Lots of air. Razor’s breathing hard beside me, cradling my head, kissing my lips, my cheeks, and whispering that this was right, and he utters those magical words again. “I love you.”
RAZOR
CLOSE TO NAKED and tangled with me in my bed, Breanna’s head is on my chest and she tells me everything. From Kyle, to her parents, to her siblings’ reaction and the bad news I had hoped was wrong—that Breanna is being sent to private school—that she’s being sent away from me. I’m not Chevy and I don’t have any more tricks up my sleeve. Her parents are packing her up and Kyle still holds all the cards.
As she talks, I stare at the ceiling, graze my fingers up and down her bare back and search for a solution, but I keep circling back to the same place—with a solution she won’t easily accept.
Breanna falls silent, a
nd I give her a few seconds in case she remembers something else or I can create some brilliant plan. Neither happens.
“Can I tell you something?” she asks.
I fist her long raven hair and kiss her forehead. “Anything.”
Breanna lightly brushes her fingernails over my chest and her apprehension is palpable.
“Tell me,” I say.
“The night I met you, going to that private school was my dream. I would have given anything for my parents to say yes.”
I swallow the fear nagging at me. “And now?”
She lifts her head and the pain in her eyes is her answer. “I don’t want to go, not like this. Not because of this. Not because I’m in love with you and they won’t give you a chance.”
I trace her cheekbone and weigh her words. There’s a part of her that wants to go, and why wouldn’t she? This is a place that can challenge that perfect brain of hers, a place where she’ll meet other people like her, a place where, as she said, she’ll fit in and meet her tribe.
Just like how I have a tribe—my club. A group of men who understand there are days I want to talk and days I don’t. A group of men who I have proudly taken a bullet for and who would take the same bullet for me again and again. A group of men who are begging me to love and trust them the way they crave to love and trust me. A group that I’ve hurt because I can’t get past my own demons.
“I fucked up with Kyle and I’m sorry it’s costing you.”
She offers a sad smile that breaks my heart. “You tried, and that means everything to me. It’s okay. I’ll write the papers. At least being a hundred miles away will keep Kyle from tormenting me on a daily basis.”
But he’ll still torture her, possibly worse because he’ll hate the loss of control that comes with not being able to confront her in person. Fuck that. Trying isn’t good enough. “There’s a way to fix it with Kyle. The path I should have taken and I was too stupid and prideful to do it.”
And she’s now paying for my moronic choices.
“What do you mean?” Breanna leans forward on her bent arm and drags a sheet up to cover her breasts. Her modesty reminds me how different we are.
I stare straight into her hazel eyes, which are widening. Twenty dollars she already knows. She’s Einstein and those pieces are already put together in her head.
“It’s the only way,” I say.
She’s shaking her head. “You promised me the club would stay out of this.”
“They can do what I can’t. They can make this problem go away.”
“How?” Her voice grows in volume. “How are they going to make it go away? Are they going to hurt him? Are they going to make him disappear like Mia Ziggler?”
“Is that where we’re at? Back to believing rumors spread by a bunch of assholes?”
Breanna slams her mouth shut and looks down, but anger causes her body to tense. “I’ve told you, I trust you. Just because I trust you doesn’t mean I trust your club—”
“I am the club.” I cut her off and point at the tattoos of fire on my arms. “I have never not been the club.”
“That’s not true. You’ve been doubting them since we met. That’s the whole reason why we continued to talk. You needed proof about your mother because you didn’t trust them. I don’t claim to understand everything that happened the other night, but I saw the look on your face, I heard you yelling at them. I know they lied to you and I know you aren’t okay with it.”
“That’s between me and them.” I scoot to the edge of the bed, grabbing my jeans. “I’m talking about you and me. I’m talking about keeping you safe.”