"I fucking loved you," he repeated in a guttural snarl, drawing back when he realized that he was scaring me.
I sucked in air, keeping my back to the wall, trying to calm my racing heart. He’d loved me? As in past tense. He'd moved on, just as I'd told him to do. As he continued to stare at me I wiped my tears away and took a trembling breath, determined to get the words out I that needed to. I wanted him to know the truth. Not because I wanted to hurt him more, but because he deserved to know.
"And I still love you."
Chapter 4
Sax
"I still love you."
Son-of-a-bitch!
Hours later, I still couldn't get those fucking words out of my head, or the sight of Holly's tear ravished face. I'd watched her walk away after she’d uttered a comment that had nearly brought me to my fucking knees, too stunned to do anything else until the pain had set in on the damage that I'd done to my knuckles when I’d hit the wall. She had no right saying that shit to me and then walking away as if she hadn't just gutted me.
Walking in and seeing her with a baby had felt like the equivalent of someone ripping my fucking heart out. At first, with her head bent, I hadn't recognized her. She'd let her hair grow long enough to pull it up into a messy bun, and the brown had golden highlights running through it. Plus her curves had filled out some. She'd always been curvy, but in a controlled way that she'd worked hard to keep tight.
Yeah, her tits were definitely bigger, and so was her ass, but in the kind of way that made me want to sink my teeth into it. She'd always been gorgeous to me, but I liked the changes motherhood had obviously gifted her with. The fact that no one had informed me that Holly had a baby, or was even expecting one, had made me question my brother's loyalty until Cole had explained that none of them had known.
I had to ask myself why Holly would keep it a secret, but then reminded myself that I shouldn't care. Except that I fucking did care. I wanted to know who the fucking father was, who had put a baby in her belly that should have been mine. I pounded the bar with the side of my fisted hand, letting the rage fill me as much as the tequila. I'd always told Holly that I didn't want kids. It was the only thing that we’d fought about when we'd been together, but I’d never expected her to go out and get pregnant as soon as she broke it off with me.
Unless she’d broken it off with me because she was already pregnant.
Had she been fucking around on me?
Had it been with one of my brothers? I thought about it for a minute, and even my half-drunk brain didn't believe that for a minute. I trusted my brothers. I'd trusted Holly, too. And maybe in time I would have given her the baby she'd wanted so desperately…
"Another shot, Brother?"
I nodded.
Snake dropped one off and looked to the side of me. "What about you, boss?"
I cut my eyes to where Demon was sitting next to me. I hadn't even noticed that he’d joined me. Maybe because of the woman who was sitting on the other side of the room from me at the old ladies' table. I smirked at Snake's persistence of calling Demon boss while the rest of us called him Prez.
"Whiskey."
"You drinking your troubles away?" Demon snorted.
I smirked. "What troubles?"
He motioned in the direction to where the women were sitting. "Woman troubles."
It sounded as if he was an expert on the subject. Hell, he was. He'd gone through some shit before he’d made Bobbie his old lady.
"I don’t have a woman," I corrected him. I stared down at my beer to keep my eyes off Holly.
"What about the woman you brought back with you?"
Frowning, I glared at him. "You know why I brought her here. Hell, I haven't even fucked her."
I'd brought Goldie to the clubhouse to replace Tamara, the club bitch who'd betrayed us and finally met her end a few months ago. Goldie had been hitchhiking on the interstate looking for an adventure when I'd ridden up on her. I didn't normally put bitches on the back of my bike, but when she'd explained that she was on the run and why, I'd decided to help her out.
"So how do you know she's gonna make a good club whore?" Demon questioned gruffly, picking up his glass.
I laughed. "You fuck her if you want to know," I suggested, an unwise move.
Instead of decking me, he grinned. "Think Bobbie will have something to say about that."
"There are plenty of brothers around who can test her out," I said, not really giving a fuck.
"So you're not staking a claim? Because it looks like she and Snake are already getting friendly."
I followed Demon's gaze to the end of the bar. "He can have her." Snake was definitely putting the moves on Goldie, though she appeared to be uninterested in his advances. "When did he get his patch?"
"After LD went to Vegas and we had trouble from the Insane Boys we patched in our existing prospects to make room for new ones. Needed to get our numbers up."
I nodded, remembering the night the Insane Boys had attacked Grinders, killing eight of our brothers and four old ladies. We'd taken out some of them, too, and in the end Desert Rebels had gone after the IBMC and destroyed them all. I hadn't been around for any of it, and I still resented Demon for not calling me back. I should have been there.
"What else did I miss while I was gone?"
"Same old shit, Brother. Already know about the IBMC."
We sat quietly for a minute with our own thoughts. Not an easy thing to do with rock booming through the clubhouse. It was a typical Friday night. Hell, like any night really, it was just more crowded on the weekends. The bar was packed, and from what I could see everyone was enjoying themselves, high on booze and weed. There was some fucking going on, but I was oblivious to everything but the woman sitting across the room.
"You get over her yet?"
I glared at Demon, restraining myself from ripping his head off.
He snorted and went back to his drink. "Why don't you talk to her? Work shit out?"
I shrugged, not looking at him. "Nothing to work out, Brother." My gaze went to Holly. "Better off without her." I said the words, but didn't feel them. "Especially now that she has a kid."
"You really hate kids that much?" He frowned. "Fuck, the clubhouse is going to be full of them soon."
"I don't hate kids," I said, surprised that he would think that. "Just don't want them." I had my reasons, though they weren't the ones that I'd given Holly when she'd started talking about babies. I stared at the woman who'd ripped my heart out and stomped on it, wondering once again who the fucking father was to her kid. "Wonder who the baby daddy is," I muttered, for my ears only.
Demon had no trouble hearing me. He motioned for Snake to bring him over another drink. "She hasn't said." He ran his hand through his hair. "I don't think she knows."
That comment sobered me like nothing else, and my head whipped his way. "Come again?"
I watched his shoulders lift in a shrug. "Sometimes you can be a dumb motherfucker, Brother. Think about it. Ava is six months old. By my calculations, Holly was already pregnant when she broke it off with you."