"You asked me up here," she repeated with a sly smile. "You wanted me to make you feel better, baby." She started crawling toward me, her tits jiggling with the move, her hair shifting and curling over her shoulders, but she could have been a zombie walking toward me for all that I cared.
"Get the fuck away from me," I hissed, shoving her hard enough for her to tumble off the bed.
I didn’t treat women like shit, but fuck if I didn’t when they climbed into my bed and made me think—
No, she hadn’t said a word.
I remembered that. The fractures of the memory came together, revealing a moving picture I wanted to discard forever.
I’d chosen to believe it was Keira. Keira who I was kissing. Keira who I was loving.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, weariness hitting me. Weariness and sorrow. Then my eyes caught on my cock. A condom covered it.
I’d cheated on Keira.
The only fucking person who mattered to me, and I’d cheated on her.
The guilt, sweet fuck, the guilt. It was like nothing else I’d ever experienced.
Worse than every mistake I’d made when I was high, worse than the disappointment in Bear’s eyes whenever he caught me with drugs.
This was like a knife to the belly—
"You wanted me!" Kendra spat. "You can try to convince yourself otherwise, but you did."
I thought you were Keira.
"You wanted me, Storm."
"I thought you were Keira!" I screamed the words at her, wishing each one were a bullet that would kill her stone dead.
"As if she’d grace the clubhouse with her presence," Kendra snarled. "She’s too hoity toity for that. God forbid she comes here and actually sullies herself with the peasants.
"When are you going to realize you and her aren’t right for each other?"
"Get out of my room."
"She’s all wrong for you. She’s too good for this way of life, Storm. She was always like that in school." Her top lip curved into a sneer. "She likes to think her shit don’t stink."
"Get out."
"You should let her go. You’ll only ruin things for her, Storm. She’s not made for this life," she pleaded, her hands clutching at the covers. "I am. I’m perfect for you. Why can’t you see that?"
Her whispered words ran too close to what I often thought.
I wasn’t good enough for her.
Keira was too pure for this way of life. Too clean.
I’d only dirty her. Taint her. Sully her.
Scum.
Scum.
Scum.
The word repeated on a litany, just like it had when Mom spat it at me, but I screamed, "Get the fuck out of here before I make you regret so much as looking at me, never mind fucking with me."
Her shoulders straightened, fear entered her eyes, but she shot me a wobbly smile. "You’d never hurt me, Storm," she told me softly. "You just have to see that we’re perfect for each other—"
"I wouldn’t have fucked you if you were the last pussy on earth and we’d just been hit with an ice age, Kendra.
"In fact, it’d take more than that for me to tap your frigid ass. Now get the fuck away from me before I do more than threaten you, and don’t you dare go anywhere near me again or I’ll make you regret it."
I watched in bewilderment when, instead of doing as I said, she clambered onto the bed and started crawling toward me once again.
Was she fucking stupid?
I leaped off the mattress, making her jump, and then I grabbed her by the hand and hauled her off it.
When she landed with a thump on the floor, crying out, I didn’t listen. I’d warned her, but she’d refused to back off. So I dragged her out of the room and dumped her sorry ass outside the door.
"What the fuck, man?" Link boomed.
I closed my eyes, unable to believe that I’d been caught with literal proof of cheating on my wife, but I snapped at Kendra, "You leave me the hell alone."
She burst into tears then threw herself at Link who, like the sap he was where women were concerned, held her and comforted her.
I didn’t stick around to watch the fucking show. I grabbed my cut, hauled it on, pulled off the condom, puked after I did so, at further proof of what I’d done, then dragged on my jeans then my boots.
While people had gathered around a sobbing Kendra, and I knew the news was spreading that I’d been unfaithful to Keira, I didn’t wait for her to sell me as the cheating husband.
There were extenuating circumstances, but I saw the gleam of hatred in her eyes.
There was a fine line between love and hate, and I’d just crossed it.
I raced toward my bike, suddenly desperate to find out where the hell Keira was, to reveal the godawful truth, to beg her to forgive me, but just as I started my engine, my phone buzzed.
When I saw her name, I closed my eyes with relief and regret. Remorse too.
But I shoved that aside, instead answered the call with, "Keira, baby, I know Scarlet upset you but I told her she’s no longer welcome—"
"Storm," she sobbed out, making my heart jerk in my chest. "I-I think I’m losing the baby!"
And that was when I knew what it was to be punished for my sins.
As I stared up at the sky, bright blue with the sun so piercing it made my drug-addled head pound, tears wet my eyes and I reached up and rubbed at them before I rumbled, "She’s going nowhere, baby girl. Where are you? I’m coming right now. We’ll get through this."
We had to.
Twenty-Seven
Keira
PRESENT - MAY
I See Red - Everybody Loves an Outlaw
"MaryCat, can you pass me the salt, please?"
Though I’d been keeping a weather eye on Cyan and MC, mostly because MC was still prone to small bouts of tears and moments of spacing out and because Cyan had a tendency to want to play with Maddox rather than learn French, I had to smile at the sight of my eleven-year-old holding the baby while trying to eat a veggie burger and fries.
"She’s not giving up, is she?"
I recognized the voice, then jerked in surprise when I saw it was Jared. Uncomfortable, I shot him a tight smile, then said, "Jared! Hi."
His smile was more sheepish. "I know, I didn’t call. I’m sorry. Things got crazy."
Oh dear, I hadn’t even remembered him to be honest. Rex’s little chat with me had kind of erased him from my memory.
"That’s fine. I hope everything went well at the conference." He hadn’t lied about ghosting me. I made sure to keep some distance between me and the counter he was leaning on. "Want a coffee?"
He nodded. "Please. That’s your daughter?"
"It is." I smiled.
"She’s not at school?"
"I decided to homeschool her."
He arched a brow. "Really? Why would you do that?"
"Because it’s my choice?" I retorted wryly. "Because school was causing her anxiety and that’s the last thing she needs right now?"
"School shapes minds," he disagreed.
And who the heck had asked for his opinion?