Sarah

The morning sun is just starting to rise when I become aware of the arm draped over my side. For a split second, just a blip, really, I forget about everything that’s happened to me over the last three years. I forget about Mouse dying and about delivering Millie, alone and scared. I forget about the cancer, the desperation and the fear. Mouse’s arm over my waist takes me back to a time before all that.

As I snuggle back against him, ice races through my veins. Not Mouse. Bosco.

Oh my God. What did I do? Conflicting images flash through my mind. Losing my virginity to Mouse, his kind eyes never leaving mine as he thrusted gently inside me for the first time. Last night with Bosco, his muscled arms flexing above me as he made me come over and over again. Mouse’s hand on my belly, a grin taking up his entire face as I tell him about the baby I’m carrying. Bosco at the hospital the day Millie was born, the tiny baby nestled comfortably in his arms.

Too much. All of it is just too much. Confusion churns my stomach and I leap from the bed, running to the bathroom, sure I’m about to throw up. As I grip the edge of the toilet, heat burns me from the inside out. My mind races, trying to get a handle on my memories and my thoughts.

I’d slept with Bosco. And I’d liked it. God. I’d liked it so fucking much.

After nothing happens, the nausea passes, and with shaking legs, I stand. My naked, freshly fucked body aches and throbs in the most delicious way, and I can’t bring myself to enjoy it. Instead, I hurry out of the bathroom and peek in on Millie. She’s still sound asleep, the blankets rising and falling with each steady breath.

I have to get him out of here.

As I reach my bedroom, I snatch up my robe and stuff my arms inside, quickly wrapping the tie around my waist and knotting it into a bow. I bend forward and start gathering up Bosco’s clothing, my breathing harsh and rapid, almost to the point of hyperventilating. “Get up,” I whisper, shoving his shoulder, and then leaning forward to pick up his shirt.

Bosco’s sleep weary eyes blink open, his smile slow and flirtatious. As his gaze focuses on me, though, his smile fades and his brows draw together. “What’s wrong?”

“You have to go,” I snap and turn, rushing down the stairs. Part of me knows this is ridiculous. Who kicks a naked man out of their house before the sun even rises?

I can hear him clambering down the stairs behind me as I yank open the front door. One piece at a time, I throw his clothes onto the front lawn, not bothering to watch where they fall.

“Sarah, don’t fucking do this,” he says as I toss one boot, then the other out into the yard, where they fall about three feet away. He rushes out to pick them up and for the first time, I realize that I’m crying.

“Just go, Bosco. This was a mistake.” Tears roll down my face as I move to shut the door. “We never should have...oh, God.”

He storms up the stairs to my front door, not giving one single shit about the fact that he’s standing in his boxer briefs first thing in the morning, outside my house where all the neighbors can see. “It wasn’t a mistake.” His hand grips the edge of the door so I can’t close it. “You might not want to admit it, but this wasn’t a fuckin’ mistake. You know it, and I know it.”

My heart stutters in my chest. “Bosco, I can’t do this. Please. Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

Yanking the door from my grasp, he steps closer and touches his forehead to mine. Dizziness washes over me. “You wanna lie to yourself and say it’s a mistake, go for it, but don’t try to convince me. I’m all-in here. I’ve been all-in for more than three goddamn years. That little girl in there loves me, Sarah. You love me too, you just can’t fuckin’ admit it.”

His words are like knives to my soul. I know he’s right, I know he loves us, both of us. But being with him feels like nothing short of a betrayal to Mouse, and I can’t do that to the father of my baby. I shove at the door, needing to put a solid barricade between us, but my strength has nothing on him.

Finally, he steps back and lets the screen door fall closed. I watch, my heart breaking as he backs down the steps, his hands up and his angry gaze pinning me on the spot. “Fine, I’ll go, but I’ll be back. I’ll be back every fuckin’ day if that’s what it takes for you to admit that you love me. Fight me all you want, but you’re not gonna win this one. I’m not gonna let you.”

Frozen in place, we stare at each other. “Oh,” he continues, his voice almost as hard as his gaze. “That car,” he motions to the little sedan in the driveway that he had picked us up in yesterday, “is yours. I worked out a deal with a buddy. The keys are on the kitchen table.”

Watching him stalk down the driveway and around the corner, his clothes clutched in his hand, is both a relief and the scariest moment of my life. Why did I do that? What the hell is the matter with me?

As the door closes with a resounding thud, I rest my back against it and slide down until I’m in a heap at the bottom. I sit there, stunned, detached. I’ve just thrown away the best thing that had happened to me in three years.

Bosco

Angry. Betrayed. Pissed at the fucking world. Those are just a few of the emotions eating away at me as I yank my clothes on around the corner from Sarah’s house. Last night, she’s given herself to me in a way that I’ve only dreamt of. I finally got to kiss her lips and touch her skin, to sink inside of her until we became one.

