Chapter One
A long while after she and her husband turned in for the night, Megan Caldwell laid awake, thinking about what the death of Edna Torie Meadows Carter meant.
The nurse had refused to back off tormenting Meggie.
She wanted to feel remorse that Christopher had killed Torie and that their son, CJ, had witnessed her death.
But Meggie’s relief overrode all other emotions.
She couldn’t even find it in herself to mourn on behalf of a little boy who’d grow up motherless.
Torie created a rift between Meggie and her sons and husband.
In her life . The club girls took their disrespect to new levels and the bikers saw her as na?ve and gullible.
In recent weeks, Meggie had heard it all: she was old and used up; she was infertile; she was a fraud, pretending she had the power to sway Outlaw; she was a liar, claiming she’d leave her husband if he ever cheated.
Some of the bikers asked her to suck them off or requested sex.
It exhausted Meggie. More than anything, she didn’t trust Christopher’s reaction. She didn’t know how she wanted him to react for that matter.
He might kill everyone who insulted her or he might shrug it off. She just didn’t know .
No matter what scenarios she’d imagined as she approached the eighteenth anniversary of meeting Christopher, they never ended with question marks.
She didn’t know her place in her potato’s life or at the club.
She wasn’t sure what to say to her husband.
When Kendall told her to let Christopher fix the situation with Torie if Meggie had the smallest bit of trust left toward him, she gave in.
Her emotions were so jumbled. Deep down, she couldn’t imagine Christopher cheating.
He loved her and respected her. He knew she would leave.
That didn’t mean he hadn’t gotten a little too comfortable with her faith in him.
Nor did it mean he realized he was building a wall between them as he drew CJ into club life.
Earlier, he’d taken CJ to his room, and she hadn’t seen Christopher for almost two hours. When he finally came to their bedroom, he’d said, “CJ good, baby,” and that was that.
That was that.
She stared at the plain white ceiling, shadowed because of the dimly lit lamp that she couldn’t sleep without. A mural would be much more interesting for nights like these. Or mirrors.
She giggled.
Christopher shifted, facing her. He’d gotten into bed, kissed her goodnight, and turned his back on her. Definitely not a normal night.
“How long you been awake, baby?”
“I never went to sleep,” she admitted.
Scooting closer, he drew her into the crook of his arm and kissed her temple. “Fuck, me neither.”
“I didn’t realize you were awake.” That made her sad. Until a few months ago, they’d been so attuned to each other.
“I didn’t know you was either,” he said, sighing.
His words proved their chasm wasn’t in her head.
“CJ was fine when I left him, Megan.”
“Hmmm.”
What did he expect her to say? Fine by club criteria wouldn’t translate to a mother’s standards.
“Talk to me.”
“I don’t know what to say, Christopher,” she confessed.
“How you feel. What you feel. Why you not upset.”
“Says you,” she retorted. “I’m crushed.”
“You ain’t soundin’ crushed,” he snapped. “You sound so fuckin’ cold and distant.”
“You can’t pick and choose when I’m your moral compass. And I can’t steady you, act as your conscience, when you shut me out.”
He stiffened. “You can’t help me if you turnin’ into them .”
“The club girls?” she said, knowing exactly what he meant. “Why should I be soft and sweet when nothing and no one around me is?”
“That never mattered to you before.”
“You never shut me out before.”
“I ain’t shuttin’ you out.”
“What did you and CJ talk about? How did you get Torie to come to the clubhouse? What risks did you take? She could’ve worn a wiretap.”
“You think I’m fuckin’ stupid?”
“I think you’re the most brilliant human I’ve ever met.”
“You really wanna fuckin’ hear about CJ in the club and all the shit that go with that? You really wanna know how I found out Torie wasn’t wired up? Tell me the fuckin’ truth. Shit fucked up enough between us.”
Meggie pondered those words. “I see,” she said coolly, sitting up and covering her bare breasts with the top sheet.
Christopher sat up, too. “What do you see?”
“You made Torie undress.” It was the only way he would’ve known for sure. “And CJ has had s-s-sex with one of the club girls.” Probably Nyx. It just made Meggie hate her more. “He’s so young. All the kids are.”
“Well, Reb too fuckin’ young for birth control, so shut the fuck up about CJ bein’ too fuckin’ young.”
“Then he has had sex,” she spat. “And I never said Reb wasn’t young, jerk. I said we have to protect her so she doesn’t end up pregnant.”
