“It makes no sense. Him being here. Him being all intense. I don’t get it.”
I waited expectantly as Marilyn just stared at me.
“What?” she demanded after a few beats.
“Some insight would be great,” I grumbled.
“Honey, just because I happened to be born with the same parts does not mean that I know what the fuck men are thinking. I may know a lot about them through sheer experience, but I know nothing about that kind of man.” She did the pointing with the wine glass thing again. “I don’t think another man like that exists. The world would tilt on its axis or something.”
I sighed. “Yeah, you’re right.” Oh, and you can’t tell Des,” I ordered.
Her brows furrowed. “I won’t tell Des because you have to tell Des.”
It was my turn to furrow my brows. “I do not have to tell Des. Des will do something stupid.”
She didn’t speak immediately because she knew that seeing my face, Des would get angry. Very angry. Then he’d be likely to do something stupid.
“Des does not need to know,” I stated firmly, my stomach turning even thinking about him seeing my face.
“How are you going to hide it from him?” Marilyn asked. “It’s going to take weeks for that to go away. And one week at the very least for makeup to be able to cover it.”
I sighed, the small realities of this situation rushing at me. “I’ll make excuses. Tell him I’m sick or something. Can we please not talk about it right now?” My voice went up at the end, too high. Bordering on shrill. That was only because I was forcing it not to shake, struggling to keep the tears from escaping.
Marilyn’s face softened, and she reached forward to pat my hand.
“For now, let’s drink wine and eat food we don’t need, watch trash TV and try to forget about men, good and bad.”
“Good plan,” I agreed. “You’re staying the night, right?”
“Of course I’m staying the night,” she said. “I brought my toothbrush and nothing else because I know you’ve got great PJs and even better skincare.”
I relaxed back into my bed, glad that, at least for tonight, I didn’t have to sleep alone in my house with Hades under the same roof.
HADES
Being in her space was hard.
Fucking hard.
It was full of shit I didn’t understand, a sofa with too many cushions, throws and other crap. Candles everywhere. Rugs. A bed that looked like nothing I’d ever seen. A bed I wanted to fuck Freya in. Every way I knew how to fuck a woman. And I knew how to fuck a woman in a lot of ways. I wanted to invent new ways to fuck Freya.
I’d been here before, and I’d been smart enough to shut down any and all kinds of feelings about Freya or her house. I didn’t have that choice now, though. Not with Freya looking like she did. Not with her walking around, teeth gritted, trying and failing to hide the pain she was in. I didn’t miss the way her black and blue face paled as she looked around her living room, seeing it through new eyes. Eyes that bore the evidence of what a violent, entitled, self-centered piece of shit could do when he was presented with what he couldn’t have.
Now her home, the one that she’d worked her ass off to purchase, the one that she probably loved due to its solitude and peace, was now just another place he could ruin. A place where he could hurt her.
Her house made no goddamn sense to me, and it pissed me the fuck off. It pissed me off that I knew what the inside of her bedroom looked like, but I didn’t know what the inside of her pussy felt like.
Then there was the friend. The one I’d seen at the club. Amazing tits. Full figure. A knockout in every way that would’ve made most men instantly fucking hard. Any man who hadn’t seen Freya.
She had come in with her own key, which told me she was a close friend. Then there was the speech that told me she was a good friend.
“Hey, Sons of Anarchy,” she’d called from the kitchen.
I had been on the phone with Keltan from Greenstone Security, telling him I’d really fucking appreciate him getting his guys out here by tomorrow. He’d been about to give me trouble, but then I’d told him what happened to Freya. He’d gone silent for a beat then told me he’d be flying out here to oversee the installation personally. And he’d get his guys on the case, tracking down the piece of shit responsible. He wouldn’t be there for what happened when we caught him. Sure, if it was his woman, he would’ve been. But Keltan mostly worked in the gray areas. He wasn’t all the way in the black like the Sons of Templar were. Like my chapter was.