Chapter Thirteen
Cora
Three months later…
The stupid dress I wore felt like a straitjacket, clinging to my body in all the wrong places.
I tugged at the neckline for the tenth time, willing the fabric to give me just a little more room to breathe.
Beside me, Marcus shifted his broad shoulders inside a suit jacket that should have struggled to contain him but was perfectly tailored to his large frame.
His jaw worked beneath his thick beard. We made quite the pair outside Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse in Nashville.
The place was ridiculously expensive, but the food was phenomenal.
I’d only eaten there once. The day my parents told me they were shipping me off to Europe for school. I hated the place on principle.
Six years since I’d spoken to them, six years of building a life they’d never understand, and now here I stood like a lamb dressed for slaughter.
I had no idea how they’d found my phone number, but they’d called a couple days before to set up this meeting and had told me not to bring my new “friends.” They’d known all about Kiss of Death and voiced their disapproval aggressively.
I hated exposing Marcus to what I knew would be very judgmental people, but he’d insisted on coming with me, not caring if my parents wanted him there or not.
I couldn’t be mad at him for defying my parents’ wishes because I knew If I made it through this evening without throwing up, it would only be because Marcus grounded me with his presence and his touch when I needed it.
“You keep fidgeting with that dress, I’m gonna tear it off you right here,” Marcus muttered, his voice low enough that only I could hear.
“Don’t tempt me with a good time,” I replied, trying to match his lightness, but my voice trembled. “I’d rather be anywhere but here right now.”
“Say the word, baby, and we’re outta here.”
The valet stand bustled with activity, sleek luxury cars pulling up one after another. A Ferrari. A Bentley. The kind of wealth that once surrounded me like air, so ubiquitous I hardly noticed it until I walked away. Now it felt suffocating and so alien I couldn’t imagine going back to that life.
Marcus turned to me, his large hands sliding around my waist and pulling me close.
His touch steadied me even as anxiety twisted my stomach into painful knots.
“We get back on my bike, go home, and I can lick every inch of your creamy skin until you beg me to fuck the shit outta you.” His whispered voice was sin in my ear.
I wanted to take him up on that promise.
God, how I wanted to. But the weight of unfinished business pressed down on me like a stone.
I was also sure he wouldn’t let me ride without a helmet back home the way he had here to preserve my hair.
I had it up in a high ponytail divided into three sections I’d curled so they lay in spirals down my neck and behind my shoulders.
We’d gone slow enough the wind hadn’t been much of a factor and though the air was decidedly cool, we’d ridden slowly down the crowded streets.
The brisk temperature had helped me focus on the meeting to come.
“I need to face them,” I whispered. “I don’t really know why, but I feel I need to do this.”
Since leaving London six years ago, I’d rebuilt myself piece by jagged piece.
I’d slept on park benches and in shelters.
I’d worked jobs that left my feet aching and my spirit crushed.
I’d learned to survive on my own terms, not theirs.
But somewhere deep inside, a part of me still cowered under my father’s disapproval and my mother’s cutting remarks. That part of me needed to die tonight.
“These people hurt you,” Marcus said, his voice dropping into that quiet register that made everyone else strain to hear him but somehow reached me with perfect clarity. “They’ll probably try to manipulate you.”
“Oh, I know they will,” I said softly. “It’s what they do.”
The muscle in his jaw jumped beneath his beard. His instinct to protect me, to shield me from pain, was written in every line of his body, in the way his gaze constantly scanned our surroundings.
“I don’t like this. They hurt you, and I’m not sure how I’ll react.”
“I know,” I said with a smile. Marcus was nothing if not protective.
Just the other day Marcus had growled at the older gentleman who owned a coffee shop I frequented because he’d bought my coffee.
Thankfully, the man, who had to be pushing ninety, had merely patted Rancor’s arm and told him to treat me right.
Rancor had shaken his hand and promised to do just that.
“But I’m not the same person who ran away from them.
I’m stronger now.” I reached up, placed my palm against his bearded cheek.
