CHAPTER EIGHT

Deuce pulled up to the house on his bike and cut his engine. His truck was here, meaning Eva was here, something he’d been hoping to avoid. He hadn’t seen her since she’d shown up at the club with Ivy, and that had been weeks ago.

Sighing, he climbed off the bike and headed for the door. He didn’t have much of a choice. He had to make a run to Manhattan; Preacher wanted proof that business was going bad on the west coast, that his boys out there were double dipping off his profits. Audio proof that ZZ had recorded on a disposable cell phone he’d been keeping in his bedroom safe.

Upon entering the house, he found the downstairs dark and the house quiet. Relief filled him. Maybe she wasn’t home. Maybe Kami had picked her up, maybe—

At the top of the stairs, he found Eva laying Ivy down in her crib. Leaning over the railing, softly stroking her hair, she kissed their daughter good night and whispered, “I love you.”

Watching them, his woman and his daughter, Deuce’s chest started to ache. He missed them both. He missed all of it. Coming home to his family, watching his kids interact with each other, the laughter, the bickering, even the yelling, just taking it all in and enjoying everything he hadn’t had growing up. Then later, after Ivy was asleep, Danny in her room on her phone and Cage gone for the night, he would take Eva upstairs, strip her naked, and fuck the hell out of her.

“You’re home.”

His eyes flew open.

“So are you,” he said, hating that his words came out sounding like an accusation.

“For some reason Danny hasn’t been going to the club at all lately,” she said softly, nodding toward Danny’s closed bedroom door. “And like you said, she shouldn’t be home all alone.”

Guilt swamped him. He’d said that and yet he’d done nothing about it.

“Are you leaving?”

He glanced back at Eva.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Demon delivery.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.”

She waited a moment, expecting him to offer up more information, and when he didn’t, she nodded and turned away. He followed her down the hallway and into their room, watching as she bent down to pull open her bottom dresser drawer. She emerged with a pair of ratty sweatpants and an old T-shirt, both his, tossed them on the bed, and started undressing.

He kept watching until she was naked, taking it all in. The flower tattoos down her arm, the natural slope of her heavy breasts, the hills and valleys of a body he’d never tired of, the slight bow of her stomach, the ring through her belly button, the tattooed stars encircling it, her perfect, heart-shaped ass.

Everything hit him at once: the little girl he’d met in the family visiting room at Rikers, singing Janis, wearing Chucks, stealing what was left of his broken-down, battered heart. And when she was older, listening to her ramble on about Halloween costumes, thinking no kid as sweet as she was should be living in this life, and wanting better for her. After that the memories changed, as had his feelings for her. Fondness and adoration turned to lust and he’d taken that first kiss, that first taste and touch. Two years later, lust turned to need and he took that pussy first too. Four years passed, and he claimed not just her body but her. Because need had turned to love.

He had her now, he owned her—her body, her baby, her future—it was all his and knowing that, having that, had made every chance meeting over the years, every fuck, every fight, every letdown…

It had made it worth it.

Deuce was rock hard by the time she’d finished dressing. Hard and aching for her.

She took one look at him and knew, she always knew. Those damn beautiful eyes traveled down his body, flaring with heat when she came to his hips. Those juicy lips parted, sucking in a sharp breath, a sound he knew very well. A sound that made him crazy.

“I miss you,” she whispered.

“Babe,” he said quietly. “Yeah.”

She took a small step forward, then stopped. “Can…can I touch you?”

He didn’t like this version of Eva, this timid, unsure woman who was nothing like the quirky, outgoing kid she’d been, or the teenager who didn’t give a fuck about what other people thought, or the young woman who’d refused to take shit from him or anyone else.

But now, that kid, that teenager, that young woman…they were gone.

He couldn’t fault Frankie for this, or the life. This shit was his fault. True, the life had taken its toll on her and Frankie had beat her down, pounded on her something fierce, but she’d persevered through it all.

It had been him, by refusing to let it go, refusing to love her the way a man should, who’d thrown the killing blow.

