I tried to remain calm, even though the idea that she didn’t want to be with me still stung. “How would it?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and said, “Oh, I don’t know. You’ve turned your whole club against me. Everyone in town looks at me like I’m a pariah, and I’m living with another man! Let’s not forget about that date I saw you on a few days ago.”
I frowned. “I haven’t been on a date. I haven’t wanted to be on a date. I don’t fucking want anybody but you.”
Please give me a chance.
She frowned. “I saw you. You were eating at a diner with a woman.”
“I was eating at a diner with a woman because I was almost done, there were no other tables, and I invited her to sit with me while I took the last bite of my hamburger,” I countered. “Which you would’ve known had you had the balls to actually talk to me when you came in instead of glaring holes through me.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it, seemingly stunned speechless.
“And my club doesn’t hate you. They’re worried about me, and they know that I still love you.” I paused. “Which is not a bad thing. As for another man? I think it’s time that we stop beating around the bush. You haven’t been with anyone else and likely never would. Please. Give us a chance.”
Her mouth dropped open. “I know that, but your club thinks I am. I get no respect from them. Your friends would cross the street to avoid walking past me.”
There was no denying it. They had my best interests at heart.
She got a worried look on her face, and when she started to stand up, I had no other option but to pull her into my arms and deposit her sideways on my lap to keep her from leaving.
The moment that her fine ass made contact with my lap, she started to squirm and pull away.
I refused to let her.
Locking my arms around her, I held tight, despite that her movements were making my leg jostle causing shards of pain to shoot along the nerve endings in my leg.
“Let me go!” she ordered fiercely.
I laughed.
In her face.
She narrowed her eyes and reached for me with her hands. Both buried in my hair as she tried to use leverage to push herself away.
Different shards of pain shot through me, but this pain was most welcome.
I wanted her hands in my hair.
I loved her hands in my hair.
I loved her hands on my body.
I smiled, and she got even more angry.
“Never. I’m never letting you go. All I need is time. Time to convince you that I won’t ever put anyone else first. Only you.”
***
Landry
Things had gone from bad to worse.
As if hearing that we were still married hadn’t been enough, Wade then took me to his parents’ home and proceeded to tell me that he wanted to stay married. That all he needed was time to convince me.
Was he crazy?
Yes, yes he was.
The fact that I was happy about the fact that I was still married to him should’ve been frightening. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t scary at all. It felt right.
Which was what scared me.
And when I’d tried to leave, Wade had grabbed me and pulled me into his lap—locking those strong arms around me and refusing to let me go.
I’d squirmed, pushed, and struggled all to no avail.
He wasn’t letting me get away.
I’d buried my hands in his hair, trying to force myself away from him and cause him enough pain to let me go—but he’d held strong.
“Let me go now, or I’ll hurt you, and I really don’t want to hurt you,” I hissed, letting one hand go to move to his bicep. There, I dug my nails in and started to rake them up and down his arms.
He didn’t flinch.
In fact, he grinned wider.
“Gonna take more than your claws to hurt me, baby,” he informed me, his eyes alight with mischief.
He was enjoying this, even though I could see that I was causing him at least some pain in his injured leg.
He was enjoying this immensely.
I wanted to claw his eyes out and wipe that smug, satisfied, superior look off his stupid, pretty face.
I struggled harder, being careful not to hurt my hand which I could feel starting to throb from all the movement, as well as keep most of my weight off of his injured leg.
And if I was hurting, my struggling was likely hurting him, too.
Yet he wasn’t saying a word.
He kept his mouth shut and put up with my struggles.
“God,” I hissed, giving one final attempt.
I squirmed out of the seated position he had me in and got my knees up and ended up practically straddling his body facing him.
All I ended up accomplishing was wedging the solid column of muscle and flesh that I’d been studiously ignoring with everything that I had further between my thighs. Now, it was pressed perfectly between the gap in my ass cheeks and I was frozen solid.