Page 125 of Malice and Surrender
“You said you love him. How can you say you love him and me too? I don’t get it. At least tell me that. Tell me why these other guys are so important when we can finally be together. As fucked up of a situation as it is, Tink, I want you. I’ve never stopped wanting you,” I blurted out.
She slowly closed the door, and my heart rate slowed, but when she turned her head and looked at me, the pain in her eyes gripped my throat as surely as a hand would.
“You don’t get it, do you,” Raine asked, her voice soft. She let go of the handle, and I swallowed hard as she stepped toward me. “I’ve always loved you.”
She gripped her shirt in her hand over her heart, and I swear I felt it as if she was squeezing the pounding organ in my chest. “Even when I thought you hurt me in the worst way possible, I never stopped loving you and mourning you like you’d died because, to me, that’s what it was like. I’d stare at your photo and cry for hours, wondering why you did what you did, and I hated myself. I loathed every part of my being because I couldn’t stop loving the guy who looked at me like I meant something. You made me feel like I was worth seeing, and then….” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that, you tore me down.”
I opened my mouth, and she held up her hands to stop me. “I know it wasn’t you, but I didn’t know that then. I’d already lost so much, and at that moment, I became nothing.” She walked closer, and my chest constricted a little more with each step. “I didn’t want to live, I didn’t want to wake up in the morning, and every day I fought to fix this.” She tapped the side of her head. “You may have been locked away in a concrete cell, but my mind became my prison, and there was no escaping the torture it would inflict again and again.”
Tears trailed down her cheeks, and for the first time since I found her, I truly understood that we’d both been caged that night. Our souls were tossed into a different hell of darkness, but both were just as lethal. The emotion was so raw on her face that when she reached me and smacked her hands off my chest, it felt like she’d hit me with a car and drove the air from my chest.
“Do I feel bad that you went to prison for something you didn’t do…fuck, of course I do. I didn’t think I could hate myself anymore, but I do. I sent the one person I loved and trusted in this world to prison, I….”
Her hands gripped my leather jacket into her fists. “You joke about having however many people a night and had the nerve to ask me where my pussy had been.” I licked my lips as my throat went dry. “No one Kai. No one until Avro touched me. Eleven years I’ve had no contact with another living soul. Not to shake their hand or give them a hug.”
The leather complained as her fists tightened. “It took Avro years to earn my trust. He was my only friend. I have no family. They were all dead, and the Collinses sent me packing the day I was released from the hospital. There were no nameless faces and wild orgies, no sweetbutts, as you put it, to satisfy bodily desires.” She jerked on my jacket, and my stomach gripped in a tight ball. “I was terrified. Do you get that? My only experience was extreme pain that landed me with two operations and no idea if I can ever have children, and all that time, I thought you did that to me. I still see your face in my mind sneering at me. I couldn’t see their faces, but it didn’t matter. My mind conjured you. How you’d hold me down….”
Raine let go of my jacket and walked to the dresser. Her shoulders shook as she covered her mouth and cried, but I didn’t move. I wasn’t even sure what to say at this point. We had so much pain between us. So many memories and misinformation.
She choked back a sob and turned to face me again. I hated to see that pain. I thought for so long that it was all I wanted. I loved her pissed off and fired up, but this…I didn’t want this anymore between us. It was toxic and destroying us both.
“So, to answer your question. Yes, after eleven years of knowing nothing but fear and loneliness, I finally let someone in. Someone that is wholly good and saw the scars on my soul and my damaged heart and didn’t run. For the first time, I could breathe again because I realized I could trust. It was freeing to finally not see everyone as a hooded figure looking to hurt me, and I took it.”
Her face fell. And I wanted to wrap her up in my arms. I had no idea that she’d lived like that. It made my rage toward Dave, Frank, and the now rotting-in-hell Jim burn that much brighter. I wanted to tell her about Jim and that I planned on making sure they all paid. But now I didn’t know if it was worse for her to know that two different people she trusted did this. I didn’t know, but I wasn’t willing to set any progress back further.
“And then you come along, and just like that, you crush me and the sliver of happiness I was building,” she growled and stomped the few steps to me and pushed my chest hard enough that I stumbled back and hit the wall. “You almost killed me, Kai, and then you almost killed them after you said you never wanted to see me again. I’m the problem? What the fuck?” She growled at me.
“And now what? You hunt me down. Say you want me and that I’m yours. Like you own me.” She shook her head. “What’s next? You planning on giving me a cut that says your property? Then the cycle will be complete. You can officially own my body and do whatever you want with whoever you want. That is how it works in an MC, right?” She shrugged, and I still couldn’t figure out what to say.
“The old ladies….” Raine lifted her hands and made finger quotes in the air. “First off, a sign of respect or not, if you ever call me an old lady, I will rip your fucking balls right off your body.”
I licked my lips, torn between impressed, a little terrified by the look in her eyes, and turned on so bad that I thought I might fucking cum in my jeans.
“But that is what they do, isn’t it? They have to shut up and support their man, right? Let their man fuck who they choose and never cause drama, all for the privilege of sitting on the back of your fancy bike.” Raine laughed and backed away. “No, I don’t want to live like that. I’ve felt like I had a sign saying I was owned by you for far too long. You already took my body, have my heart and mind—hell, you fucking have my soul. I have nothing left to give you, Kai, and I don’t want to be controlled by anyone, including my fear, any longer. I’m not that same girl you knew.” She looked down at the ground and then squared her shoulders as she looked up and her eyes found mine. “That girl died.” Turning around, Raine walked to the door. “I’m going to ask you again to please, just leave.”
“It’s not always like that.” Her brow furrowed in confusion. “With the old…the wives, I mean. It’s different for everyone. A lot of the guys are loyal to their other half.” Her hand gripped the door handle but didn’t turn it. “I’m here, Tink. I came because I want you, so tell me what you want?” I lifted my shoulders in a shrug. “I will listen.”
Raine crossed her arms and leaned against the door as she stared at me.
“Just say what you want, Tink.”
She smiled, but it was a sad smile as she wiped at the dampness on her cheeks. “I want to be selfish for the first time ever. I want it all. Call me greedy, or a slut, or whatever you want, but I want all of you, and no, that doesn’t mean you can fuck whoever you want.” It was my turn to cross my arms.
“You want all three of us exclusive to you and at the same time?” Rubbing my eyes, I ground my teeth together.
The thought of the bartender or rock star touching her had all the dark and dangerous parts of me coming to life. I needed to try and stay calm, or I would tear apart this room and then drive back to Miami and shoot those two fuckers in the head.
I knew she’d run, and I could let her. It would solve the issue. If she wasn’t around, then maybe I could finally move on too. The small voice in the back of my head laughed hysterically. I’d been locked up for ten years and hadn’t seen her a single day, and I wanted her more now than the day I was put away. It didn’t seem like her leaving town would stop me from wanting her.
“I don’t mean we all have to have sex together,” she said, and a low growl rumbled in my chest. “I mean, if you all could and not kill each other, I’d be open to the idea,” she said, and my eyes snapped up to hers. “That would be really fucking hot, actually,” she mumbled and tapped her chin.
The murderous side of me wanted to rip them apart. Even though, by all accounts, it sounded like they were decent enough, I just couldn’t wrap the possessive part of myself around the idea.
“Not fucking likely. Just thinking about them touching you makes me want to cut off their cocks and shove them down their throats.”
“Well, you asked what I wanted. There it is. I want all of you.” Raine laughed. “I don’t want to deny myself anymore.”
I looked up to the ceiling like, by some fucking miracle, I was going to find the answers written there. “Do you love them?”
