“You’re sure now?”
“I’m still concerned about your temper, but you said you would work on that, and I believe you. I’m not the kind of woman to hold a grudge so this won’t be thrown in your face every time we have an argument. And I know you’ll always fight for what you believe in. I just don’t want you to lose your temper over something like a guy checking out my tits or a guy calling me names.”
“I do fight for what I believe in, but I need you to understand exactly what that means.” The way he said that raised red flags, but he was right—I did need to know what I was dealing with here.
“Okay, tell me.”
He watched me with an intensity that showed how serious he was about this conversation. “There will be days I come home from club work with black eyes or broken ribs or bloody clothes. That, I can’t change. Not even for you. I won’t talk about that shit with you and I won’t ever discuss club business with you. We need to settle that before we even begin something. If you can live with that, I’ll work on my temper and do everything in my power not to knock the fuck out of any asshole who comes near you.”
I wasn’t dumb; I knew how bikers worked. What he said didn’t surprise me. What did surprise me, though, was my willingness to accept it. I couldn’t deny it—I wanted Hyde in my life. He desired me for exactly who I was, and he never made me feel like I needed to change myself for him, even when some of the things I said and did frustrated him. To find a man like that was everything as far as I was concerned. The rest could be worked on, but you could never change whether someone wanted you for you. They either did or they didn’t.
I placed my hand against his chest. “I can live with that.”
He watched me quietly for another few moments. I couldn’t read his thoughts, so I wasn’t sure what he would say or do next.
Finally he wrapped his hand around my wrist and moved it to his ass. “Now you can get back to blowing my mind with that mouth of yours.”
Chapter 28
Hyde
I stared at the bottle of whisky on my kitchen counter. I’d been staring at it for the last five minutes. My body screamed for it, but my head told me if I had any chance at getting my shit together, I needed to empty the bottle down the sink. Memories of my mother drinking at six in the morning flashed in my mind. Her passed out on the couch in the afternoons when I’d come home from school. Her yelling at anyone who tried to help her. It was like a goddam assault with these fucking memories. They punched me in the gut and told me I’d become her.
I was an addict and a mean one at that.
Unscrewing the lid, I picked up the bottle and drained it down the sink. My hand shook a little, but I ignored that. I wasn’t a fucking alcoholic. I could live without this shit.
“You kicking your habit?”
I glanced up to find Charlie standing in the kitchen doorway. Her eyes were firmly on the bottle I held. There was no point denying I had a problem. She was a smart kid. “Yeah.”
She came closer, her eyes lifting to mine. “Good.”
We were like two fucking peas in a pod. Both unable to say anything else, but there was a tension or an emotion or some shit surrounding us that I knew we both felt by the way we silently watched the bottle empty.
My heart raced in my chest. I had to kick this fucking habit, if not for myself, for her. Screwing up my relationship with her the way my mother had with me was not something I wanted to do.
When every last drop had trickled from the bottle, I threw it in the bin. She nodded slowly when I found her eyes again. She then broke through the tension when she said, “That shit’ll kill you eventually.” They were the words I’d said to her about smoking.
I inhaled sharply and then let the breath out. “Yeah, it will,” I agreed. Not wanting to talk about this any longer, I said, “You want some eggs for breakfast?”
She sat on one of the stools at the counter. “We got any bacon left?”
We.
It fucking melted my cold heart. I’d lived my life without her in it for so long and hadn’t thought a moment like this would ever happen. My resolve to kick the whisky to the kerb strengthened.
Pulling the bacon from the fridge, I said, “Yeah. You want cheese in your eggs?” I’d watched her scrambling some eggs, and she’d loaded cheese and chives in there. “And chives?”
If I hadn’t been watching her so intently, I would have missed the look that ran across her face for a split second. She hadn’t expected me to know that. She didn’t acknowledge it, though. “And onion, please.”
That was possibly the first time she’d used her manners willingly with me. I’d pulled her up on it repeatedly, and she usually rolled her eyes and added a please or a thank you.
I reached for an onion. “You got it, sweetheart.”
She sat watching me in silence while I cooked. It wasn’t until I placed her eggs and bacon in front of her and pulled up the stool next to her that she said, “What time did you get in last night?”
Charlie had been here for almost two weeks and not once had she asked anything about my whereabouts. I always made sure to know what she had planned for each day, but she didn’t seem to care about anything I did. This was another first for her.
I poured sauce on my plate. “I just came home about an hour ago.” I’d stayed at Monroe’s after we’d cleared the air. She’d kept me awake until just after three. When I’d left her, she’d complained that she probably wouldn’t be able to walk today. Knowing my woman would think about me every minute of the day when she tried to walk or sit or do anything made me one happy asshole.
“So you’re seeing Monroe now?”
“Yeah.”
“I liked her.”
I glanced her way. “Her advice pay off with that little shit you’re dating?”
She rolled her eyes. “Why do you hate on him so much?”
“I don’t trust him.”
“You don’t even know him.”
I put my cutlery down and turned my body so I could face her. “A man doesn’t need to know a boy to see him for what he is, Charlie. You forget that I’ve been where he is now. I met your mother when I was sixteen and chased the shit out of her trying to get in her pants.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh God, I don’t need to know about your sex life with Mum.”
I hid the smile that provoked. “What I’m trying to say is that I know all the sixteen-year-old-male tricks. I know he’s trying to get in your pants, and I don’t fucking trust him not to hurt you.”
She sat with that for a beat and then said, “So you and Mum were together from sixteen?”
I frowned. “She never told you about us?”