Roan (The Henchmen MC 17)

Because nothing else made sense.

Even if she still had that necklace on...

"I don't think it was a whim," I told Reign, shrugging. "I think she doesn't know exactly what she wants. I think facing the thing that haunts you is scary."

"So, she was pissing herself when she pistol-whipped you?" Pagan asked, brow quirked up.

"No. She was avoiding talking to me since that was what I had wanted to do. She wanted me down, so she could get away. Regroup. Maybe figure out what she did actually want."

"So, you don't think she's done with you?"

"After fifteen years? Sweating her ass off in the desert, freezing in the Russian winters, getting bit all over in the tropics? No. I don't think she went through all that to shoot me in the thigh and give me a headache."

"Think she's coming for his dick," Pagan decided, shrugging when the girls shot him a smirk. "We should get him one of those metal panty things. Or one of those devices some fucks let a dominatrix put on his junk so he can't touch himself, and no one else can touch him."

"And exactly how do you know about those devices, Pagan?" Alex asked, lips twitching.

Pagan's objection was cut off by Janie. "I don't mind a good castration. Revenge-wise, y'know? It certainly makes a statement. What?" she asked when eyes went to her. "I don't mean for cursing you out in traffic. But pedos and rapists? It seems fitting."

"Can't disagree with that," Reign agreed, shrugging.

"And I'm assuming you didn't rape her," Pagan piped back in.

"Are you fucking asking me that?" I asked, voice cold.

"It's a valid question. With as much rage as she's got."

"No, I didn't rape her."

But maybe an argument could be made for it being almost as fucked up.- PAST -Roan - 15 years agoShe'd been a virgin.

The whole drive home, my stomach had been churning.

It was one thing to seduce some unsatisfied housewife who'd had a couple partners in her time, who had relationships go south, and needed to move on from them before.

It still sucked to use them, to fuck them over.

But it wasn't that much different than being a common bar douchebag who promises a chick the world only to fuck them and disappear.

Guy were assholes sometimes. Women who had been around had learned that for themselves several times over.

This?

This was beyond fucked up.

There was a burning rage in my stomach toward Allen, for putting me on this job. Even though it wasn't exactly something he could have known either.

Besides, he wasn't the one who had done it.

That was me.

I didn't immediately place the sensations moving through me, the crawling foreignness of my skin, the sick feeling in my throat, the heavy, sunken sensation in my gut.

I'd always been a man who did what he did with no regrets because it needed to be done.

This was new.

Ugly.

It wasn't until I was riding up the elevator to my room that I placed it.

Disgust.

Self-hatred.

How the fuck had I let it happen?

Letting myself into my room, I made my way to the bathroom, disposing of the condom I'd had no choice but to tuck into my pocket since there was no garbage in the cellars, hating myself even more as I closed the lid on the garbage can.

I should have known.

She'd been unsure, a little shy, she never talked about other guys.

But she was young. I figured she was intimidated by me a bit. And, well, every woman sixteen to one-hundred-sixteen knew that the current guy you were dating didn't want to hear about your exes.

She was nineteen.

Sweet.

Smart.

Funny.

And fucking drop-dead gorgeous.

It almost seemed ridiculous to assume she'd never been with someone before. Girls like her had to have been chased by all the guys in high school, and in the time she spent at university.

And not one of them had been worthy enough in her eyes?

"Fuck," I hissed slamming my forehead into the doorjamb, leaving it rested there, taking a deep breath.

None of those guys - likely good guys who just wanted her for normal reasons - had been good enough.

But me, the one motherfucker in this whole world whose job it was to use her, I was who she'd decided on?

Moving out to the room, I dropped down on the corner of the bed, burying my head in my hands.

Chances were, I'd have felt like a dick no matter what on this case. Because she was young. Because she was just so lonely and in need of someone to give a shit about what she liked, what she wanted, how she wanted to spend the rest of her life.

But this?

This was a whole other level.

One day, I would get what was needed from her, and I would simply disappear. Leaving her in a foreign country feeling - rightly- used, regretful, angry at herself, sad for what she had lost to someone like me, confused, maybe a little heartsick.