Deuce could fix it, he knew he could. He could bring the woman he loved back to life. He held that precious power in his hands.

He wanted to fix it.

“Come here, darlin’,” he said hoarsely. All of a second passed before Eva was in his arms and he was carrying her across the room and dropping her on their bed and her hands were in his hair and her mouth…

“This is my fuckin’ mouth,” he growled, kissing her roughly. He tore at her clothes, stripping her violently, grabbing her breasts, telling her over and over again that every part of her was his. Had always been his.

Fuck, he needed her, he needed to be inside of her again. He freed himself and pushed against her; she was ready for him, wet and whimpering, needing him just as badly.

It had been so long since he’d been inside of her, since he’d been able to take what was his, it had been since…

Her breath caught, her eyes rolled back even as tears streamed down her face. Her legs quaking, she went face first into the pillow, crying out softly through her orgasm. Frankie followed her down, groaning loudly, his body jerking.

He fought against the memory, fought it with everything he had. Eva was his. She was motherfucking his. Frankie was dead, gone, he couldn’t take her away from him anymore. She was his. She was his…

Then Frankie turned to him. And grinned.

He hadn’t fucked her since before Frankie. Frankie had been the last man inside his woman. Grinning. That’s all he could see, was that fucking asshole grinning.

“FUCK!” he roared, pushing off the bed and turning away.

“Wait,” she cried, reaching for him. “Baby, wa—”

Anger and pain had him slapping her hands off him. “Shut up,” he growled, yanking his jeans up. “Just shut the fuck up.”

“Deuce—”

“No!” he bellowed. “You liked it, you fuckin’ liked it! You got off on bein’ raped!”

Her fists came down on the mattress. “I loved him!” she screamed.

Rage bubbled up inside him. “You loved him? You loved a man who did nothin’ but hurt you? How long had he been hurtin’ you, Eva? You fuckin’ tell me how long.”

She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “It doesn’t matter,” she whispered. “He’s gone now.”

He stared down at her. “Gone?” he asked hoarsely. “He ain’t fuckin’ gone. He’s still standin’ right between us, laughin’ his fuckin’ ass off.”

In a flash she was off the bed and shoving at him. “Only because you’re letting him!” she screamed. “You’re not letting me fix it!”

Deuce grabbed her wrists and held her still. “Shoulda never been nothin’ to fix,” he growled. “Ten fuckin’ years ago you showed up here wantin’ me and, bitch, you knew I wanted you, you knew you didn’t ever have to go back to that shit! It didn’t have to go down this way, Eva, ’cause you fuckin’ had me, you always fuckin’ had me!”

He shook her hard. “You tell me why I should fuckin’ care ’bout you tryin’ to fix anything, when you spent your whole fuckin’ life tryin’ to fix him and not us? Was it because you loved him more? Did you love that motherfucker more than me?”

“He needed me,” she whispered.

With a hard shove he pushed her off him. “BITCH,” he roared. “SO THE FUCK DID I!”

Storming across the room, he punched in the code on his wall safe, grabbed what he needed, and got the fuck out of there, doing his best to ignore Danny glaring at him from her bedroom doorway and Eva’s soft sobbing coming from his own bedroom. He practically ran down the stairs and burst out the front door because, fuck him, he couldn’t deal with this shit, he didn’t know how to deal with this shit.

He suddenly wanted out. He wanted out of the club, out of this mess with Eva, out of being a father, out of all of it because if he were gone, in the long run they would all be better off. His boys, Eva, his kids…they didn’t need some angry, fucked-up asshole in their lives. They needed stability, someone who was going to be there for them no matter what.

Someone who could put aside their own problems and put the people he loved first.

And that someone wasn’t him.

It had never been him.

He’d been kidding himself all these years thinking shit was going to get better. He’d had only brief moments of “better.” Teases of happiness, fucking with him, dangling what he wanted in front of him, but leaving it just out of reach.

It was just like his old man had always said…he was a fuckup.