Prologue #2
His smiled widened, the excitement in his gaze growing as he took me in while swaying a little to the left.
That was when I noticed the glassiness to his eyes and the tinge of pink on his cheeks that only happened when he drank.
“Hey, baby. What are you doin’ here?” He didn’t give me a chance to answer before hooking his arm around my waist and pulling me into him.
I loved that about him, how he always seemed to want to touch me.
If I was within reach, it never failed that he had a hand on me somewhere.
It warmed my heart and make me feel cherished every single time.
That was Roe. He sensed that I craved physical affection more than anything, and he gave it to me.
My father hadn’t exactly been happy when Roe and I got together, and it wasn’t just the five-year age difference between us.
But even though I’d been crushing on him from the beginning, Roe had never been anything but a perfect gentleman.
I hadn’t even known he was interested in me until after I turned eighteen and finally confessed my feeling for him.
Dad’s biggest issue with our relationship was that Roe was an Iron Wraith.
A brother. He’d prospected while I was still young and was a fully patched member by the time we got together, and my dad hadn’t exactly been thrilled to have the two aspects of his life merge.
He didn’t have a leg to stand on, though, and he knew it.
So when I informed him I wasn’t giving Roe up, no matter what, he let it drop.
He knew pushing meant possibly blowing up both parts of his life, and that wasn’t a risk he was willing to take.
Because it might mean having to yank his head out of his ass and admit to everything that had been going on. Everything he’d ignored for so long.
As I stared up at Roe, my heart felt like it was slowly bleeding. “Can we go somewhere to talk?” I took a shaky breath as I cast a side-long glance at the room around us. “Somewhere private? Please?”
His expression sobered. I wasn’t sure if it was the way the words broke as they came out or the look on my face, but he didn’t hesitate to take my hand and lead me out of the main area to the hall that led to his bedroom.
Seeing as the whole clubhouse was little more than a bachelor pad, Roe’s room wasn’t much of anything, but he’d done a little work to make it his own since moving into it as soon as he became a full-fledged Iron Wraith.
There were a few framed pictures around the room. A couple of him with the other club members, one of him and Pope with their arms slung around each other’s shoulders, and the rest were of the two of us together.
The seconds and minutes and hours I spent with Roe were the only times in my life when I felt happy. The smiles I wore in those pictures were all because of him.
Where the rest of the clubhouse might have stunk like a frat house after a massive kegger, his room was thankfully free of all of that.
Instead, the scent was distinctly Roe. His room smelled like leather and pine and something a bit spicy with a hint of motor oil from his work at the garage the Wraiths owned.
I gave myself a moment to take in the space, letting Roe’s presence comfort me as I tried to find the courage to say what I came to say.
“Hey.” Roe’s voice was soft as he stepped in front of me, gently clasping my chin between his thumb and index finger and tilting my face up to his. His brows were pulled together, two pitch black slashes over a set of stunning dark blue eyes.
God, I loved those eyes. They reminded me of the deepest parts of the ocean or the sky after the sun started to set. I always felt like I knew everything he was thinking and feeling whenever I looked into his eyes. At that very moment, he was worried.
“What’s wrong Honey Bee?” His hand slid my hair away from my face to cup my cheek.
I squeezed my eyes closed, willing the burn of tears to go away.
“I can’t . . .” I gave my head a small shake as the weight I’d been carrying on my shoulders pressed down harder, threatening to buckle my knees.
“I can’t . . .” I didn’t understand why the words were struggling to come up.
It was as if they were being physically blocked by the lump of fear lodged in my throat.
“Talk to me, baby.”
His thumb glided right over the spot where my cheekbone throbbed the worst, and I couldn’t silence the sharp gasp at the stab of pain.
He jerked his hand back like he was afraid he’d just burned me. “Wha—” The worry in his eyes slowly melted away as realization dawned, and his expression turned thunderous.
“That bitch hit you again, didn’t she?” I sniffled, nodding my head instead of answering vocally.
My tongue suddenly felt too thick for my mouth.
“Christ, baby. I’m so sorry.” He pulled me into his arms, wrapping them around me and squeezing, like if he could just hold me tight enough, he could protect me from anything.
If only it were that simple.