“She’s your fuckin’ daughter. I could clamp a chastity belt on your pussy and come on it and you still endin’ up filled with my kid. Rebel probably the same fuckin’ way.”
Shoving the covers aside, Meggie stormed out of bed and beelined across the room to where her robe hung over one of the bistro chairs around the dining table.
She jerked it on. “I’m going to sleep in another room. Have a good night.”
Christopher hurried to the door and used his big body to block her.
“Move,” she ordered.
Instead of complying, he grabbed her arms and searched her face.
“The kids growin’ up hard for me too, Megan.
Maybe, I ain’t fair but Rebel growin’ up harder.
She my baby girl. She ain’t even sixteen yet.
Kiera was seventeen when she started comin’ around, and I spent the next fuckin’ year protectin’ her and her pussy.
How I’m supposed to turn a blind fuckin’ eye on my baby girl fuckin’? ”
The thought upset Meggie too, but reality was hard and cold. “It’s a double standard—”
“It ain’t. It’s me . Who the fuck I am. How I was fuckin’ taught.
Life so fuckin’ hard. This life especially.
It’s brutal on motherfuckers, but girls got it so much rougher.
One fuckin’ misstep and you fair game to the brothers.
Chicks either seen as a saint or a slut, and it’s hard to change that perception. ”
“But guys are celebrated for their conquests,” she said sarcastically.
A pained expression crossed his face. He was such a beautiful man. “I was fifteen when I started fuckin’. Big Joe celebrated that. He taught me what he knew.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
He released her and looked away. “I ain’t too sure how to make you feel better. I ain’t too sure how to get my Megan back.”
She wasn’t sure if she could ever be that Meggie again.
Something inside her felt so lost and broken.
She knew it was because of Christopher, which devastated and angered her.
If she’d been his moral compass through the years, he’d been her anchor.
Each time her life was threatened, she fought because of him .
She lived to see his face, hear his voice, and feel his body against hers.
“We better than this, baby,” he said into the silence. “We fuckin’ up our marriage over dumb shit.”
His emerald gaze fixated on her, expectation shining on his face. He was still waiting for her to cry. She didn’t have tears left.
“Did you make Torie strip?”
He nodded. “Yeah,” he croaked.
“To only check for a wiretap?”
“She was still talkin’ shit about you. It was to humiliate her too. There was nothin’ sexual about it.”
Unfortunately, the brothers wouldn’t see it that way. She wondered where the disconnect was coming from. Why didn’t Christopher see his behavior looked like complete and total disrespect toward her?
“Torie dead, Megan. I ain’t too sure what to do to make you believe I ain’t ever wanted her.”
“It isn’t that.”
He lifted a brow, and Meggie flushed.
“Not really.”
She met his gaze and held it, wishing her body didn’t respond to his nearness so quickly and completely.
Even when she locked him out, she found the depravation as hard on her as it was on him.
During those times, he jerked himself off.
She’d gotten a couple of sex toys to sate herself, but she agreed with his sentiment that nothing compared to their intimacy.
He took her hand in his and guided her to the sofa. He sat and pulled her onto his lap, brushing a swath of her hair behind her ear and smiling tenderly at her.
Her heart melted and his cock stirred. He cupped her cheek and pulled her closer, their lips meeting.
She told herself she wouldn’t succumb to his gentle kisses.
That she’d pull away, so they could talk, and she’d work everything out in her head.
All her confusion, pain, resentment, and anger.
All her jealousy, not only toward Torie, but because CJ excluded her little by little, until she’d end up as nothing but an outsider looking in, on the fringes of his life.
But a lifetime of love and passion didn’t so easily disintegrate.
Miscommunication and rough patches didn’t dissolve eighteen years of devotion and desire.
Disagreements over their children couldn’t end their trust and confidence in each other as individuals, spouses, or parents.
One woman, no matter how treacherous and determined to ruin Meggie’s marriage, couldn’t destroy the friendship she and Christopher had .
Unless she allowed it. Unless ghosts from the past rose from the grave to haunt her and ruin her peace.
Christopher lifted his head and thumbed her lips. “What, baby? Talk to me.”
“I don’t know what to say,” she whispered. She lowered her lashes, hiding from his searching gaze. “I don’t…”
Kiera came to mind. When Meggie first came to the club, Kiera Arnold and Ellen Cooper did everything in their power to drive her away. But Christopher had taken them into his confidence until Meggie came along…