Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
MILLIE
Sleep evades me. I’m not sure why. I’m exhausted, and my entire body feels like it’s on edge. I need to move. Throwing my legs over the side of the bed, I stand, grab my hoodie, and pull it on over my head, then find my sweatpants.
“You running away?” Axton asks.
Turning my head, I look behind me. Axton is awake, lying on his side, his eyes focused on me, a small smile playing on his lips. He looks amazing and beautiful like that. His tattoos are on display, his smile playful. I want to crawl back in that bed, but I can’t.
I’m restless. I need to move. Or maybe I need to talk to Heidi and tell her about her future plans.
“No, but I can’t sleep.”
He hums, pushing up to sitting, shifting so that he leans his back against the wall. There’s no headboard here, no footboard either. It’s just a frame, a box spring, and a mattress. It fits this place, though. This man, too.
“I have to get up, head home so I can get ready for work,” he murmurs. “I don’t want you leaving here. I’ve already talked to Bennet, and he’s good with you taking a few days off. But I guess you’re back to work Saturday night.”
“I’ll stay here,” I whisper.
He smiles, his eyes searching mine. “Let me grab you girls some breakfast before I go.”
There is a knock on the door, and I jump. Axton practically flies out of bed. He walks over to the door and tugs it open, bare-assed and all. I lift my fingers to my lips, trying to cover my shock.
I bite my bottom lip, tugging on the flesh, then listen to the conversation. The man on the other side of the door speaks, but I can’t make out who it is. “It’s been handled. I got confirmation that all evidence is gone.”
“And there will not be a single ounce of blowback?” he asks.
“Not a goddamn one, as long as all goes well the next two years.”
“Just need to talk to Heidi. Millie’s on board.”
“Nice,” the man on the other side of the door hisses.
Axton chuckles. “I’m going to do a bakery run. See if anyone wants anything. Text me.”
Without waiting for the man to answer, Axton closes the door and turns to face me. I can’t stop myself. I burst out laughing. He’s standing in front of me, completely naked, having just had a conversation with one of his brothers… completely naked. Dick swinging and everything.
“I’m sorry, but you’re standing there having a serious conversation with your whole cock out.”
Axton looks down as if he is making sure he’s still completely naked, then lifts his head, and his eyes find mine. “I didn’t even realize it. I was focused,” he murmurs before he closes the distance between us.
I feel his fingers curl around my waist as he holds me, then he tugs me so that my chest presses against his. He lowers his head, and his lips brush mine before he clears his throat.
“I’m going to get coffee and pastries. I’ll be back, but know that I’d rather stay in bed and fuck you again.”
Honestly, I think I might rather do that too, even though I’m seriously sore. I don’t say that, though. I know he has to go to work, and I need to talk to Heidi. Thankfully, he takes a step backward and throws on some clothes, then he’s gone.
I cannot believe I’m really here, that this is my new life. I would have never imagined in a million years that this would have happened. I thought I would stay in Vegas, maybe find some guy and live with him.
Marriage was something I took off my own table the day I left Thunder Rock. I didn’t want it, didn’t want any part of it, not if I couldn’t have it with Axton. I’d given up on the idea of children, too.
Now I’m not so sure what my future holds. It feels like it could be anything. I can’t remember a time when I’ve ever been so hopeful. Even when I was eighteen and a dreamer, I wasn’t this excited and hopeful about the future.
But the glimmer of hope, the absolute excitement I feel, cannot be contained.
I feel like I’m going to burst with it all.
Completely and totally burst. That is, until I think about what I have to do next.
That I’m going to have to go a couple of doors down and explain to Heidi that she is a new North Carolina resident, at least for the next two years.
I don’t think she’ll be angry or refuse it, but I know she doesn’t like being told what to do in the slightest. I don’t blame her there. I don’t like being told what to do, either. I don’t think anyone does when it comes right down to it.
I walk toward the door and tug it open, looking behind me at the messy bed. It’s sexy, those sheets tangled up by Axton and me. I can’t wait to do it again and again. But first, a conversation with Heidi, then breakfast.
PIGGY
Lainey smiles as I walk through the door, and I wince because I haven’t told her a fucking thing about Millie.
She’s going to be so pissed off at me for it, too.
I should have told her immediately when I found out Millie was back in North Carolina, but I didn’t want to get her hopes up.
I wasn’t sure if Millie was really coming back or not.
For the first time in my life, I was uncertain about the outcome.
