He knew almost everything.
And some men might not be able to handle it.
But he had looked past it to who she was. Or would hopefully be again soon.
She was getting there. Every day was a step forward. And he had a lot to do with that.
Not just him. All of them.
In the short time she’d known them, the club had become more her family than her own. She now understood the appeal of the MC and the brotherhood. It wasn’t orthodox but it was real.
“Sig, you saved me. I’m not just talking about the day you found me. But every day I’ve spent with you since. Every single day you helped me move forward and stop looking behind... It wasn’t just you, it was Stella, Trip, Judge, Shady, all of the MC. All of you accepted me, took me in, treated me like one of your own, when I was far from it.”
“You didn’t make it hard, Red.”
“You didn’t make it hard for me to fall in love with you, either.”
He closed his eyes and his jaw shifted. It was something he wanted but he still struggled with it. Hearing it. He believed he was unlovable.
His mother and father, whether Razor or Buck, never showed him any. He probably didn’t even know what it felt like. So, she wanted to show him.
Whether he knew it or not, he’d shown her love, too. He probably just didn’t recognize it.
“Sig...”
“’Cause of you I’ve changed.”
“No, you haven’t changed. You’re still you. You’re still who you’ve always been. Like me, you still have issues to work on. And if I stay, you need to find a way to direct your temper when it starts to overwhelm you.”
“Trip’s workin’ on that.”
“Good. He loves you, too, you know. And you need to let him.”
Sig said nothing.
One step at a time.
“Just wanna make shit clear—”
“Hold out your hand,” she ordered, cutting him off.
Without hesitating, he did. He held it out to her, waiting, until it started to tremor just slightly. His dark brown eyes searched her face.
She searched his.
He hadn’t ridden in to save her like a knight on his white horse. Instead he rode a black and chrome horse with loud exhaust pipes. He wasn’t a typical savior, but he was hers.
And she’d keep him.
He was beginning to curl his fingers into his palm when she stopped him by putting hers in his and gripping it tight.
“You,” she whispered, her voice trembling as much as their hands. “You. The choice has always been you.”
Epilogue
Re-Awakening
Autumn glanced up from her laptop as Sig walked into the apartment, unwrapping the tape from his hands.
Today had been a bad day for him. He’d struggled after almost being clubbed with a bat when doing a repo earlier. He managed to grab the bat out of the man’s hands and had broken it over a charcoal grill instead of over the man’s head.
So, he was improving.
Somewhat.
But as soon as he’d dumped the vehicle in the new secured storage yard that Trip had built on the farm, Sig had come up to the apartment, changed and disappeared without a word to her.
She recognized the signs when he needed to be left alone, when his temper was flaring and she let him work it out as he saw fit.
Well, all except for the way he used to.
She had two strict rules. No spanking and fucking other women and no going back to prison.
While he agreed with both of those, he still had moments where she worried he’d break their agreement.
“Is it helping?”
He was covered in sweat, his hair was damp and his shirt gone, showing off his many tattoos and the defined muscles he’d developed since one of the sheds had been converted to the club’s “rage room.”
Those bigger muscles meant he used that room a lot. Most likely due to the fact that since they’d been together, they’d only had actual intercourse a few times before her going into labor. And, of course, zero since the baby had been born. Though, they had done a few other things. Especially since Sig couldn’t keep his hands off her bigger boobs.
“You tell me,” he said, throwing the wraps onto the counter next to her.
“After the incident earlier, did you have the urge to... do what you used to do?”
“Not really,” he grunted.
Not really wasn’t a no. But she knew he was doing his best and that was all she could ask for.
He was also taking the advice and training he’d been given to heart.
One of Trip’s Marine buddies named Slade had come up not long after Levi was born. The biker, who belonged to another MC in southwest Pennsylvania, had brought along his wife, Diamond, their son, Hudson, and new baby boy, Sawyer, who was absolutely adorable.
In fact, she and Diamond had hung out a few times as the woman nursed Sawyer and Autumn pumped breast milk for Levi. The woman was a trip and told her some interesting stories about her “family.” She’d been born into the Dirty Angels MC just like Stella had been born into the Fury.