“Because of you. Because of what we’ve built together. ”
The gold band and the single diamond solitaire on my finger caught the light from the restaurant’s entrance, a reminder of promises Marcus and I had exchanged just two weeks ago in a simple ceremony at the compound.
The memory of that day flooded me with warmth, pushing back against the chill of apprehension.
“I just worry they’ll try to take you away from me,” Marcus admitted, his vulnerability striking in a man who showed it so rarely. “People like that, with money and connections, they think they own people like me.”
I shook my head firmly. “They can’t take what isn’t theirs to begin with. My heart, my future, those belong to you and me. No one else.”
Around us, Nashville’s elite streamed past in designer clothes, their conversations a blur of business deals and social climbing.
None of them spared us a second glance, though we stood out like wolves among sheep.
Marcus in his suit that couldn’t quite disguise the predator beneath.
Me in a dress I’d bought specially for this night, wanting to armor myself in the trappings of the world I’d left behind.
Kind of ironic given we were going into a place where the bill for the two of us was likely to top five hundred dollars.
“I have to face them. I need to look them in the eye and show them I survived without them. That I’m happy despite them.”
Marcus brushed his thumb across my cheek, wiping away a tear I hadn’t realized had fallen. “Then we do it together,” he said. “But the first sign they’re hurting you, we leave. That’s the deal.”
I nodded, swallowing past the lump in my throat. “I love you so much.”
He smiled, taking my hand in his, our fingers interlacing. He brought my fingers to his lips. “I love you, too, honey.”
We turned together toward the restaurant entrance.
The gleaming glass doors reflected our images back at us, distorted and strange.
I barely recognized myself in the tight black cocktail dress, my hair swept up in an elegant twist. Marcus looked dangerous even in formal wear.
The tattoos crawling up his neck, peeking out from his dress shirt, added to his predatory aura.
He got more than his fair share of admiring glances from every single woman in the entire place. A few men too.
Just before we stepped inside, Marcus leaned down, his breath warm against my ear.
“When we’re done here,” he whispered, “I’m going to take you home and peel this dress off you so slowly you’ll beg me to tear it.
Then I’m going to taste every inch of that gorgeous body until you forget these people ever existed. ”
Heat bloomed across my skin, starting at my neck and racing upward.
Then downward. In that moment, I found strength in the promise of his touch, in the life we’d started far from the toxic world of my past. Funny, I had to find this kind of peace in a motorcycle club with a compound full of ex-cons and the women who loved them.
Kiss of Death was more my home now than my parents’ house had ever been.
I smiled up at him, a genuine one for the first time since we’d arrived. “That, Marcus Wheeler, is the best incentive I’ve ever heard for getting through a miserable dinner.”
His answering smile was slow and wicked, just a slight curve of lips beneath his beard, but it hit me like a bolt of lightning. We stepped through the doors together, his hand at the small of my back, a united front against whatever awaited us inside.
We were led through the restaurant’s main dining room, where crystal chandeliers cast prismatic light across white tablecloths and silver place settings. “Your party is already seated,” the hostess told us. She paused at the threshold, eyes flickering between me and Marcus.
When her gaze lingered a little bit longer than I liked, I cleared my throat loudly.
I waited until her gaze snapped to mine.
“I’m about to spend the most miserable forty-five minutes of my life at the table with two people I’ve not seen or heard from in six years.
They’re going to berate, ridicule, and try to bully me into doing whatever it is they want from me.
Believe me when I tell you I’d love nothing more than to take your skank ass to task for making eyes at my husband just to get thrown out and have an excuse to leave them sitting here all fucking night. ”
Marcus barked out a laugh before quickly muffling the sound with a cough no one believed. “How about we escort ourselves the rest of the way,” he interjected smoothly. “They probably already look like they’ve had a couple too many tequilas with lemons instead of limes.”
With one last glare at the shocked woman, I put my shoulders back and marched through the double doors of a private dining room where my parents awaited.