I can’t sleep.

I lie in my bed for what seems like hours after the night with Koda and Mason. Thinking about it, my body heats. My core aching from the invasion of Koda. Everything feels alive, and I can’t wind down from it. I refuse to let feelings of guilt or shame invade my mind. What we did was on a whole different level. It felt incredible. Like for the first time I had something else to worry about in my life outside of my father.

Like I could focus on something else.

Something real.

I slide out of bed, wrapping my robe around myself. My body naked beneath the satin material. I pad quietly out of the room and glance over where Mason and Boston are sleeping. They’re both out. Mason on his back, shirtless, big hands up behind his head. Boston is on his stomach, arms up near his head, big back on display. Drool.

I glance at Koda’s door.

It’s closed.

I bite my lip and tip toe to the front door and creak it open, stepping outside and onto the dimly-lit patio. There is an old swinging chair sitting by the living room window, and I glance over at it, stopping when I see Koda, shirtless, wearing only a pair of boxers, sitting on it. He’s staring off into the distance, his body relaxed.

Should I leave him be?

The bandage on his arm looks soaked, like he’s bled a little. Did he hurt himself further doing what we did tonight?

I should ask him. Check on it. Make sure he’s okay.

I walk over quietly and sits down. He has to have heard me, but he doesn’t move to look at me. For a second, we just sit, staring into the darkness, both of us quiet. I decide to push, just a little, to take the risk and ask him about Braxton. Everyone knows by now his brother was an important part of his life, but nobody really knows what went on. Not really. Not the depths of it.

Maybe he’ll tell me.

Maybe he won’t.

But I’m curious to know.

“Tell me about Braxton,” I say softly, into the night.

Wind tickles my face, and I close my eyes for a second, breathing in the cool, crisp air.

I expect Koda to say no, to tell me to go to hell, but for whatever reason, his mood seems mellow tonight. Maybe it’s the sex, maybe it’s that he knows for right now we’re safe. Whatever the case, he speaks, his voice husky and so damned sexy it makes my heart ache for him.

I want him so much more than I’ve wanted anyone in my life. And that terrifies me.

“Never talked much about my brother.”

His tone isn’t snappy, or frustrated.

He’s merely telling his truth.

“I can understand that,” I say, crossing my legs and snuggling further back into the chair. “I don’t talk about my mother a great deal. In fact, most people who know me simply know she passed away. They don’t know how or why. Your club are the first people I’ve trusted with that information.”

“Did it fuck you up?”

His question startles me, not because it’s bad, but because it isn’t what I expected him to say. It’s a question that is seemingly simple and yet its answer can run so deep. Did it fuck me up? Watching her die? Watching her get blown away right in front of me? Becoming my father’s slave for years? Missing her so heavily I still carry the ache in my chest?

Yes.

It fucked me up.

On an epic level.

“Yes,” I say simply, because it’s the truth. “Yes, it did fuck me up.”

“Then you know how it feels,” he says, his voice low and scratchy. “You know how it feels to go through live never feelin’ fuckin’ joy because you know the feelin’ of darkness so well it becomes you.”

God.

That hits me right where it hurts. Right in my core. The most sensitive parts of me.

“When you look in the mirror and all you see is failure. Loneliness. Bitterness.”

I say that with my voice soft, a little fragile, mostly broken.

Koda looks over at me. “Braxton was my twin. But he was more than that. He was a part of me. Literally, my second half. He was fuckin’ all I had. And I failed him.”

“How?” I dare to ask.

“Because he was in trouble, and I didn’t see it. I didn’t help when he needed me to help. I didn’t realize he had gotten himself in deep until it was too late. And it was, it was too fuckin’ late.”

God.

My heart aches for him.

“Was it drugs?”

Koda exhales and crosses his arms. “Don’t really do the talkin’, deep and meaningful shit ...”

“That’s wonderful,” I say, still staring at him. “Neither do I. I’m simply asking for your story, Koda.”

His silences stretches for a while before he finally murmurs, “It was drugs. He got in deep. Got hooked. Started selling them. Started fucking people over. Got in deeper. Stole weapons. Thought he could sell them off, pay off his debts, and be free. He was wrong. Got a hit put against him. I tried to change his name, get us out, but they got ahold of us before I could.”

