Jagger met Hansen’s eyes. Waited until he got the nods of approval from the men around the table. Then he stood as soon as the gavel slammed down. Walked out of the room, calmly. Purposefully.
Then he went and vomited in the bathroom.
He was a man that had seen a lot, done even worse. None of it made him sick.
But the fucking thought of Caroline dying at the hands of his club, it was enough to shed the lining from his fuckin’ guts.
Chapter Six
Caroline
I was staring at the door.
I’d been awake since just after sunrise, after a long and thankfully dreamless sleep. But reality didn’t hesitate to punch me in the face the second I opened my eyes. I was in Liam’s room.
Liam was alive.
Three words kept bouncing around my head over and over.
As I got up, made the bed, doing my best to replicate the military corners, as I finger brushed my teeth, splashed water on my face, the words followed me.
I stared at myself in the mirror.
My skin was sallow. I was always pale. Ever since I was a kid.
I blinked, looking no longer at the woman of the present, but the girl of the past. With blonde ringlets and innocent eyes.
Somehow, despite the fact my brother and sister had a scattering of freckles covering their bodies, I didn’t have a single one. Not growing up at least. Not when I was with him. That would change. Once the harsh sun, the harsh life brought them out. But when Liam knew me, my skin had always been clear, white, with peachy undertones.
Peaches.
His hands were everywhere. They were fire, alighting my entire body with his touch, awakening something inside me I thought didn’t exist outside of romance novels. A hunger clawed at my throat, on the insides of my thighs. For him.
“Liam,” I gasped, coming up for air, our mouths still brushing.
His eyes were wild with need. With carnal desire. For me. “Fuck, Caroline. You’re so fucking beautiful.” He lifted himself up, tracing his eyes up and down my almost naked body.
I wanted to flinch underneath his gaze. He’d seen me in bikinis before. But this was different. My cotton lace trimmed panties and white bra weren’t exactly sexy. But then again, I hadn’t planned on my parents being away for the night and having my siblings absent so Liam could come over.
I hadn’t counted on being so nervous. So terrified that I wouldn’t be enough for him.
But his gaze, the pure reverence and worship in it told me I was enough. It filled me up.
His hand traced along the edge of my bra, above my thundering heartbeat. And then down.
I let out a gasp as he brushed my panties.
His eyes met mine. “You’re perfection,” he growled. “You’re peaches and cream.”
His hand went inside my panties.
“You’re my Peaches.”
I hadn’t even realized I’d smashed the mirror until the glass shattered around me, falling into the sink, scattering onto the no doubt bleached floor.
I stared down at it emptily, then to the object I’d used to smash the glass. A soap dispenser. At least I hadn’t used my fist.
It clattered as I dropped it into the sink.
I walked back into the bedroom. I didn’t avoid the broken glass in my bare feet, but it didn’t cut me. Maybe I was already cut up, shredded enough, there wasn’t any unharmed skin for it to slice.
I stared at the orderly room. I started with the oak set of drawers to my left.
I wanted to rip his carefully ordered life apart. Just like he’d ripped me apart.
I was standing in the middle of the room when the lock on the outside of the door rattled.
I was standing because there was nowhere to sit. In addition to ripping off all the sheets and pillowcases, I’d done my best to overturn the mattress. The frame was too heavy to move. Though I might not have been physically as strong as the stranger in the cut with the scar and muscles, my hurt found solace in fury, and fury worked well to give me strength.
An empty kind of strength.
Because I might have been able to ruin his bedroom, tear apart his drawers and smash his mirrors, but he could ruin me just by opening the door. My strength waned and disappeared as his eyes locked on mine.
He gazed around the room, eyes empty, gaze flat. No anger, not even surprise. Just…nothing. Could this really be him? Could he really regard me with that flat gaze after what happened? After what we were?
“It help?” he asked finally, nodding his head to the room.
I bit my lip until I tasted blood. Took a breath. Steeled myself from the sudden and almost unbearable need to run across his ruined and foreign possessions and into the familiar embrace of his arms. My blood cried out for it with a desperation I could barely survive.