That doesn’t really suit me or my confidence, so I’m not sure why I was so insecure about the whole thing.
Maybe because it was Millie, and she easily walked away from me once.
I didn’t want her to go, but my stubborn pride wouldn’t let me go after her.
Stepping up to the counter, I match my sister’s smile, but the minute my eyes meet hers, her smile drops. She narrows her gaze on me and leans forward slightly. “What’s wrong?” she snaps.
I watch her in silence for a moment, wondering if I should just list all the shit that’s been going wrong lately. Starting with that asshole at the station, Garcia, and ending with the dead Dante Barone.
I don’t, though. Lainey doesn’t need to know all that shit. It would just worry her, and that’s the last thing I want to do. She presses her lips together, her eyes narrowing even more as she waits for me to respond to her.
“Millie’s back,” I state.
I could knock her down with a feather right about now. I know I could. She takes a couple of steps back, then blinks as she opens and closes her mouth. Clearly, she’s shocked, and I would laugh if I hadn’t been just as fucking shocked the moment I saw Millie in that club.
“What do you mean Millie’s back?” she asks in a whisper.
Shaking my head once, I clear my throat. “She’s back.”
Lainey lifts her hand to her mouth, her fingertips touching her lips. She watches me, her eyes searching mine as if she’s trying to find the lie somewhere inside me. But there’s no lie, because my Millie is back.
“How back?”
I know what she’s asking. And all she would have to do is talk to anyone down at the clubhouse, and they’d tell her, but if she finds out from anyone but me, that would not be good. I would never want Lainey to find out anything this important, this big, from anyone else but me.
“She’s my old lady.”
I say the words. And they’re real. Sure, it was somewhat pushed on me because of the whole her-needing-protection thing. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t want it, that I wouldn’t do it eventually. It’s probably better it happened the way it did. It pushed me to claim her the way I always should have.
“Axton,” she exhales. “I just… wow.”
Wow is right.
“Is this what you want?”
I love my sister. With everything that I am, I love Lainey-Rose, and I will fight to the death for her. But she loves me just as fiercely, so I’m sure she’s asking me this because she knew just how badly it hurt me when Millie left, even if I never said a word about it.
“She’s always been who I want, Lainey,” I murmur.
Lainey smiles, then I watch as she walks around her counter and makes her way toward me. She doesn’t stop until her body collides with mine, throwing her arms around my shoulders as she presses her cheek against the center of my chest.
Without an ounce of hesitation, I wrap my own arms around her and close my eyes as I hug my little sister. Dipping my chin slightly, I touch my mouth to the top of her head before I take a step backward. She releases me and tips her head back, her eyes on mine.
“When do I get to see her?” she asks.
I debate telling her that Millie is a stripper now, although it’s something she’ll likely figure out in the next two years, considering that’s what she’ll be doing as part of the agreement. This is another thing that might piss her off if she found out from someone else.
Clearing my throat, I rock back on my heels and run my fingers through my short hair, my gaze flicking down to my boots before I shift it back up to meet hers.
She presses her lips together then narrows her eyes at me, knowing there is more to what I have to say and wondering if she’s going to be happy about it or not.
“There’s more,” she states when I don’t continue immediately.
Laughing, I shrug a shoulder. “There’s more.”
“Is she in trouble?” she asks.
“Not anymore,” I state. And that’s the fucking truth of it. That threat is fucking gone, thank fuck. “But she’s signed a two-year contract to work here…”
My words trail off because I’m not really sure how to tell my sister what my woman is doing for work. Not that Lainey would judge her, I know she wouldn’t, but it’s still not something you just go around and announce, even in my world, but especially not in my sister’s.
“What is she doing?” she softly demands.
“She’s working down at the Gilded Room in Raleigh.”
“The strip club?” she hisses, her eyes wide with a shocked expression.
My lips twitch. “Yeah, that’s what she was doing in Vegas, where she’s been the last ten years.”
“Wow,” Lainey exhales. “I bet she’s amazing. She should have been a dancer. In school, she was always the best one on the dance team.”
I’d forgotten about that. Millie was on the dance team in high school.
I always tried to forget the fact that she was only eighteen when we started dating, so I avoided any talk of high school altogether, but she was friends with my sister, and Lainey was on the team as well, so I should have remembered.
There are a lot of things I should have remembered about Millie. Or maybe I should never have let her go, so I wouldn’t have had the inclination or the opportunity to forget. But regretting the past is useless when I have her here with me now.