"Because you were standing up for both of you. The day you tossed me out on my ass was a day you made me proud of you, baby girl. I was so, so proud. I was hurting and grieving and terrified but I was glad that you did that because you deserve so much better than me."
"I only ever wanted you," she cried out, and this time, she started sobbing. "Why didn’t you want me enough? Why?" When her fist pounded on my chest, I let her. "Why did you have to break us apart? Why couldn’t you have just come to me? I would always have been there. Always."
My teeth clenched at her words, words that were like magic to my dick, but the pain it triggered had me tensing up, freezing in place.
"I can’t make things right, Keira. I can’t change the things I’ve done," I rumbled, "but I can work to be a better man—"
Her hand dropped to my dick and she shaped my shaft through my jeans. "Why did you do this to yourself? Why, Storm? Why did you brand yourself when the only woman you didn’t want to fuck was me?" Her mouth quivered. "At the end, there were months where you never touched me. Christ, I was so sure that—"
"It wasn’t you," I muttered rawly. "It was me. It was always me. I couldn’t touch you, Keira. I couldn’t. I was so dirty, and you were so clean.
"I’d look at you and Christ, I just wanted to take one big bite out of you, but—" I needed her not to touch my dick, but I could no more stop myself from pressing my forehead into hers than I could stop her from doing that. "Some days, I was jacking off twenty to twenty-five times, Keira." I’d never admitted that outside of a meeting before. "I was getting fucking calluses on my goddamn dick. But I still did it. It was a compulsion. How was I supposed to—" My mouth worked. "What was I supposed to do?"
"You could have come to me," she mumbled miserably. "I could have helped."
"How?" I countered. "It was ridiculous. Crazy." I pulled back. "I got weak. I got stupid. I got reckless. When shit got hard, and I wanted to get high, I’d jack off instead. The sex…" I ground my teeth. "It didn’t happen as often as you think. When it did, it was after a meltdown, after I got high.
"I’ll never be able to earn your forgiveness, Keira. Never. And that’s okay." I released a shaky breath. "I realized that tonight. You don’t have to forgive me, but that doesn’t mean I’ll stop trying. I won’t. I’ll never stop. If I have to spend the rest of my life— It doesn’t matter. Nothing does apart from you and Cyan."
"Does it hurt?"
I frowned. "Jacking off twenty times a day?"
"No." Her voice was small. "I asked you before and you said no, but I don’t believe you. The padlock… does it hurt?"
It hadn’t back then. But I’d upped the gauge with another custom-built device.
"Yes." It fucking ached like a son of a bitch.
"So, instead of drugs, and rather than jack off or fuck to escape the drugs, you’re self-harming?"
"It’s working."
"You’re self-harming," she repeated grittily.
"I haven’t had sex in months. I haven’t jacked off in months either. It’s working, Keira."
"It’s not a sustainable solution."
"It’s breaking the habit. I won’t cheat on you again. I won’t. I can’t."
"Even if I never take you back? Even when I get a boyfriend?"
My jaw ached with how hard I clenched down. "Even then."
A shocked breath escaped her. "Why are you doing this? Why now?"
"Because you leaving me… I hit rock bottom. I’ve been there so many fucking times, K. So many times. I’m so sick of being on the ground, looking up. Trying to fix my fuck ups, to make shit right. I can’t do it again. I can’t. I can’t want to end it all again—"
"Suicide?" she interrupted, a horrified gasp to her words.
"You’ve no idea how many times I almost tried. I don’t want you to know. I just… I did the best I could, and that was nothing in comparison to what you brought to our family. I let you down. I let Cy down. But I won’t do it again."
The sound of an engine rumbled to life, half pipes with it, and when a solitary light pierced the kitchen window, I wasn’t altogether surprised that the biker was coming to our house. I’d given the security guard a heads up to let a brother through the gates, just in case Rex or Digger arrived, but now wasn’t the best timing.
Not when, finally, I felt like Keira saw me for what I truly was.
A nothing.
A nobody.
An addict.
Worthless.
Trash.
And yet she still held me.
She didn’t push away from me.
She didn’t act as if my touch were poison to her.
I swallowed, affected more than she could know by her generosity, her selflessness.
How didn’t she realize how perfect she was?
How beautiful a person she was?
It hurt me. It physically hurt me. Which was why, there and then, I vowed that would be part of my recovery too.
I’d fix me, I’d try to fix us, but I’d fix her as well.
She was the priority.
She was always the priority.
When the knock sounded at the door, she murmured, "I’ll go get that."
"No. It’s okay. Go and get MaryCat. Digger’s here."
She blinked. "How do you know?"
I shrugged. "I know Rex’s knock."
A soft, shocked laugh escaped her, breaking the tension between us. "No way."
My lips curved a little. "Yes way."
I leaned away from her, removing my forehead from hers, and she finally let go of my dick.
As she backed off, I watched her until she made it to the door. That was when she looked at me over her shoulder, a strange gleam in her eyes, an odd expression on her face, before she disappeared.
I deserved for her to disappear for good.
But I knew my angel. She’d never do that to me, even if I deserved it.
Fourteen
Keira
PRESENT
Nothing Compares 2 U - Sinead O’Connor
Mind whirring, brain buzzing, heart racing, and body shaking, I felt like I’d been put through the emotional and physical wringer by the time I made it to the door of the spare bedroom.
I heard Storm move along the hall, open the door, and greet someone. Heard them slap their hands on each other’s backs because that’s what ‘bros’ did.
Even though I rolled my eyes, I smiled a little too because the house had been so quiet without him. Without his brothers stopping by, without him and Cy messing around after dinner.
I’d missed him.
And it wasn’t only to do with breaking up with him, either.
I’d been missing him for years.
And now that I was coming to learn about other facets of his nature, I was also realizing that I didn’t know him well. He’d held so much back from me, so much that a sane woman would back the hell away but if I was Storm’s angel, then he was my devil.