CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“Groveling 101 for dummies.” - Hawk

 

It was no surprise to find Hawk on her doorstep the following evening. The night brought shadows, uncertainty and a brooding biker at her door. What was a surprise were the bruises on his face and his busted knuckles.

She wanted to take care of him and smack him around the head all at once.

She did neither.

“Let me guess, you came to warn me of how wrong you are for me,” she asked with bite, letting him in. “If you’re going to break my heart, Hawk. Just break it already. Don’t pacify yourself with lies that it’s for my own good.” Her core quivered when he streaked his eyes over her booty sleep shorts and camisole top. Folding her arms, she waited.

He closed the space between them, flatting Gia’s spine against the counter edge, he cupped her face and kissed her lips just once. “I was a prick. Again. I’m sorry.”

Well.

Then.

She exhaled and let her muscles unclench. Her mouth parted and then closed, finding the right words to say didn’t come easy. Sensing her mood, she felt him withdraw to rest his butt against the sink opposite her, arms and ankles crossed. He made such a picture, one she hoped to see many more times, but she needed some things said first.

“I’m an honest person, Hawk. I don’t flirt with one man to make the man I’m interested in jealous. Nor would I cheat on the man I’ve wanted for a decade once I have him.”

He arched a brow. “Never thought that.”  

“So yesterday was?”

“Me hating another man touching you. I never said I was perfect, Gia.” He scowled, and she almost laughed. If only he knew how unperfect she’d take him if he’d just meet her half way.

“I got that, and it would have been cute as hell had you not thrown a tantrum with it,” she held up a hand when he went to butt in. “Are we telling my brother about us anytime soon?”

Hawk sighed and let his head hang down. When he looked up again the blueness of his eyes eclipsed almost in black. “Gia…”

Yeah, that’s what she figured. She pushed off the counter and started out of the room. “Maybe you should just go, okay.” She was exhausted. They could rehash it another day.

A great rattling growl behind her halted her step and she turned to find Hawk on her heels. “Walk away if you dare, little bit of a thing, and I’ll fucking hunt you down. There’s nowhere you can hide from me now. I warned you, I fucking warned you didn’t I not to play with me, but you did it, you let a fucking animal out of his cage and allowed it inside all that good and I’m not done with you yet.”

She was not above pushing him for a reaction. “Maybe I no longer want to play with you, Hawk. Maybe your rules are too varied for me. They keep moving and I keep getting crapped on.”

“Like fuck you’re done with me.”

His touch was possessive but soft. Strong but coaxing. His massive shadow, swallowing her when he crowed against her giving Gia his scent from the outside. She huffed unable to stay mad at the blond asshole for very long and gripped the edges of his leather coat, leaning into him she was pleased when he touched her without being prompted first by curling a hand around the back of her neck. “Fine. I didn’t mean it.”

“You should mean it, little bit. I’m no good for you but I fucking want you and I’m a selfish fucker who won’t let you walk away now just because my big mouth spits shit out of it.”

 

******

 

While Gia made a frustrated noise and fired her gorgeous blue stare at him, Hawk banded arms around her waist and carried her through to the living room, plonking his heavy self on the sofa with her on his lap. If she was gonna rail him, like it seemed, then he’d be comfortable with her sweet ass on his cock. Nuzzling her neck, she truly did rail him. “You are so stubborn. So, fucking stubborn it drives me insane. You just won’t allow yourself to be happy.” She gave his hair a yank which he fucking loved by moaning. “You’d rather flog yourself and make us both miserable. You don’t tell me shit about yourself, like you’re a big fucking mystery. Everything I know I’ve glued together from others. I don’t suppose you’ll even tell me how you’re so beat up.”

He grunted. “He looks worse.”

“Who?”

“Lawless.”

“You and Lawless fought? Why?”

He rolled a shoulder and asked. “Are you miserable?”

She scoffed and rolled her pretty eyes, gave a little wiggle to make his dick happy. He thought she was amazing. Beautiful. Too good for him. Fuckable. Suckable. Perfect. And his. “Not right now, no. You, stubborn ass. I’m making a point here.”

“I get it.” He did. He was not winning any fucking prizes for being emotionally savvy that was for fucking sure. He kissed the top of her head, inhaling the coconut fragrance she bathed in. “Our timing is shit.”

“Only if you let it. I’m here. You’re here. What more do we need?”

“I’m not a good man, Gia. Keep telling you that.”

She pinched his belly and made him jerk. And his cock hardened. If he’d thought fucking Gia would make his addiction to her disappear he was a colossal fucking moron. It tripled and buried a hole in the lining of his gut and it blazed night and day. He couldn’t get her out of his head even if wanted to.

