“What’s going on here?” Kylie pursed her lips. “Who is she to you?”
My response should have been automatic, and that was what the real problem was. Birdie was nothing to me. A friend of a friend. A pain in my ass. But I couldn’t say it.
“She’s a lot younger than you,” Kylie pointed out. “Have you given that any thought?”
I dragged a hand through my hair as my frustration compounded. “I know she’s young.”
Kylie seemed taken aback by my tone, but I didn’t like what she was implying. Maybe it was just in my head, but her words sounded accusatory. Even if her intentions were good, I didn’t like how she was looking at me as though I would hurt Birdie somehow.
Birdie appeared at the end of the hall, and like a magnet, my eyes found hers. For a second, she held my gaze, and I forgot about all the shit that made this situation so messy. But then something shifted as her attention broke away, and I could practically see her slipping back into her invisible armor. We were in a room full of my brothers, and they hadn’t missed the pretty blonde either. To them, Birdie was all legs and tits and ass. It lit a fire under my own feet before I even realized what I was doing.
“Come on,” I told Kylie. It was time I got my fucking head screwed on straight.
She followed me over to Birdie, and I resisted the urge to ask her if she was okay.
“You need to rest,” I said.
Birdie’s eyes bounced back and forth between us before I turned her around and led her down the hall to the room. “Nobody will bother you in here.”
She stood there silently, and I didn’t know what else to say. So I left her there and led Kylie down the hall to a different room. Before I closed the door behind us, my eyes connected with Birdie’s one more time. She looked hurt, but she also looked like it was exactly what she expected from me. Every person she’d ever cared about had betrayed her, so why should I be any different? Tension coiled in my gut as I shut her out with an audible click of the door.
I sent Kodiak a quick text, instructing him to keep an eye on Birdie and make sure she didn’t leave the building. He replied with a thumbs-up, and I turned my attention to Kylie. On the bed behind her, she already had her overnight bag full of her preferred torture tools and first-aid supplies. When she noticed my eyes roving over it, she shrugged.
“It’s Friday, remember?”
Right. Because she was supposed to come for the weekend. And Kylie had only ever stayed in the clubhouse. She hadn’t been to my house. I’d kept our arrangement as simple as it could possibly be, but now it felt like everything was too fucked up to navigate.
She wanted answers, and I felt like I owed them to her even though it wasn’t the kind of relationship we had. I thought this thing between us was the closest I could ever get to a relationship. We’d never been intimate because it wasn’t sex I needed from her. It was pain. And for as long as I’d asked, she kept coming back to dole it out. But now, I was aware that I hadn’t imagined what I already knew. Kylie wanted more from me. I didn’t know how long she’d wanted more, but it was written clear as day in her eyes.
She wasn’t naïve, and she wasn’t one to mince words, so it didn’t surprise me when she approached me with a quiet hunger, her hands flattening against my chest. “Is this still working for you, Ace?”
It was a loaded question, but the answer should have been simple. Birdie had been infecting my every thought for months, and now she was here, in my space. I couldn’t shake the torment I felt every time I looked at her. But it was so fucking wrong, and this was just so much easier. Kylie didn’t ask for more from me. She didn’t need me to be sensitive or try to figure out her feelings. All she needed was to give me what I thought I wanted. Every boundary I’d set made no sense now, and part of me was tempted just to make Birdie hate me by fucking Kylie here and now. But when I looked down at her, I knew that wasn’t fair to anyone.
“For fuck’s sake.” I pulled away and shook my head. “I’m sorry, Kylie. But aren’t you tired of this? Aren’t you tired of waiting around for me all the time? Aren’t you tired of the fucked-up shit I ask of you?”
Her answering smile revealed a sadness I never knew she felt. “That’s what we agreed on from the beginning. I knew better than to hope for anything else from you, Ace. I didn’t think it was possible. But the way you look at her… I think maybe it is. Just not with me.”