Her face fell, and she looked down at the table, frowning. For a second, I thought she was going to get pissed at me. Instead, she looked up. “I’m tired. Take me home.”
“Fine with me.”
I helped her up but she shrugged me off. She walked a bit unsteadily toward the exit. I waved at the guys, nodding to Stonewall to let him know that I was good. Janine headed right outside.
I found her straddling my bike, barely keeping herself upright.
“You sure you’re good?” I asked her.
“Go ride,” she said softly, sadly. “I’ll hold tight.”
I looked at her for a second, nodded, and got on. She clung hard to my body as I pulled out into traffic.
Her words kept playing through my mind as I rode slowly back toward her place. She thought I was just a dog for the club, doing whatever they wanted me to do. Maybe she was just wasted and didn’t mean it, but it still dug at me.
Of everyone, I thought she understood me the best. We both found the Demons young and were practically raised by the club. I always thought she understood that, even if we never talked about it. I’d do anything for the club, because the club was my damn family.
And there she was, calling me a dog.
Didn’t matter. In the end, it didn’t matter what she thought of me. Sure, she was fucking gorgeous, strong, smart, and made my cock hard as hell just being around her, but none of that mattered. All that mattered was that I kept her safe and did my damn job. She didn’t have to like me.
I pulled up at her apartment, parked the bike, and helped her off. She was practically falling asleep, and I ended up having to carry her up the steps. I found her keys in her pocket, unlocked the door, and carried her inside.
I took her straight back to her bedroom and gently put her down on the bed. She stirred and looked up at me.
“Clutch,” she said, “my hero.”
“Yeah,” I grunted. “Your doggy hero. Woof woof.”
She made a face. “Don’t be mad at me. I had a bad night.”
“What happened earlier?” I asked her.
“Larkin wants to marry me off to the Rebels,” she said, drifting back into her drunken sleep. “He wants to patch them over. He wants to sell me like cattle. Moo.”
“What?” I asked her, since I hadn’t heard about this, but she had already passed out.
I looked down at her sleeping body and bit my lip. I found a blanket in her closet and tossed it over her, placing a pillow under her head.
I headed back out into the living room and sat down on the couch.
Larkin wanted to marry her off? I knew the club used marriage to solidify alliances sometimes, but it was pretty unusual. I couldn’t imagine Larkin would ever use that tactic with his own adopted daughter. He treasured that girl and protected her.
I kicked off my boots and turned the TV on. I figured I should stay over, make sure she was okay. Besides, I was her bodyguard now. I might have to sleep on her couch for the foreseeable future if this shit kept up.
I couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Although, the thought of walking in on her while she was changing sent my blood hammering through my veins.
There had to be a few perks of this shit at least.
9
Janine
I woke up, my head pounding and groggy. It took me a second to realize that I was lying on top of my comforter with a thin blanket spread overtop of me, my clothes still on.
Then the events of the night came slowly back to me.
I rolled over onto my back and groaned, putting my head in my hands. I was hungover as hell, and everything just seemed horrible in so many ways.
I couldn’t believe I had gotten that wasted in front of Clutch. He had practically carried me up to my room like the silly mess I was. That was probably the most disgraceful I’d acted in a really long time, and Clutch probably had good reason to be annoyed with me.
I groaned again as I remembered calling him a dog of the club. That was a pretty low blow, especially considering I was in the same position as him, more or less.
We both grew up in the club, both owed our lives to it. It wasn’t fair to call him a dog, especially considering I was thinking about doing something as crazy as marrying a complete stranger for the good of the club.
I was such a jerk. And to top it off, I had drunkenly admitted the whole marriage thing to him just as I was passing out. I shook my head, trying to dispel the bad memories, but they were stuck there.
I got up and stripped off my clothes, wanting to rid myself of anything from the night before. I tossed on a thin T-shirt and some old panties and quickly went into the bathroom.
I turned the light on and looked at myself. I was a mess, my makeup smeared and runny, my hair practically a nest of tangles. I brushed my teeth and gargled some mouthwash to try to get the taste of alcohol and shame from my mouth.
And as I slowly cleaned myself up, the memory of what Larkin had asked me to do kept coming back to me.