Fury (Savage MC-Tennessee 4)

“I’ll sleep on the couch,” I suggest, but I can already see on her face that she’s going to shoot me down.

“What if your headache comes back?”

“It’s fine now,” she replies, shaking her head.

“You had one the first day I saw you at the bar, Ellie. Are you seeing a doctor for them?”

“It’s just tension. I have the day off tomorrow, I’ll rest up and be right as rain.”

I smile. “I’ve missed that,” I tell her with an honesty I doubt she could understand.

“What?”

“The silly things you say. What does right as rain mean anyway?”

“Stop trying to confuse me,” she says all while yawning, making it hard to understand her.

“Okay fine, I can take a hint, but I do have a favor to ask.”

“What’s that?” she asks, as I get up off the couch. She stands with me and I start walking—regretfully—to the front door.

“Go riding with me tomorrow.”

“Liam…”

“C’mon, Ice. Live dangerously.”

“I don’t understand what your point is to all of this,” she says so quietly that I have to strain to hear her.

“Why does it have to have a point? It feels good. You can’t deny that, Ellie.”

“So does drinking, but too much of it and you end up with a whore’s mouth wrapped around your dick, a disease that you can’t find a cure for, your nuts shriveled up, and a hell of a hangover.”

“You’re not going to let Hayley go are you?”

“If you want to escape my house with all of your body parts still in working order, you won’t even mention her name in my house,” she warns me, her eyes shooting fire at me.

“Jealous?”

“Don’t come at me with that bullshit, Liam. I haven’t liked Hayley for a long time. Did I like seeing her head buried between your legs? No way. Is that fair? Maybe not, but it doesn’t change the truth. You don’t love someone for years and have that just disappear, not if the feelings are real.”

“Trust me, Ice. I know that,” I tell her, my fingers drifting to the side of her face. I drag my finger along her soft skin. “Come out with me tomorrow. Please?”

“The mighty Liam Maverick actually says please?”

“Where you’re concerned? Damn straight.”

“If I go riding with you, it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Okay,” I tell her, not adding that it does mean something. I’m about to get my way. Now’s not the time to spook her.

“Okay? Just like that?”

“Just like that. Does this mean you’re saying yes?”

“I’ll probably regret it,” she mutters. “But, yes.”

I lean down and kiss her forehead. I breathe in her scent. It’s sweet, even if I’d rather kiss her lips instead.

“See you tomorrow, Ice.”

“Don’t make me regret it,” she warns. I don’t turn around. If I did, she’d see me grin and that would just piss her off.Ellie“I can’t believe you’re riding that thing.”

I’m grinning as I say it, sliding off the back of his bike. Liam gets off with an ease that has been honed to a precision that is sexy and powerful. He always did move like poetry in motion. He takes my hand and I let him, without even thinking about it. It’s a habit and one that you would think time would have broken, but yet it hasn’t. At the very least, after all this time and the distance between us, I shouldn’t feel my heartbeat quicken when he holds my hand. I shouldn’t feel warm and happy just from his touch.

“Hey, don’t knock this bike. It got me in town and to your bar,” he mumbles.

“I think calling this thing a bike is an insult to all other bikes in the kingdom of Bike-dom, Liam.”

“Bike-dom? I swear you really are a nerd, Ellie.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I laugh, the exchange familiar, probably because we had it on our first date. That seems like such a long time ago.

“I think it’s a really good thing, Ice,” he murmurs, stopping and tugging on my hand so I’ll stop and face him. His fingers sift through a strand of my hair that the wind has blown across my cheek.

“Liam…”

“I’ve missed having you in my life, Ellie. I’ve missed it every damn day.”

“What are we doing?” I ask, feeling a little helpless.

“Whatever we want.”

I look at him, trying to figure out why I feel like I’m drowning.

“None of this makes any sense. We’re divorced. Your life is in Tennessee, Liam.”

“Just because we’re divorced, does that mean we can’t be friends, Ice?”

“Is that what you want, Liam? To be my friend?”

“I sure as hell don’t want us to be enemies, Ellie.”

“I thought you would hate me for leaving,” I tell him, quietly, whispering the words that keep me from sleeping at night.

“I think I did for a while,” he responds with a brutal honesty that hurts, but then that’s who Liam always was. He would tell you something flat out, it hurt at times, but you always knew where you stood with him.