“What’s wrong?”
He grunted as he threw up his hands. “Everything. Fucking all of them can go to hell.” There were fractures of my Adam breaking through his hostility. The vulnerability I once saw in my lover was there, and I swear I saw tears building in his eyes.
He sat on the edge of the bed, his head hanging heavily in his hands looking lost and in need.
I’m such a glutton for punishment…
Cautiously, I approached him, watching the rise and fall of his shoulders as he took panting, deep breaths. Every muscle tensed when he felt my fingertips make contact with his skin, and I sat down next to him. Then he just melted against me, falling into my arms, clutching me like I was his only hope of survival.
What the fuck happened in there?
My fingers moved into his hair, delving into the thick, coarse strands of dark inkiness, soothing him with loving strokes.
“What happened?”
“I’m losing everything,” he whispered. “My club… their respect… you.”
His eyes lifted, meeting mine with a veil of unshed tears. He was too strong to let them fall, but the weakness in those pooling bits of water was intoxicating. He never showed weakness, and yet, here he was, holding me like he was fighting for the last minutes of his life.
“I’ve lost you, haven’t I?”
My silence said everything.
He moved slightly in my arms, staring up at me with the soul of someone who was searching for answers.
Focusing on a dirty spot on the ground, his embrace tightened. “I guess I deserve the silence. After everything I’ve done, Shasta, I don’t deserve words, let alone forgiveness. Do you think you can ever forgive me?”
His sudden plea for forgiveness was alarming.
“Honestly, Adam, I don’t think I can.”
He let out a long-exaggerated breath, his grip never wavering.
“I made her get an abortion,” he whispered. Though, I barely heard him over his deep exhaled breaths.
“What?”He wouldn’t do that to someone else, would he?
“Nina. That day I left. I took her to get an abortion. I saw what getting her pregnant did to you, and as much as I wanted a baby, I made her get rid of it.”
Was he lying?I searched his eyes for slivers of truth, but I just couldn’t tell anymore. Adam wouldn’t lie to me… Sabbath would tell me the sky was green.
“I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“You shouldn’t have to.”
He turned to face me, bringing me up onto his lap. “I’ve done some things I’m not proud of. Both of us have said things we shouldn’t have, and yet… here we are. You don’t look at me the same anymore. You look at me like I’m the last man on Earth you’d want to touch you.”
Even as he said it, my skin crawled with anxiety. He was right. Sabbath was the last person I wanted to touch me, but Adam…
“Nothing I do will fix it, will it?”
“No,” I choked out, the shameful whisper cracking my voice.
He sighed.
I hadn’t seen Nina around the clubhouse since he left that day. Where was she?
“Where’s Nina?”