After a full minute—I’d counted every second as they passed—he took me by the shoulders and shifted me back so he could see my face again. The rage I saw when I looked at him gave me hope that maybe this would work. Until he spoke next.
“Baby, you have to tell your dad. I don’t understand why you insist dealing with this shit by yourself.”
I jerked back like I’d just been struck, my jaw hinging open in dismay. “You know why.”
It was an argument we’d had more times than I could count.
One that tore away a tiny piece of my heart each time we fought about it.
Roe took issue with the fact I stopped telling my father about my mom’s abuse years ago.
Not that it was necessary. He saw the proof after the fact often enough to know it was still happening.
But that didn’t matter to my boyfriend. He refused to see the man as anything but wonderful, a surrogate father who’d helped him most when he ran away from his own shitty, abusive situation.
He believed in my father, no matter how many times he’d failed to stop his own wife from taking her misery out on his daughters. Or just didn’t care to.
“There’s no point, Roe. You know that. He won’t stop her.
” I finally lost the struggle with the tears I’d been holding back since I got here.
They slid down my cheeks, leaving hot, salty streaks behind and most likely taking off the makeup I applied to hide the proof of my latest run-in with my mother.
“He stopped caring about us a long time ago.”
Pain washed over Roe’s face as his fingers tightened around my biceps. “That’s not true.”
I wrenched out of his hold and took a step back. “I know you think of him as some kind of saint—”
“He saved me, baby. I owe the man my life.”
Indignation coursed through me with every pump of my racing heart. “You know who he didn’t save? Me.” My voice rose on each word until the last one came out as a shout.
I wanted him to finally understand. To take my side.
As much as I loved Roe—and I loved him so much I sometimes ached with it—I couldn’t shake the growing resentment I felt at being picked second by yet another man in my life.
To the Iron Wraiths, Ezra Riley could do no wrong.
He’d helped found this club that had given them all a family.
He was their moral compass. Which was laughable, because to Remy and me, he was just a man who’d let us down over and over again.
“Christ, Dakota. You’re killing me. I hate seeing you hurting.
” Roe reached for me, and as mad as I sometimes got at him, it was impossible not to melt into his embrace.
He was my only safe place, no matter how upset I was.
The steady beat of his heart against my ear was as soothing as a lullaby.
Being wrapped in his arms was more comforting than climbing between freshly laundered sheets that were still warm from the dryer.
Wrapped in the only safety I’d ever had, I finally felt brave enough to say the words that terrified me. “I can’t do this anymore,” I whispered as fresh tears welled up in my eyes. “I-I can’t stay here another day. I have to leave.”
“Wait. What?” Roe’s arms fell away, and he took a large step back. “What are you sayin’?”
I closed the space between us, desperation causing the blood to rush through my veins so fast so fast I felt like I was vibrating, as though a colony of bees lived beneath my skin.
“I’m leaving. And I want you to come with me.
” The words came out in such a rush they were all jumbled together.
“Let’s get out of here.” I gripped his shirt in my fists as I smiled up at him with a smile that probably looked as manic as it felt.
“We can go anywhere. We could live on the beach or in a secluded cabin in the mountains. Or we could do both. Just keep moving around until we find somewhere we want to stay forever.”
“Dakota—”
“I don’t care where we go. As long as I’m with you nothing else matters.”
Roe’s hand came up, his thumb tracing the upward curve of my lips.
“Dakota . . .” My heart sank as the rest of his words faded away.
It felt like it had been ripped right out of my chest and dropped onto my floor at my feet.
His eyes gave him away before he could speak, but that didn’t mean what he said next didn’t leave me gutted.
“I’m sorry. I can’t.”
A painful lump formed in my throat. “But . . . why?”
“Please, baby, don’t cry.” He tried reaching for me again, but I took a step back. I wrapped my arms tightly around my belly, worried that if I didn’t hold myself together I’d crumble to dust.
Roe’s large figure blurred before my eyes as the tears began running unchecked. I couldn’t have stopped them if I tried, but in that moment all my energy was spent keeping the pain from crippling me. “I-I don’t understand. I thought . . . I thought you’d come with me. I thought you loved me.”
God, I was such a fool.