“Nice to see you too,” Mountain grunts.
I can’t take my eyes off of this man, whoever he is. He takes a step toward us, then another. “I’m just going to go out on a limb and say that’s yours?” the man guesses, dipping his chin to look down at my belly.
“Yeah,” Mountain grunts. “Both of them.”
“Presley will be glad to add another woman to the group,” he announces, his gaze flicking from Mountain’s to mine. “You haven’t got a chance to meet her yet. Presley is my wife, she’s a teacher over at the elementary school, so she doesn’t get down here too often.”
I know that I stare at him. My lips part and no matter what I do, I can’t get them to close. An elementary school teacher. This man is married to an elementary school teacher? His mouth curves up into a grin at my obvious surprise.
“I see Mountain didn’t tell you much about your new family. We got all kinds here, babe. We got an ex-heiress type, some veterans, some of us were raised in this life, one of the wives works for the Boys and Girls Club. I could go on. Bottom line is we got it all, babe, be happy to bring you aboard too.”
Offhandedly, I wonder if he truly knows the kind of woman I am. The things that I did, was forced to do, the things that I became indifferent to seeing and doing? Would he really want me here if he knew those things, too?
“I’m Silver, gotta go pick up my boy from school, but we’ll have the girls do a proper welcome this weekend for you, shoulda done it before now.”
He walks away with a wave, without saying anything else. I turn to look up at Mountain, but he’s not looking at me. He’s staring at the gorgeous blonde who is standing next to the sofa that’s pushed against the wall.
The gorgeous blonde who is holding a baby, his baby. The way he’s watching her, his jaw set, his face almost hard. Sadness washes over me. I was right, my gut feeling was right. I’m his sloppy seconds and she is the one he wanted, with the son that he wants to keep as his own.
I try not to tear up, but these days my mind and body are not in sync. She senses him looking at her. My gaze shifts to her in my peripheral vision. I’m facing his profile, but I see the second she looks at us. Her eyes move down to my belly, then slide back up to meet his, and her lips turn up into a gorgeous smile.
He doesn’t smile back. Instead, he turns away from both of us and walks over to the bar. I’m standing in my shorts that are too small and a cheap shirt that Ana grabbed for me when she went to Walmart. She’s gorgeous and put together, and I look like a trailer park version of her. This is the classy woman that he’s attracted to, not some cheap version of her, not me.
No wonder he needs to go to the bar and drink. No wonder he needs to leave as soon as I’m here. No fucking wonder he’s so hot and cold.
“Hey,” Della calls out as she makes her way toward me.
I’m still watching Mountain’s back as he is bellied up to the bar. He reaches for the woman behind the counter and tweaks her nipple from over the top of her triangle bikini top. Anger boils inside of me instantly at the sight.
“Leighton?” Della asks.
“What?” I snap, shifting my attention to her.
She blinks, then takes a step back, obviously upset by my sharp tongue. I would apologize, but I don’t really feel like being nice right now. I feel like an idiot. Like the biggest fool who's walked the earth. All it takes are a couple semi-sweet words and I just skip behind him, a man I don’t really know, and come back here.
“I’m glad you’re back. I think this is going to be amazing,” she whispers.
I snort, wishing like hell that I could be a bitch to her. But it’s not her fault, none of it. “I highly doubt that, but thank you.”
“Time, Leighton. All it takes is time. Everything is new.”
I hum and turn away from her, heading out to the back. It’s rude. I know that it is, but I don’t necessarily feel like being cordial right now.
I need fresh air.
I need to breathe.
I need to just have quiet.
Hell, I don’t know what I need. But I do know that I don’t want a man who thinks I’m second best, who turns his back on me instantly, who ignores me and grabs another woman’s boob right in front of me.
I definitely don’t want that.
Not in the fucking slightest.
Something ugly grows inside of me, deep down to my core. I hate it. Hate the feeling, but it’s been there gnawing on the edges of my thoughts since I found out about Della, about the baby that they share, the bond that will forever keep them—together.
“You runnin’ again, girl?” a deep voice growls.
Turning my head, I look over to see a bearded man standing next to me. His eyes are focused on mine, not moving and looking really fucking annoyed that he has to deal with this shit. I don’t blame him, considering the patch on his cut names him as the president of this club.
A few months ago, I didn’t know shit about these clubs, about how they worked. After living at the Sinister Skulls clubhouse, between Dutch and Ana, I got a lesson on club life. Most of it, I found intriguing, some of it chauvinist, and a little of it disturbing.
“Dragon?” I ask, dipping my chin toward his name patch. I remember meeting him once, he laughed and gave me some tequila.
His lips twitch. “I’m President here, but I don’t need to tell you that. We’ve met, when you first got here. Plus, I’m sure you’ve figured it out by looking at my cut, I doubt Bones and Dutch let you walk off of Skulls property without an education.”
“Oh, I got an education,” I mutter.
I think about how the Skulls cage their women, how they are completely and totally submissive to them in every way. Then also, seeing how it could be beautiful too. How their men truly cared for them in their own way. I loved it. I loved it so much, I fantasized that it could happen to me with Mountain.
I’d allowed myself to forget. Just as I swore, I would never forget about the things that my father did to me, I’d told myself that I would never forget Mountain, either, but I did. I let my beautiful hopes outshine the ugly truth.
“I’ll bet you did. I’m not going to beat around the bush, you seem like a girl that wants things given to her straight.”
“I do.”
He nods his head, his eyes searching mine before they flick down to my belly and lift back up again. “It’s his?” Pressing my lips together, I nod, not wishing to say it aloud. I’m already pissed off at myself—too pissed off.
“You’re ours now. You’re here and you’re under our protection. Whatever you need from us, you got it, babe.”
I almost laugh, almost. It’s too fucking depressing to find comical though. Instead, I nod my head and shift my gaze to look out at the deserted land in front of me.
“You caught him at a time where he’s a bit lost,” he rasps quietly before he walks away, leaving me alone.
I want to respond that it’s not my fault, that I’m even more lost than he could ever be. I want to say a million things. Instead, I stay where I am and watch as the sun sets. I watch as night takes over and I do all of this completely alone.
It seems fitting though.
Alone.
It seems I’ve always been alone, even when surrounded by people. I have always been utterly and completely isolated.