A part of me wanted to cling to the words Ryker so easily spoke to me as he held me cocooned in his arms. I wanted to revel in the heat from his skin on mine, the way his breath tickled my skin, and the way it felt to have his lips on mine.
I wanted to forget everything else except for him.
Which was why, when he finally pulled away from me, I let him take my hand and pull me out into the Nordic Lords clubhouse and plop me down onto a stool at the bar.
I felt everyone’s eyes on me. My skin prickled with paranoia but settled on reality when I looked around the room. At least twenty men and about half that amount of women were staring directly at me.
I shivered under their gaze, too afraid to consider what they would see when they looked at me.
I could be the daughter of the man who almost ratted out the club to the FBI.
I could be the daughter of a worthless drug addict.
I could be the whore.
None of it was good, but all of it was me.
Instead of shrinking under their stares, I straightened my back and then rested my head on Olivia’s shoulder as her arm went around my back and pulled me to her.
“They’re all glad you’re okay.” She whispered it into the top of head much like Ryker had done a few minutes earlier. The effect wasn’t nearly the same.
“They think I’m scum,” I told her quietly.
Liv’s small fingers dug into the skin on my shoulder and she squeezed tighter. “Say that shit again about yourself and I’ll kick your ass in the ring.”
It was absurd. I could totally take Liv.
I laughed, a snort-filled laugh, in agreement and it felt good. The sound was foreign coming out of my mouth and my throat, and it only increased the attention I already had on me.
I didn’t care. Not in that moment. In that moment, I simply wanted to laugh for once.
“Drink.” I looked at Switch behind the bar as he slid a beer toward me. His eyes were narrowed on mine, and he didn’t sound happy at all about having to serve me in his own clubhouse, especially now that he was the Vice President.
“Thanks,” I told him quietly. It was barely audible because Switch was large and scary, and when he stared at me, it made me nervous all over again. He had been friends with my dad. He was one of the men who had taken him out.
I scooted back as Switch leaned over the bar, rested his elbows on top, and dropped his eyes closer to mine.
His head tilted to the side and he blinked.
I stared at him, my hands frozen on the beer he had opened for me.
Then, he pushed off the bar and nodded once toward me. “You’ll be all right.”
He walked away as Liv’s fingers squeezed my shoulder again.
It wasn’t much. He hadn’t said anything at all, really, yet a warm sensation filled my stomach and the backs of my eyes began to burn.
Jules sat on my other side, a wiggly two-year-old, Sophie, balanced on her lap. “He’s right, you know.” She nodded her head toward Switch. “You’re one of the strongest women I’ve ever known and I don’t know what’s happened to you, but we’ve always been your friends and we always will be.” Her hand left Sophie’s blonde mane and settled gently on my thigh. “We’re all here for you.”
I blinked away the slowly increasing burn in my eyes and pulled a large swallow from the beer.
“Thanks,” I choked out. I doubted anyone’s ability to help me, but I agreed with Ryker on one point. If anyone could do it, these people—these friends—could. I at least wanted to pretend a little while longer.
So I sat on the stool, allowing my friends to ply me with alcohol in the middle of the day. I let them get me drunk. I let them try to get me to laugh.
And as the alcohol flowed, the laughing became easier.
“It’s not that it was all bad.” I swayed on my unsteady feet while I waved a pool cue through the air. From behind me, I saw Jules laugh as she ducked out of the way.
Ryker frowned at me from across the table. His hands balled into fists and pushed into the lined felt top of the pool table. He arched a brow. “Faith?”
I waved him off before I bent over, aimed, and completely missed the little white ball.
“I did their books,” I explained. “After a few years, they trusted me enough for that. I made appointments for the other girls. And those girls…” I drawled out and then paused to take another sip of my beer. “They liked it. They actually loved doing what they did.”
From next to me, Daemon grabbed my beer bottle. He set it on a table behind him before he turned back to me. “I think that’s enough, Faith.”
I eyed the beer longingly. It was numbing all my pain and making it easier to talk. I was simply giving them what they all wanted.
“I wanted that.”
Daemon nodded. “I know, but I think that’s enough for today. Maybe you should get to bed.”
“I’ll take her,” Ryker said, his voice low and deep, and if I wasn’t completely drunk, I think I detected concern. “Come on, Faith,” he said and held out a hand for me.
I shook my head and took a step back. Ten sets of eyes were on me although I didn’t know the names of everyone watching me.
