Roan (The Henchmen MC 17)

I hadn't anticipated how hard it would be to handle the fact that, once I got the file in my hand, I would be sent flight instructions, I would be out of the country before anyone could know who I was, what I had done.

And I would never see Mack again.

My hands had been shaking when I ended the call.

My heart thudding.

A fist the size of fucking Russia wedged in my throat.

I wasn't sure I had ever been as worked up on a job before.

But the truth was, it wasn't just a job.

It hadn't been a job since that first fucking night.

And every day - and night - since then had only made it worse, made the bond deeper, made the idea of not getting an actual chance with her harder than I ever could have imagined.

Even after punishing my body in the pool, there was no ridding myself of the anger, the regret, the pain, the bone-deep disgust directed at myself.

But when she had looked at me with those confused, unsure eyes, and asked if I wanted her to leave, all the while knowing this would be the last time we would ever be alone together, I couldn't stop myself from reaching for her, holding onto her.

Eventually, she slept.

I didn't.

I stayed up.

Trying to remember the softness of her hair, the slopes of her body, the weight of her, the little sounds she made in her sleep.

Then we got up.

She went to work.

And I knew it was all but over.

Taking a deep breath, I looked over at Cam who was holding the bottle up, waiting for me to come get another refill.

"Then... then it was over. She was dead. Or so I thought. Then... then here she was," I told him, sighing out my breath. "Angry."

To that, there was a throat clearing from Cam, making my gaze move over, finding him shaking his head at me, his eyes wise, deep.

"No," I agreed, exhaling hard. "Not angry. Hurt."

She was hurt.

She had learned, somewhere along the lines, to cover her hurt with hard. She had found it was easier to hold onto rage than coddle pain.

"She had every fucking right to be angry too, though," I told him, knocking my head back on the glass wall, my eyes closing.

If someone had done to me what I had done to her, there would be no end to the anger inside.

It was unfair of me to be upset by her hatred of me, the seeming disgust she felt when the orgasm subsided, and she'd realized she'd slept with me after all I had done to her.

"T-t-two s-sides," a voice declared, making my eyes shoot open, finding Cam watching me, gauging my reaction.

A stutter.

He stuttered.

That was why he didn't talk.

Not because he couldn't, but because he was, I dunno, embarrassed.

"Yeah," I agreed, nodding. "I have no idea what happened. And, to an extent, neither does she."

"Gotta t-t-t-talk," he told me, rising from his chair, moving toward me, pouring more bourbon, but taking the bottle with him. "T-t-tomorrow," he added before disappearing down the ladder.

He was right.

We needed to talk.

Before she up and left town again, before she disappeared and became impossible to find.

He was also right that it had to be tomorrow since the bourbon was currently flooding my system, slowing it down, making everything a little foggy.

Everything but her, of course.

Because I was convinced nothing in the world could ever make anything about her any less vivid, less sharp, less all-consuming.

Maybe because I had spent so much time trying to commit her to memory, knowing our relationship had a clock on it. Running out every moment.

There were changes, though.

Time did that.

Life had done that.

She'd lost some of the softness to her thighs, to her belly, replaced with lean muscle. For necessity, from practice, from the large amount of training she had clearly gone through to be able to almost best me a time or two.

There were other changes though, too.

Scars.

There were scars that had never been there before. I knew because we had once gone over her scars, all five of them, minor, and mostly from falling while riding a bike, rollerskating, and attempting to skateboard.

There were a hell of a lot more than five of them now. And not all of them were minor. Far from, actually.

There was the one she had mentioned, the one where a bullet tore through her ass, a pinkish, smooth spot to the outside of the cheek.

Somehow, though, knowing a bit of the story somehow made that one less worrisome than the other ones.

Like the five ones that criss crossed her back, raised, speaking of broken open skin, speaking of being whipped with something.

I'd seen those injuries on the backs of many men in my day. I would know them anywhere.

But seeing them on her skin?

Fuck.

Someone had whipped her.