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I often wondered what the inside of my head would look like if I’d been born to different humans rather than the motherfuckers I was given. Would it be as murky as it was? Filled with as much grime and as many fucked-up thoughts? The nature versus nurture debate could probably be settled once and for all if people like me were given two lives with two sets of parents. But fuck, maybe I’d be the mess I was regardless.

Maybe killing was in my blood anyway. Maybe it was my fate. The only thing I knew for certain, after the events of this morning, was that killing was in my blood now. One taste had unlocked a whole new room in my mind, and the views were mind-blowing.

Jethro had watched me with a knowing look after I’d fired my gun and killed Dash. With a quick nod, he’d turned to walk back to his bike. No words were exchanged, but I had the understanding that he’d brought me with him for a reason. A test. One I’d passed. And then I’d passed another when we met with the Black Deeds president.

Jethro had threatened him over his club’s violation of the territory agreements set in place years ago for drug deals done in Sydney. The package from Dash had confirmed that. When Breaker had refused to back down, Jethro didn’t waste a minute before taking his life. I hadn’t seen it coming—because it would stir a fuckload of shit for Storm—but I hadn’t hesitated in backing him up. My instincts had kicked in fast, and I took care of the two club members Breaker had with him before they could retaliate and kill Jethro.

Three lives taken in one day.

That shit fucking lit me up in ways I’d never been lit up.

It cleared pathways in my brain that had been tangled my whole life.

I sensed a new purpose.

I finally knew my path forward.

“Why are you sitting over here all by yourself?”

I glanced up to find one of the club whores looking down at me with eyes that said she wanted my dick. I’d arrived back at the clubhouse an hour ago and searched out some peace and quiet in the corner of the bar. Lifting my almost-empty beer to my mouth, I tipped the rest of it down my throat before saying, “Because I want to be by myself.” It didn’t seem to matter how often I told her I wasn’t interested, she kept circling.

The seductive smile she always used spread across her face as she straddled me on the couch. Making sure to press her pussy against my dick, she ran her hands up my shoulders to my neck before looping them at the back of it. “Come on, King, let me show you how much you’re missing every time you say no to me. You think your woman can give it to you good? She’s got nothing on me.”

I clenched my jaw as I pulled her arms from my neck. “Get the fuck off me,” I said slowly, harshly. “I’m not fucking interested in you, and if you ever say shit like that about my woman again, you’ll fucking wish you didn’t.”

She took her sweet time moving off me, grumbling about what an asshole I was. It took everything in me not to shove her off, but I managed to keep my anger in check. By the time she’d done what I’d asked, Ivy had entered the clubhouse bar and stood in the doorway staring at me with the jealousy we seemed to be bogged down in these days.

Fuck.

I raked my fingers through my hair as I stood and walked her way. Her eyes remained glued to me as she angrily folded her arms in the way she did when I’d upset her. It told me we were in for another fucking fight. That seemed to be the story of our lives for the last six months, ever since that night I’d forbidden her from taking the night shift job she wanted. Ivy had wrapped her disappointment and anger at me up and kept it inside. She pulled it out every time I did something wrong and every time she thought I did something wrong. Like tonight.

“You finished work early,” I said, moving close to slide my hand around her waist. Instead of the nursing job she’d wanted, she had taken a job in a nursing home with shifts that ended no later than 9:00 p.m.

She jerked out of my hold and smacked my hand away. “I would have stayed at work if I’d known what I was going to walk in on.”

My patience for this old argument had worn thin, and my temper flared fast. “I don’t fuck club whores, Ivy. You fucking know this.”

“I don’t fucking know this, King. All I know is what you tell me, but what I’m seeing is a different story,” she spat back, eyes flashing with hostility.

“What you’re seeing is nothing. She sat on me, she tried to fuck me, I said no. You can’t keep throwing fucking accusations at me and expect me to keep defending myself when I’m not doing anything wrong. At some fucking point, you have to decide to trust me, and I’d like it if you got to that point soon because all this bitching and moaning is doing my fucking head in.”