God.

I want to reach over and hug him, to tell him it’ll be okay, to tell him it wasn’t his fault his brother got into trouble. But I can’t do that. I can only listen, because it doesn’t matter what I say to him now. He is never going to feel okay about losing Braxton, and he’s never going to stop blaming himself. My words won’t change that.

“I’m really sorry, Koda.”

“Worst part was they got me first. Used me to get him. I should have fuckin’ run when I had the chance and taken him with me. Then tried to get us free. I shouldn’t have been in that fuckin’ town. Because of that, he got killed. He got killed, and they got what they wanted.”

“And you were left with a hole that can never be filled.”

He looks over at me, his eyes intense. He just watches me, as if he’s seeing me in a different light. As if, for the first time, he actually understands me. Because, whether he likes it or not, we’re one and the same. We’re both so incredibly broken, so incredibly damaged by our past, but mostly we hold blame, and guilt, and an emptiness not many can understand.

I open my mouth to say something, but Koda reaches out without warning and grabs me, as if I weigh nothing, and pulls me onto his lap. For a moment, I’m stunned completely. I don’t know what to do or say, I just know that I’m here, on his lap, and it was his choice to put me there. My heart races, and I turn my head only to crash into his lips. They’re hungry, and desperate, and he kisses me with a greed I feel deep into my soul. I reach over, tangling my hands into his hair, and kiss him back with the same desperation.

The kiss turns almost frantic, tongues clashing, breaths panting, bodies crushing together as close as we can get them. I need more of him, and even though I’m molded against him, it doesn’t feel close enough. I need him again. Inside me. His hands slide to my robe and he jerks it open, exposing my naked body beneath. He doesn’t move his lips from mine as his hands reposition me to the correct position on his lap, then they glide over my breasts, squeezing, before moving down my sides and going between us for his jeans.

He has them unbuttoned in a few moments, and his cock is freed.

I’m desperate now, hungrily kissing him, fingers jerking at his head, moaning every chance I can get.

He lifts me a little, and then I sink down onto his cock.

I gasp, he growls, and then we’re fucking.

And kissing.

And fucking some more.

My hips rock on his, my mouth devouring his.

His hands are all over my body, sliding up my back, gripping my ass, using my hips to make us fuck harder.

I can’t hold on.

Hell, I’m not even embarrassed this is happening so fast.

I let my orgasm take hold of me, ripping through my body and exploding outward, making me cry out in an ecstasy I’ve never experienced. Being here, alone with him, fucking him with this intensity, it makes my soul catch on fire. It burns, god does it burn.

“Koda,” I gasp, finally pulling my lips away from his and tipping my head back, exposing my breasts to his hungry mouth.

He takes the chance with a ragged growl, slipping my nipple into his mouth and sucking as he bucks his hips harder, making the old swing chair creak in protest. He bucks and bucks until a feral growl is ripped from his throat and he cums inside me, pumping upward until every last drop has left his body.

I slump against him, dropping my forehead to his chest, loving that I can feel his heart beating, loving the warm, sweaty body that is beneath me, loving that his hands are still on me and he has yet to throw me off. For a few blissful minutes, as our bodies recover yet again from the intense passion, he just holds onto me. Not tight, but he doesn’t let me go. As if he knows I need it. Maybe I do—hell, I think I really do.

“Koda,” I whisper into the darkness.

“Yeah?”

“I’m grateful. For you. For your club. For everything you’re doing for me. I know that it might not make a great deal of sense to you, but that man, the man I call a father, he terrifies me. I rarely tell people that, because most of the time, I’m tough enough to deal. But ... the thought that my last breath on this Earth will be right before he takes my life, makes me want to curl up and block the world out.”

His hands slide around my back, and he scoots me closer, our bodies bound together so tightly it feels like he’s pushing everything back in. All my fear. All my worries. All my doubts.

I feel protected.

“Not goin’ to let him have you. Not goin’ to let your last breath be at the hands of a fuckin’ monster. Made that mistake once, you can be assured it will not happen again.”

And those words.

Yes.

Those words.

They speak to my soul.