch the attention of any cops who might be around.
Sure, we had some of them in our pockets. But it was a small force. And there were a frustrating number of them who had actual morals.
Lula was silent the whole ride and the walk up to the door of the clubhouse.
“Come on, baby. Sit on the couch and I’ll get the first aid kit.”
“Can we… can we go to your room?” she asked, sniffling.
“Of course,” I agreed, leading her to the freight elevator then down the hallway to my room.
My room was pretty bare bones. I didn’t spend enough time in it most of the time to really worry about having it fully decorated.
That said, it had good bones. The brick with the window straight ahead, the dark wood floors, the exposed ducts in the ceiling.
Add in the dresser, nightstands, and wooden headboard that Coach had made for me, and the place looked masculine and minimal, but not sterile.
There were also lamps, though I had no idea where they came from.
And, of course, the large TV across from the bed.
It was more than enough for what I needed it for.
But I was trying to look at it through Lula’s eyes now. And I wasn’t sure how she would feel about it all.
“Wow, are all the rooms this big?”
“Yep. Big perk to buying an old factory to turn into a clubhouse: massive bedrooms. More than enough bathrooms, an AC unit that could keep hell cool. Some of the rooms get their own built-in bathrooms, but since I’m not here as much, I have the one across the hall.
But it’s basically all mine, since it’s only a few of us living here now. ”
I pulled her inward and sat her on the edge of the bed.
“Give me one second. I need to get your knees and hands cleaned up.” And her face. But I wasn’t going to mention that. It wasn’t bad—just a few scratches. But I knew she was sensitive about anyone seeing her injured.
I grabbed the first aid kit, a washcloth, and filled a basin with some warm water, then made my way back.
She was silent as I knelt in front of her, carefully rinsing the gravel, dirt, and blood out of the cuts on her knees, then working on her hands. But I felt her gaze on me the whole time.
It was killing me not to ask what she was thinking. About me. About us. But Lord knew it wasn’t the time to press her about that when she was just attacked again.
So I kept my questions to myself as I pulled open some saline tubes, using them over each knee and palm, then wetting gauze with some to wipe down her cheek.
Finished with that, it was just some triple antibiotic cream and bandaging before I moved the supplies away and looked up at her.
“What do you need right now? Stiff drink? Back rub? To be serenaded with my Academy Award-winning voice?”
“The Academy Awards are for movies.”
“I can dust off a musical song for you. Grease 2, perhaps?”
“Of course you would pick two over one.”
“Why’s that?”
“It’s the hornier one.”
“Oh, they were both plenty horny,” I countered, making her lips curve up ever so slightly. “Really, baby, what do you need?”
Her gaze slipped down, like she knew she would lose her nerve if she was looking at me.
“Can we just get in bed?” she asked.
“We?” I clarified.
Her eyes flicked up. “Yes.”
“We can do that. Let me just get you a tee. Your dress is all dirty.”
With that, I grabbed a shirt, and she let me pull off her dress, leaving her in nothing but her bra, since she hadn’t paused to grab her panties when she fled her office. They were in my back pocket.
I pulled the shirt over her head, then reached under to undo her bra and pull that off before she slid her arms into the sleeves.
I toed off my shoes and pulled off my pants before making my way to the other side of the bed.
“Can you take the shirt off too?” she asked, her voice a whisper.
“As you wish,” I said, whipping it dramatically off just to get the little lip twitch out of her.
I slid in beside her but let her decide how close she wanted to get. Which, apparently, was practically on top of me. Not that I was complaining.
“What is that scent?”
“What scent?” I asked as my hand drifted up and down her back and across her hips.
“That coconut-lime-rum scent. I can’t tell if it’s body wash, deodorant, or cologne.”
“Because it’s all three. And shampoo and conditioner.”
“How did you get your scents to match like that?”
“Morgaine. She mixes up her little witchy concoctions. We each get a signature scent. This is mine.”
“It suits you.”
“If it makes you want to get all up on me, I will lower myself into a vat of it daily.” That got a small laugh out of her. “How are you? Really?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Today was a lot.”
That was putting it lightly.
She got good news, had a little encounter with me, then was cornered and attacked. As if that wasn’t enough, she had to be there while I murdered a man. Then as Hail, Saint, and Slash did a morbid rendition of the Three Stooges with that damn body.
It’d been hard as fuck not to burst out laughing at Hail and his commentary about breaking bones to make the body fit, though. The crazy fucker.
“What’s the overwhelming feeling right now?”
”I feel like a terrible person for admitting it, but—”
“Relief,” I filled in for her.
“Yeah.”
“You’re not a terrible person to feel better knowing that a man who tried to murder you and attacked you himself—as well as stole from you—is never going to hurt you again. I think that’s probably very normal.”
“Maybe,” she agreed.
“What’s under the relief?”
“Shock, I guess. I felt like the floor fell out when I got into my room and realized he was there. Then I kind of… provoked him. I wanted him to lunge at me so he got away from the door. But the room was small and he was fast. He pinned me to it.”
My stomach twisted just imagining her in that situation, all the things that must have been going through her mind, all the fears, all the uncertainty.
“But then I… I stabbed him.”
I’d noticed a small bit of blood on the guy’s shirt as I shot him. I guess I figured it was Lula’s blood at the time.