Her eyes widened, and she smacked my chest with both hands as if she was trying to push me away. I wasn’t fucking moving, though. No fucking way. “I hate you sometimes. Why can’t you understand what I’m going through? There are sluts everywhere here, and almost every time I come by, they are fucking on you. Can you not see how that makes me feel and why I’m struggling with this?”

“Jesus, Ivy, you’re being fucking dramatic now. They might be here, but they’re not fucking on me.”

“They are!” she screamed, drawing attention to us. Her body was wound tight with all the emotions engulfing her, and I knew from experience that she would likely only get louder and more antagonistic the longer we argued.

I grabbed her arm and dragged her outside away from watchful eyes. Jethro had made it crystal clear he didn’t want old ladies causing trouble in the club. I didn’t need this on his radar.

“Let me go!” She fought me every step of the way, but I gripped her hard and forced her away from the building towards the shed around the side. The outside lights of the clubhouse threw a little light on the area, but I steered her to a darker spot for privacy.

When we were alone, I loosened my grip and said, “Can you calm down for one fucking minute and listen to me?”

“I do listen to you. It’s you who doesn’t listen to me.” She said this with total conviction, the anger in her eyes shifting to something else. Sadness maybe.

I took a step back, hit hard by what I saw there. The last thing I ever wanted was Ivy sad. It was clear though that she wasn’t happy and hadn’t been so for at least the last six months. Fuck, maybe more. I would have sworn against what she’d just said, but she honestly believed I didn’t listen to her.

Scrubbing a hand over my face, I contemplated how to react. Holding her gaze, I finally blew out a long frustrated breath and asked, “Do you really believe I would screw around on you?”

She blinked, seemingly unsure, and wrapped her arms around her body. My question managed to cut through the argument and give us the space to stop and think, to try and get our heads together and see things clearer. Fuck knew our tempers were our greatest flaws and did neither of us any favours.

“I don’t want to,” she said, her voice quieter, the hostile edge gone. In its place was the vulnerability that shot straight to my heart every time. This was the Ivy I loved.

I reached out and pulled her close, my hand cupping the back of her head. “Fuck, Ivy, what are we doing?”

She buried her face against my chest, not answering me. When her body shuddered with a sob, I wrapped my other arm around her waist and held her to me. Ivy didn’t like crying. She said it made her feel weak. So I knew shit was bad if she was crying.

I pressed a kiss to the top of her head, her long dark hair whispering across my face. “I don’t want to fight with you anymore. It’s fucking killing us. How can I make you understand that you’re the only woman I want in my life and in my bed? Tell me, and I’ll do it. I’ll do any-fucking-thing to make you happy.”

She scrunched my shirt in her hands, thumbs digging into my chest as she sobbed. I hated it when she cried, too. It reminded me of all the times she wept when she first came to live with her foster mother. She cried back then because of the horrific things her parents had allowed to be done to her, and no fucking way did I want to be the cause of more tears.

I pulled away and took hold of her chin. Angling her face up to mine, I said, “Don’t cry. I’ll fix this. You’ve just gotta tell me how to do that.”

She wiped the tears from her cheeks and took a breath. “I know you love me, but when I see those women near you, it does something to me. I know my jealousy is extreme, but I can’t control it, King. I try, but I can’t. And then you fire up at me, and that just makes it worse.” She stopped for a moment, looking at me with uncertainty, as if she was unsure how to go on, but then she said, “You yell at me, and I feel like you don’t hear what I am trying to say to you. You’re so set on trying to make me bend however you need me to that you don’t listen to what I need. I’m tired of being the one who always does the bending.”

I knew our arguments were about so much more than whatever we were fighting over. This was the first time Ivy had given me any hint as to what that was.

“Are we talking about that night shift job?” I asked.

She sighed. “Yes. And other things.”

“What other things?” Jesus, just fucking tell me.