I thought we’d finally had a breakthrough. I’d given her fucking everything last night. I’d practically ripped my own heart out of my chest and laid it at her fucking feet, and she’d tossed it onto the lawn with my clothes as if none of that shit mattered.

Looking around, I try to come up with a plan. I’m miles away from home and from the clubhouse where my motorcycle is. I’d left it there when I’d picked up the car from my friend at Jase’s garage. It’s just after six o’clock in the morning, and thank fuck the rest of the world seems to be asleep.

Yanking out my phone from the pocket of my jeans, I curse at the crack I find on the screen. It must have happened when Sarah had chucked my pants out onto the driveway. Thankfully, it still works fine. I scroll through my contacts, trying to decide on who to call to pick me up.

Jase lives not too far from here, but there’s no way in hell I’m calling him. The last thing I need is for this to become the focus of weeks of ribbing from Mr. Funny Man himself. Reaper’s not far, though. My finger hovers over his name, unsure if he’s the best choice.

Sure, Reaper won’t give me a hard time, but our friendship is solely club based. We’ve never connected, aside from both of us being members of the Kings. In fact, we haven’t always seen eye to eye. I know that some of that’s my fault. His wife, Anna, and I are friends, and have a connection that he just can’t understand.

We’re both recovering addicts, and have bonded because of that. Since the club doesn’t know about my past, I’ve made it clear to Anna that she’s not to tell Reaper about me being at the meetings we both go to each week. Not telling him has been hard on her, and I know that if he knew, he’d be a lot more understanding, but so far, she’s kept my secret.

He’ll come, though; I know he will. Reaper is loyal and would never leave me stranded. He also won’t ask a lot of questions.

The phone wakes him up, but he doesn’t ask questions. I just tell him I need a ride and he asks where, then tells me he’ll be here in five minutes. I take a seat on the curb and wait.

I try to understand where Sarah’s coming from. Maybe I pushed her too hard, too fast, but even as I consider that, I know it’s not true. I’ve been a fucking saint when it comes to giving her the time she needs to heal, and it had been her that kissed me first, both fucking times. Last night, it had been her that had begged me to fuck her. I hadn’t forced myself on her. She’d wanted it.

In all the time I’ve spent with Sarah and Millie, I’ve never really been angry with her, until now. Now I’m not just angry, I’m hurt and confused, and livid. I get that she’s hurting. I get that she’s confused about her feelings and that Millie’s cancer mixed into that doesn’t make things any better. But what about me? When she was throwing my shit on her front fucking lawn, did she once stop to consider what I was feeling? What her actions were putting me through?

The rumble of Reaper’s souped-up truck tears me away from feeling sorry for myself. He doesn’t get out, but he does pull up alongside me and leans across the seat, shoving the passenger door open for me.

I climb up and yank the door shut, locking my seatbelt in place. “Thanks for the lift, man.”

“I almost didn’t,” he admits as he pulls away from the curb. “Anna was worried about you.”

That surprises me. Since Anna had their daughter, I only run into her on occasion, either at Narcotics Anonymous meetings or at the clubhouse. We don’t talk as much as we used to. “Why?”

Reaper glances my way and arches his brow. “Well, you call out of the blue, at the crack of fucking dawn, looking for someone to bail you out of a neighborhood that ain’t your own. What do you think she’s thinking?”

It’s as if the world falls out from under me right then. He knows. I gape over at him, my mouth opened to speak, but I have no words.

“Don’t worry,” he says, his hands gripping the steering wheel. “Your secret’s safe with me. And don’t be pissed at Anna either.” He smirks over at me. “I have ways of getting information out of her.”

Great. My traumatic history was once reduced to the prize in one of their weird sex games.

“She didn’t tell me everything,” he continues when I don’t speak. “Just that she’d seen you at the meetings and that you had an inside understanding of what she was going through when shit was so hard for her.”

Well, at least she’d kept most of it to herself. “I’m sorry I asked her to keep that from you. I just thought it was better that way.”

Reaper shrugs. “I get it. I don’t agree with it, but I get it.” He glances over at me again. “Do you understand what being a part of a club like the Kings is all about?”

I frown. “What? Of course I do.”

“The Kings is about family. Real family. The kind that doesn’t let petty shit get in the way of things. The kind that lays everything bare on the table and accepts each other for what they are. I get that you don’t have much for family. At least, I don’t think you do. None of us really know your story. The truth is, until you lay your shit bare for the club, you’ll always be fighting to keep secrets buried and never truly understand what it means to belong to the Kings.”

A painful lump forms in my throat as I mull over his little speech. He has a point. The fact that the point itself is coming from Reaper, the scariest son of a bitch I know, is moot. He’s right. “Point taken.”