Page 113 of The Clover Chapel (Jamison Valley 2)
Getting them back on our fingers would go a long way toward easing my mind. Toward healing the wounds I had inflicted upon us. If I had to buy us new ones, I’d do it, but I’d hate it.
My second biggest regret from Vegas was leaving my ring behind. I had set it on top of my one-word asshole note and then walked out the door. Five steps down the hallway, I had turned to get it back but the room had been Emmy’s and I hadn’t had a key.
For years, I’d touched the spot where it had rested. I’d only worn it for hours but its weight had always been there. I could still feel the brush of Emmy’s fingertips from when she’d slid it on my finger.
And at times, that spot had hurt like a son of a bitch. Any time I had been with another woman, not that there had been many, the area had burned and itched. But I’d deserved that punishment for betraying my wife.
“Nick?” Emmy called, pulling me away from my thoughts.
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“Do you need me to let you go?”
“No. Let’s plan to meet at your place around five thirty. I’ll swing home and get my bike. You can pick us up some takeout.”
“Okay. What do you feel like eating?”
“Whatever. And Emmy, you do not go into that house without me. Wait in the Jeep.”
“Right,” she said.
I couldn’t see it but I was fairly certain I got an eye roll.
The second I hung up with Emmy, my dad called. Again. “Fuck, you’re stubborn.”
Mostly I had been ignoring the calls these last ten days, but I was getting sick of them and wanted to reiterate my point. Under no circumstances would I be helping the Tin Gypsies in their war against the Arrowhead Warriors.
“Then you’re a chip off the old block, Son,” Dad rumbled.
“I’m not helping you.”
“Not the reason for my call,” Draven said.
“What is?”
“Just a heads-up. Shit went down last night. Watch your back.”
Before I could ask what had happened, I was listening to dead air.
Fuck.
“That’s your motorcycle?” Emmy asked with wide eyes.
“Yeah.”
My bike was fucking sweet. Last year I had upgraded and bought a new Dyna Low Rider, then tricked it out. Chrome. Matte red paint with matching rims. The color was almost exactly the shade of Emmy’s hair, the color I’d seen in my dreams for nine years and now got to breathe in every night before I fell asleep.
“I like it,” she said breathlessly.
Yeah. She liked it all right. The flush of her cheeks and the way her shoulders shuttered told me that she liked it a fuck of a lot.
My dick jerked in my jeans. Before dinner, I was getting her naked in the living room.
Then after cleaning, I’d take her for a ride. I couldn’t wait to get her on the back of my bike. I wanted to have her thighs pressed against mine. Her chest against my back. Her small hands wrapped around my middle.
“Inside, Emmy,” I said, taking the bags of Chinese takeout from her hands.
Sex. Chinese. Cleaning. Ride. Sex.
