“You okay?” Malcolm asked as we passed.
“Tweaked my back,” I admitted.
“You could have let someone else charge in,” Billie insisted as she kept half-pulling me through the clubhouse.
“No, babe, I couldn’t,” I told her, making her pause, look up at me, and give me a sweet smile.
“Thanks for saving me, Rowe,” she said, eyes getting a little glassy.
“Anytime, babe,” I said, shrugging, but that slight movement immediately made my back scream. “On second thought, if you could stay out of trouble for, roughly, three months, my back would appreciate that.”
“On the pain scale, where are you at?” she asked, grabbing my brace from Brooks who held it out to her as she passed.
“I don’t know. Seven, maybe?”
“We will get that down to hopefully a three or four,” she said, leading me into my room where she stopped near my dresser so I could lean into it a bit.
With that, this woman who’d been stalked and kidnapped and attacked carefully nursed me. She smeared on salve, got my pain meds, and helped me into my brace, then led me over toward my bed.
“I should be taking care of you.”
“Why? There’s nothing wrong with me,” she said, shaking her head.
“You just went through something traumatic.”
“It was scary for a minute,” she said. “Some of the things Lizzie was saying…” she said, eyes haunted for a second. “But it’s over. They will never get near me again.”
“You okay with that? I know you don’t like the more violent acts this club commits.”
“Normally, I’m not. But after a lifetime of hearing stats about sexual predators from my aunts, I am inclined to be more in the ‘you can’t fix that kind of sickness’ camp. So as much as I don’t even like thinking something like this, I think the world is better off when these people aren’t around anymore.”
“I agree with you,” I said, reaching out to brush some of her hair behind her ear. “You lost your earring,” I said, noticing the other pussy flower earring was still attached to her other ear.
“I know. These were my favorite too,” she said, frowning. “What do you think? Sitting or trying to lie down?” she asked, gesturing toward my bed.
“Flat I think might be best.
“Flat with pillow under the knees,” she suggested. “It takes the strain off the lower back.”
“Sold, I agreed, moving to get onto the bed.
“Wait, let’s get these off,” she said, reaching for my fly.
“Billie…”
“Stop fighting,” she demanded, making short work of my button and zipper, then grabbing the waistband to pull them down, leaving me there in my boxers and tee. “That will be more comfortable.”
So I got in the bed.
And Billie fiddled with the pillows and blankets until she was satisfied. And I was just happy to watch her fussing.
“What are you doing?” I asked as she climbed up on the bed, moving to straddle me, but not sitting her weight down.
“Finishing what we started,” she said with a smile as she pressed down toward me, then sealed her lips to mine.
“Baby, the clubhouse is full.”
“Mmhmm,” she murmured against my lips. “But they’re out there. We’re in here,” she said, punctuating each word with a soft little kiss.
“Billie…”
“Shh,” she said, pressing a kiss to the outside of my lips. “This is medicine too,” she told me as her lips trailed down my jaw, to my ear, then down my neck.
“Never heard of this kind of medicine,” I said, turning my head to the side a little to give her better access.
“That’s because you’ve never been with me before,” she told me, moving toward the other side of my neck. “Think of all the times you could have enjoyed this type of healing if you hadn’t rejected me,” she said, lifting up to give me a ‘you were an idiot’ smirk.
“I never wanted to,” I told her, my hands gliding up the backs of her thighs, then over her ass.
“Do you remember what you said?”
“I don’t,” I admitted. “But judging by the hurt you have in your eyes when you look at me, I know it was over the line.”
“Had.”
“Hm?”
“Had in my eyes. Past tense. But you… aside from saying we weren’t going to get together, you called me sad.”
Ouch.
I didn’t remember that word, but the certainty with which she said it let me know that she never forgot it, not even for a moment.
“I didn’t mean it. I never meant it. You’re not sad. You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. But I couldn’t have you. And it was killing me to have you keep coming on to me, but not being able to act on it.”
“You could have acted on it.”
“The club,” I said, shaking my head.
“Doesn’t dictate my life.”
“But it does dictate mine,” I reminded her. “If your father—“
“Found out that you made me happy, he wouldn’t care that you were a member of the club,” she cut me off.