And then, his sweet little bit, the woman who owned every fucked-up piece of him blew his brains out of his skull by saying. “Do you want to know my secret? I don’t care if you’re a good man or not. I just want you to be my man.”

“Time for bed,” he growled sweeping her into his arms, loving how she wrapped her arms and legs and buried her hands in the back of his hair and gave him a half-lidded dreamy grin.

Midway along the hallway he said. “I screw up, Gia. I’m walking blind here. I have an ocean of darkness inside me to see through. And that’s not me blasting some poetic hippy bullshit. It’s how I feel.”

She stroked his hair like she was comforting him. Her eyes were soft. “Because you feel, right?”

Hawk’s brow furrowed. “Yeah.”

“Feeling is good. Feeling sometimes hurts, but when it’s good, it’s amazingly freeing, Hawk. Let yourself feel.”

He got lost in the feel of her lips across his cheek, blood rushed to his groin and he almost tripped over his own fucking feet in his haste to get into her bedroom.

Fucking his Gia right now was all that was on his mind, not digging into his psyche but he knew she needed the words as much as their physical connection.

“Loving someone shouldn’t be the most difficult thing you do. It’s the easiest. As natural as taking that first breath and all the ones that come after it. I didn’t plan on falling in love with you when I was too young to fully understand the complete structure of how it would own my entire heart from that day on. How could I have planned for a man like you, Hawk?” She laughed a little, churning his insides every time he heard her say those words. “You think I loved you too soon or shouldn’t love you at all. But I won’t ever regret it.”

And right then as he slid Gia down to her feet and she gave him her sexy little smile of hers that pushed blood directly to his wanting cock, about to dive into kissing those lips that declared love for the fucking monster, his phone vibrated.

He should have ignored it.

Seeing a new Nebraska number on screen had acid rising into his throat. That fucking fuck! Blood bled behind his eyes, rage … and fear growing quickly.

“What’s wrong?”

He ended the call and switched it off, shoved it away. “No one I wanna talk to right now.”

“Who was it? You look ready to rip someone’s head off.” Hawk realized he hadn’t breathed in seconds, he dragged in air and avoided.

He went for normal, there was no fucking way he was spilling this bullshit to her. Flicking a cocky smirk, he touched the edge of her shirt. “Take your clothes off, baby.”

“Seriously? We’re not even gonna talk about that?” She knocked his hand away. “I need a shower.” She snapped without looking at him. “You can stay or go, it’s up to you as always, but if you stay be ready to use words of more than one grunted syllable, baby.” And she turned on her bare feet and left him metaphorically holding his cock.

Well he fucked that up as always.

No intentions of leaving, he discarded his coat and cut on the floor, loosened the laces on his boots and threw himself in the soft armchair over in the corner. Every inch of the bedroom was Gia. All pinks, whites and softness. He let it soak into his skin while he did his best to ignore the fucking phone call. Either the money never arrived which he’d knew was a goddamn lie or they wanted more. The latter being the more obvious.

Greedy cunt. He needed rid of that problem.

Hawk listened to the water come on and imaged his Gia soaking wet and not just from the water. He wanted to be the one to have her soaked. Because that was the deviant bastard he was.

She was right, he felt more now than ever. And it was because of her.

Had he been born with a soul? It was doubtable. He was told from a young age how evil he was. He’d often wondered if it were possible to walk upright, conversing and participating with life with just the idea of where his soul should be. He felt wrong, as if he’d put together with pieces missing in the haste to make him. Worse, did people see that lack in him?

Is that why everyone left in the end?

The image of Gia filled his head.

The flow of her dark, rich hair, and the intoxicating way she had of looking at everyone as if they were the only person in the world, her focus was absolute and each person that met her knew it. She deserved a man with a soul, didn’t she? A man with a moral compass that pointed in the correct direction, not a man who’d killed and would kill, not a man who couldn’t feel guilt for the things he’d done in his life. A man with a soul would care.

He wished he could be different, because as fucked up as he felt, he was capable of loving someone. He loved her, had loved her for a very long time.

Wrong disgusting love, forbidden love only he knew about.

A love that would drive him to his death if he were lucky.

But a prick like Hawk wasn’t fortunate, for fucks sake how often had he been near death and he was here to tell the tale? It was sheer obstinate will and not luck.

As usual just when he got back on even footing that cunt reared their ugly head to fuck with him again.

If for the fact he’d have to be in their presence he would have killed them a long fucking time ago. The thought of it brought a sickness to his gut.

Those childish chants from years ago echoed in his ears.

For a cold-blooded killer, Hawk was still controlled by the acts of others so long ago.

And he didn’t think it would ever change.