I swayed again.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” I asked and looked at all of them. Men in their cuts and their women stood next to them. My friends had their eyes narrowed on me. “To get me to talk? But now that I am you don’t want to hear it?”
I shook my head. I tried to stay quiet, but a faucet had been turned on and I couldn’t turn it off. Loose lips sink ships and all that, although I was certain I couldn’t have said that phrase without slurring for the life of me.
“You don’t want to hear about what I did, do you? Because it disgusts you,” I hissed at Ryker. He flinched but said nothing. It proved I was right. “You want me to move on and get over everything… but you don’t want to actually know what I’m trying to get over.”
“Faith,” Liv said, walking up next to me and putting an arm on my shoulder. I shook it off.
I faced her. “Did you know I liked it, Liv?”
Her face blanched. “Faith…”
“That I came even when I was crying. That no matter how much I hated their hands on me, I always gave them what they wanted.” Liv’s hands squeezed my shoulders as I let the words fly. I leaned in closer. “Because I was good at it. I was the best.”
“That’s enough,” Ryker barked, his dark eyes reminding me of a dark summer thunderstorm. A second later, I was swept up in his arms, my pool cue clanking and rattling on the linoleum floor.
My arms went around his neck on instinct as he carried me out of the clubhouse main living room.
“Another jail,” I said softly as he carried me down another hallway. “Another place I have to stay. Another place I can’t leave.”
Ryker sighed. “Faith. We’re trying to keep you safe.”
I ignored the frustrated yet softened tone. It did funny things to my belly. “And I have nowhere else to go. I wonder when Cain will kill me.”
My eyelids drooped in heaviness, partly from the alcohol but partly because talking was making my head hurt. It was exhausting telling them what they didn’t want to really hear.
Ryker’s arms tightened around my back and then I felt his weight shift as he lowered me to his bed. When he unwrapped his arms from under me, he braced his hands next to my head, his arms fully extended.
“Cain will never kill you.”
I couldn’t argue with his words. His black hair draped over his even blacker eyes. A vein pulsed in his neck. He had a slight dip in his chin that I used to tease him about and push my index finger into when we were joking around.
He wasn’t joking around now.
“He’ll try,” I said, my eyelids drifting closed. “My mom’s probably already dead, isn’t she?”
He exhaled a deep breath but sleep was pulling me under. My limbs felt heavier by the second as they sank into the thin mattress.
One of Ryker’s hands brushed lightly down my cheek and I felt him drag his fingers through my hair.
“You know,” I said, finding the strength to open my eyes a little bit. “He beat me and then he left. Then he told those other men to do whatever they wanted to me.”
He cursed through a hitched breath and the muscles in his jaw tightened.
“Except for that… but it doesn’t matter… because I gave that away willingly, you know? I don’t even know if I remember what it feels like to want someone’s hands on me.”
“Faith… Cain will die for what he did to you.”
I blinked slowly. Ryker leaned down closer and I felt his breath dance across my skin. I inhaled the supremely masculine smell of his body wash or cologne. I didn’t know which, but it smelled delicious and made my already heavy head begin to spin. “I liked it.”
His throat dipped as he swallowed and his eyes stayed fixed on mine. His nose twitched.
“You don’t want to hear that, but I did. I liked what they did to me, Ryker.”
His black hair swished back and forth right as tears welled in my eyes and spilled over. “Getting off and liking it are two different things, babe. But I know that someday, you’ll want it again. And when you do… we’ll go slow.”
It was such a nice promise from the man I had once loved; the only man who had ever touched me in a way I wanted. I didn’t know if I’d ever feel like that again. I didn’t know if I could.
But still, it warmed my body from toes to ears as Ryker brushed the tears off my cheeks. I curled my knees to my chest and settled under the blanket he draped over me.
“Go to sleep, Faith.”
“He has a brother,” I slurred, my eyes closing again, and this time I couldn’t force them open again. “Owns a resort on a lake… Miltona, I think. I don’t remember… he sends him money every month.”
As sleep and darkness pulled me under, I felt Ryker’s full, warm lips brush across my forehead.
“We’ll take care of it.”
Another promise. For once, I wanted to truly surrender to the idea that there were people looking out for me and protecting me, instead of trying to find ways to damage and hurt me.
I felt a small smile tip at the edges of my lips right before I surrendered to sleep.