He bent his head and pressed a kiss to my forehead, then led me out the door.
CADE
“You need to leave. You need to pack your bags and head back to Seattle.”
It was two days after Mirabella’s funeral and I was rattled. Watching Jacob bury his wife was like watching my worst nightmare.
Indy looked at me like I was crazy. “I’m not going anywhere.”
But I ignored her. “You still have your apartment, right?”
“Yes, I own it. But I’m thinking of renting it out. Oh, and that’s right. . . I’m not leaving.”
“Indy, I’m not asking.” I knew she wouldn’t leave without a fight. But I was ready to make sure she would listen. It had been seven days since Mirabella’s murder and we were no closer to finding her killer.
It meant we were all at risk.
Jacob was a mess. Inconsolable. His world had been ripped from under him and he was devastated. The other night, after the funeral, I’d found him lying in the dark on the bed he used to share with his wife. Conquered by grief. Clutching his dead wife’s silk robe. His words disconnected. His voice eerily calm, yet flat and robotic. His Glock sitting on the nightstand next to him—the safety off.
We moved him into the clubhouse the next day.
“I’m telling you, you have to leave town until we sort out what the fuck is going on,” I said. Christ. I would probably think about eating my gun, too, if I lost Indy. “It’s not safe.”
Indy climbed off the bed, wearing nothing but a tight tank and tiny panties. And despite my anxiety, despite my fear for her safety, the sight of her near nakedness still made my dick hard as a rock.
“I’m not leaving, and that’s that.” She looked up at me with those dark brown eyes and tenderly touched my cheek. “We’re together now. And that means we’re together through everything.”
I tried to ignore how hard she was making me. This was serious and I wasn’t going to let her sway me by giving me those big brown eyes. But she was my kryptonite. The one thing that could bring me to my knees and make me lose my mind.
“You could die, Indy. Do you get that? Someone is out to hurt The Kings. Three of us are already dead. Look at Mirabella. I don’t want you to get caught in the crossfire.”
She fixed me with fiercely determined eyes. “I’m not going anywhere. Do you hear me?” Then her expression softened and she reached for me by my belt buckle. “Now, will you please stop talking so much bullshit and come and fuck your woman?”
She pulled her tank over her head, revealing her perfect, naked body. Deliberately trying to distract me. “Or do you need a little more convincing?”
She ran her hand over the front of my jeans.
My dick didn’t need much more convincing than that. I pulled her into me and kissed her hard.
“I don’t want to hear any more talk about danger or me leaving, got it?” she whispered against my lips.
She pulled me down onto the bed and the move put me right at the beginning of where I wanted to be. With some minor adjustments, I pushed into her and instantly my mind went somewhere else. Her body. This girl. It was easy for me to get lost in her. And as I made love to her, the craziness of what was happening around us simply vanished and I lost myself in loving her, kissing her, bringing her to a climax, one, two, three times, until I couldn’t take it anymore and I came inside her with a blinding wave of pleasure.
But as the warm glow of my orgasm faded away, the cold reality of the situation began to seep back in. Indy was my weakness. I couldn’t be without her. If I left her, I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep away. She would only need to look at me with those big, beautiful eyes of hers and I would go running back to her. She was my addiction. My everything. I needed her close but that put a huge target on her back. If someone was trying to take down The Kings—if someone wanted me dead—Indy could get hurt. And the thought of her getting hurt made me feel insane.
It was then I realized I was trapped. I couldn’t leave. But I could sure as hell make sure she did.
I hated what I was going to do. And it was going to break my heart. But it needed to be done because it was the lesser of the two evils.
Either way, I was going to lose Indy.
But at least this way she would be safe.
I had wrestled with the idea for days, but had come back to the same conclusion every time. I had to get Indy as far away from this fucking club and this nightmare as possible. It would mean the end for us and she would never forgive me, but she would be alive. When I had second thoughts about it, I thought of Mirabella lying dead in Jacob’s arms, her brains running out of the bullet wound to her head, and it was all I needed to convince me that this was a good idea.