“With what?”
“A screwdriver. Oh!” she tried to sit up. “I left that in my room.”
“That’s all right. The guys will check your room. They’ll find it. Don’t worry. None of this shit is gonna come back to you. We know what we’re doing.”
“You killed someone,” she said.
“I’ve killed more than one person,” I admitted.
“But you killed him for me.”
“Gonna need you to realize sooner or later that I would burn down this entire fucking town for you. One body? That’s nothing.”
“You really would, wouldn’t you?” she asked as her fingers traced the outline of a tattoo over my chest.
“I’d do more than that.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?”
“Why would you do any of that for me?”
The answer to that was complicated. Yet the easiest thing in the world at the same time.
“Because I love you.”
Curled so close, I felt the way her breath caught at that. “But why? I certainly haven’t made that easy.”
“I don’t love you because you’re easy. Or because you’re beautiful. Or because you have the nicest ass I’ve ever seen.”
Her chest shook in a silent laugh at that.
“I love you because of who you are. On the surface and beneath, where you don’t let anyone else see you. But I do. I always have. And the more I see, the more there is to love. It’s as simple as that.”
“All this time?” she asked.
“Since damn near the first moment I saw you.”
“Then why not say anything sooner?”
“I did. Constantly.”
“You were flirting and joking.”
“What’s that phrase? A lot of truth is said in jest. But I couldn’t tell you then.
Not like this. You never would have taken me seriously.
You needed time. You needed to realize that just like you, there’s a surface…
then everything else below.” I paused, let out a humorless laugh.
“Hell, even that didn’t seem like enough. ”
Her finger paused its tracing and I could feel the tension coiling in her body.
“You’re nothing like the vision I had for a man,” she admitted. I went ahead and tried to ignore the slicing sensation in my chest at that because I got the feeling she was getting somewhere with this. “But I guess that vision of mine was what made me trust Drake.”
“Drake being a conman skilled in making people trust him is what made you trust him. And I’m not exactly sure I like that he’s my only comparison.”
“I haven’t really… let a lot of men into my life.”
“Yeah, I got that impression.”
“But I just… I had high standards.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s how you got a lot of the shit you got in life.”
“But the thing is… I was approaching a partner the same way I was approaching business. Like I was expecting everything to line up exactly how I wanted in the order I wanted… wearing exactly what I wanted it to wear.”
“You nearly came in your pants when you saw me dressed up.”
A choked sound escaped her at that, but she didn’t deny it.
“My point is… people aren’t structured like that. They don’t fit into neat columns or act how I thought they would or make me feel how I expected.”
“How do I make you feel?”
“Like… like the first day of summer break.”
“I’m gonna need you to elaborate on that.”
“Like the door was thrown open, and I was free, and there were no plans, only possibilities.” She paused as something dangerously close to hope built.
But I couldn’t trust it, not yet. Because it could take a turn from there.
She could claim that she liked summer break, but then after a while, the days grew long and boring, and she was craving the structure of school again.
“I don’t think I’ve had actual fun in years… until we went on the road trip. Some nights, my cheeks hurt from smiling. And I fell asleep wondering what fun new adventures we might have the next day.”
“I mean, I didn’t even care about the fancy hotel rooms or spas. I was excited about roadside hot dogs and ice cream with funky flavors and seeing weird animals I’d never seen before. And watching romance movies and doing crafts. And just… living. You make me feel alive.”
“That’s one hell of a compliment.”
“It’s true. I’ve been going through the motions for so long that it felt normal and comforting in a way. But it wasn’t living.”
“I can see that, baby. But you can’t compare everyday life to vacation. It will never be fair to the former.” And I didn’t want her to get my hopes up only to find myself dumped after she got frustrated with the lack of direction.
“But crafts and movie nights and fun food… that doesn’t have to be vacation. That can be life.”
“That’s true.”
“I’ve just been wondering lately if maybe… maybe it’s time to stop focusing on things that I can tick off on a list and, instead, chase the things that make me happy.”
“And is that me? Do I make you happy?”
“You make me… confused. And off-kilter. But, yes, you make me really happy.”
“And not just because of the orgasms?”
“The orgasms are nice, but, no, not just the orgasms.”
“So, what I’m hearing is… I am the man of your dreams, and you want to spend the rest of your life eating fun foods, watching romance movies, doing craft nights, and making cute babies with me.”
“I mean, you have to squeeze in building a developer empire…”
“That’s all on you, baby doll. I’m just here to bring your coffee and rub your feet and suck your clit until you can’t see straight anymore while you do that.”
“I think I can work with that.”
“I’ll even dress up for you on occasion.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“With one caveat.”
“Uh oh.”
“Each time I put on the fancy clothes for you, you take them off for me.”
Her head angled up, her eyes so soft it made my chest hurt. “That works for me.”
My hand slid up her spine, over her shoulder, then up the side of her neck to frame her jaw.
“I know you’re not here yet, but I do love you, Lula.”
“You’re wrong.”
“About loving you? I’ve had years to perfect it, baby.”
“No, you’re wrong about me not being there yet. I am. And I do.”
“Let me hear you say it. I’m not gonna be able to believe it until I hear it.”
“I love you too.”