Her forehead creased in a frown. “Don’t get shitty with me again. I’m just trying to be honest here.”

“And I don’t want to have to pry this shit from you kicking and fucking screaming,” I muttered, working like fuck to keep a leash on my impatience.

“You are such a fucking ass.” She glared at me. “It’s almost everything you do, King. You’re demanding and always want things your way. You wanna be the one to drive when we go out, and drop me off and pick me up when I’m out with friends, and choose what mobile phone I get, and tell me when you don’t want me to wear a certain skirt or dress when we go out… things like that. And on top of that, you usually assume you’re right and don’t always listen to what I have to say. It’s too much. You need to let me be me. And you need to let me show you that sometimes I do know things.”

Fuck.

The way she saw things was a whole lot fucking different to the way I saw it. “The reason I do all that shit is to keep you safe and protected—”

Wild energy rushed between us as her mood swung back to hostile. “So choosing my phone is to keep me safe? That’s bullshit, and you know it. And again, you’re not listening to me!”

Fucking hell, I had whiplash. Turning, I took a few steps away from her. I had to; otherwise, I’d lash out. Not physically, but verbally, and that would only move us further away from each other.

I paced back and forth a few times before coming back to her. My eyes met hers again, full of determination. I had to make her understand me. “All I’ve ever wanted was to keep you safe. Hand on my fucking heart, I do all that shit with that goal in mind. I know I’m bossy and demanding and a pain in your ass, and I wish I could tell you I’ll change and things will be different and all that shit that men tell their women whenever they fight, but I can’t. I’m not going to change because my goal isn’t going to change.”

She remained silent while she processed that, but Ivy had the kind of face that displayed all her emotions, and they all ran across it while she did her thinking. So much so that I knew I’d failed to make her see where I was coming from. “So that’s it then? Things stay the same, you get everything you want, and I just have to make you happy?” She crossed her arms again in that same furious manner as before and waited for my response.

Give and take wasn’t one of my strengths, but I knew I had to meet her somewhere in the middle. Fuck knew how, though, because I’d meant every word about not budging from trying to keep her safe. “I’m shit out of ideas for how to manoeuvre through this, but we’re equals here, so no, you don’t just have to make me happy. You have to be happy too. All I ask is that you’re also safe.” And you let me do what I need to do to make that happen.

She stared at me like I had two heads. “Fuck me, is that you compromising, baby?” Her lips twitched with the hint of a smile. It was her use of “baby” that really caught my attention. I couldn’t recall the last time she’d used it; she’d been pissed off at me for that fucking long.

The way we watched each other changed. Softened. Anger faded as hope flared. “Don’t get fucking used to it.”

Edging closer to me, she said, “Those things I mentioned that you do, they don’t always bother me.” She took hold of the hem of my shirt with one of her hands. The other one stayed by her side. “I just want you to give me the choice, you know? Don’t always barrel in all protective and shit. It makes me feel powerless.”

Her last statement was the puzzle piece I needed. Everything she’d been trying to tell me finally fell into place in my fucked-up brain. Why hadn’t I seen it before? Of course Ivy would lash out if she felt powerless. After having her power stripped from her as a child, it was the one thing she held onto tightly.

Fuck.

I knew I didn’t have it in me to change completely, but I could try to rein my shit in for her.

My arms circled her so I could hold her close. “I love you,” I murmured, before my mouth found hers in the kind of kiss we hadn’t shared for months.

Deep and slow at first, the kiss turned desperate and frantic as I backed her up against the clubhouse shed. Soon we were tearing at each other’s clothes, the need to fuck overwhelming.

It had been months since we’d been like this. Sex had become a purely physical release for us—we got off as fast as we could and we moved on—but this, this was raw and carnal.

Ivy’s clothes and my shirt landed on the ground. She undid my zip and pulled out my cock, eyes to mine. Pumping me, she bit my bottom lip and kissed me before saying, “I can’t drag this out, King. I need you now.”

Within a moment, I had her in my arms and up against the wall, her legs tightly around me. Thrusting my cock deep inside her, I growled, “Fuck!” before losing myself in the act completely.

I slammed into her furiously, needing my fill.

Her fingers dug into my back as she held on, blissful moans matching my groans. Ivy loved it when I fucked her like this.

My eyes closed as the pleasure built.

Up my spine and out to every nerve ending.

I needed more.

Craved the dark shit.

The shit I never touched.

Refused to touch.

Grunting, I grabbed hold of her hair and yanked her head back before sinking my teeth into her neck. I barely heard her whimpers. Between the brutal way I fucked her, the savage marking of her skin, and the roar of need raging through my head, I was oblivious to everything but my filthy desires.

I was a fucking time bomb waiting to detonate with the hunger that breathed deep inside me. I never gave it air. Didn’t want to inflict it on the woman I loved, but something had triggered inside me today, and I was helpless to stop the course I was on.

I was unravelling.

Coming undone.

Unable to stop myself from taking what I wanted.

It wasn’t until Ivy bucked violently against me that I was dragged from the dark haze I’d allowed to take over.

My eyes snapped open.

Hers stared back at me with fear.

And panic.

My fucking hands were around her neck.

Choking her.

She clawed at me trying to loosen my grip, but my strength was too much for her. She could hardly fucking breathe.

My body had her pinned against the shed while I fucked and choked her. And I hadn’t fucking realised it was happening.

“Fuck,” I muttered, letting her go and stumbling backwards once she was standing on her own, out of my hold. No other words came out. I struggled to fight the mess of thoughts in my mind.

How the fuck did that happen?

This was the shit I kept a tight fucking lock on. It was the shit my father did, not the shit I did.

I dragged my fingers through my hair, clawing at my scalp.

Fuck.

No.

Ivy collapsed to the ground, huddling into a crouch. When she had her breathing back under control, she looked up at me with confusion, completely stricken. “King,” she started, her voice cracking. “What’s going on?”

I stared at her, battling my way through the mental fog blanketing me. “That shit will never happen again.” I never made promises unless I intended to keep them, and this was one promise I would never break. Jesus, I was the one who kept her safe. I would never be the one who hurt her.

Tears streamed down her cheeks as we watched each other, a deathly silence hanging between us. I wished she would stop looking at me with those eyes full of terror.

We stayed like that for what felt like forever. When she finally stood, she quietly dressed before wrapping her arms around her body and asking, “Have you done that before? With someone else? I mean, is that something you want in sex?”

I’d slept with a handful of girls before Ivy, but had never done that with any of them. I shook my head. “Never.”

She moved closer to me, looking up into my eyes with a questioning look. “Did you like it?”

“Fuck, Ivy,” I said, unsure of what to say. I did fucking like it; I was getting off on it like I’d never gotten off. But that didn’t mean I wanted to do it again. What the fuck would happen if I went too far? I didn’t want to think about that. The average male could play with it in their sex life, but I wasn’t the average man. I was fucked-up and craved shit no one should ever crave. I’d likely go to the extremes like I did with everything else in my life. I couldn’t chance that with her.

“Tell me,” she demanded. “I need to know if I should be prepared for this.”

My eyes searched hers, looking for what, I wasn’t sure. An interest in being choked? Fuck that, I needed to shut this shit down now.

“It doesn’t matter if I liked it, we won’t be fucking doing it again,” I snapped. I couldn’t stop the hard tone from colouring my words, and I didn’t blame her for flinching, but fuck, it felt like we’d taken three steps forward tonight and then two back. Just when we’d sorted out one problem, I’d fucked up and caused a new one.

She turned silent again. I wondered what thoughts ran through her mind, but before I had a chance to find out, her lips flattened, and she muttered, “I’m going home.”

I exhaled sharply as I watched her walk to her car. What a clusterfuck.

Needing a drink, I headed back into the clubhouse. I wouldn’t be going home tonight. Ivy and I needed some space, and I needed to know she was safe from me.