by Jordan Marie
“Torch doesn’t spank you enough.”
“I’ll tell him that after you man up here.”
“Two,” I tell her, and her lips curl in dislike. I feel Beth’s hand trying to leave mine, but I don’t let it.
“Then I guess you are dumber than you look,” Katie says.
“Katie, let it go. Are you ready, Skull?”
“Yes.” I turn to walk with Beth to my bike again. I take three steps and the tension is still making Beth tense beside me. It’s coming off of her in waves.
“Hey, Pipsqueak,” I call out, still giving Katie my back and making sure to give her the nickname that she hates.
“Yeah?”
“My mom.”
“What?” she asks, and Beth comes to a complete stop beside me. I half turn so I’m looking at Beth when I tell her.
“My mom. She’s the only other woman who has been on my bike,” I tell Katie, but I’m looking at Beth the whole time. Beth stares at me and then she gives me her own surprise. She reaches up on her tip-toes, slides her tongue along the ring in my lip, tugging, and then she kisses me. It’s a brief kiss and she doesn’t deepen it, giving me her tongue like I want. But her lips on mine, in any way, is good. We break apart when I feel a slap on my back, startling me.
“I might grow to like you yet, Skull. I just might,” Katie says, limping around us on her crutches after slapping me hard on the back. The girl has some strength in her.
“I live for the moment,” I tell her sarcastically, winking at Beth.
Beth laughs. It’s soft, but it’s sincere and I gave it to her.
That’s all that matters.
“This is beautiful,” she says.
We’re not on my houseboat, but close. I took her out to a small piece of land that’s close to the lake. There’s no dock, but there’s water close to the bank, and it’s a place that I’ve visited a lot over the years and for only one reason…
“It is,” I tell her, looking out over the water.
“It reminds me of…” She trails off, and I look over at her. Her face is red and I don’t think it’s a trick of the sun that’s starting to set over the water.
“Of the place in Georgia where you and I made love?”
She looks away from me, and I think I might have pushed too far.
“Yes,” she finally whispers, her chin resting on her knees as she gathers her legs up against her chest, watching the sunset.
“That’s the reason I started coming here,” I tell her, knowing what I’m giving away, but unable to stop myself. “When I missed you the most, I could come out here and try to calm my thoughts.”
I expected her to ask me more about that, but she doesn’t. I’m almost disappointed. Doesn’t she want to know more about how I’ve missed her?
“Did your mom actually ride on the back of your bike?” she asks instead, and I take a breath, remembering the first woman I loved; it only seems right that I give that title to Beth.
“Only once. She was sick. She wanted to feel free. She asked me to take her to the lake so she could breathe the air. She swore you could smell the fish in the water.”
Beth takes a deep breath with her eyes closed. I smile, knowing what she’s doing, but my eyes are glued to the way her sweater clings to her breasts and how they move with her breath.
“Why did you name Gabby after her?” I ask, wondering if she’ll tell me the real reason.
“Skull, our time together might have been short, but I knew how much you adored your mother, and she was a strong woman. I want Gabby to have that to lean on. I never did.”
“How did your mom get messed up with the Donahues?”
I watch her face, and something moves over it that I can’t read. Instinctively, I know that there’s yet another secret Beth is keeping.
“With my family, nothing is ever what it seems,” she says cryptically.
“No offense, but I believe I know that already, mi cielo.”
“My sky…”
“Beth…”
“I used to lie in bed at night and remember your voice whispering those words as you made love to me. I ached to hear them. Now that you’re saying it… I’m not sure I trust it.”
“I’m trying, Beth. That’s all I can do,” I tell her, aggravated that it might not be enough.
“There’s so much between us. Maybe there’s just too much water under the bridge,” she says, looking out over the water.
“I don’t believe that.”
“Are you really over all of the anger you have towards me? That day in the hotel, and then the plane ride home… No one talked to me. There was so much anger inside of you. You threatened to take my daughter from me. Am I just supposed to believe you’ve let all of that go, Skull? For no reason?”
“I believe we proved that there’s still something between us that day in the cabin,” I grumble, not wanting to be reminded of the pain between us.
“My sister once told me that sex is just sex, an elemental need that proves we’re alive.”
“Well, she’s right and she’s wrong,” I tell her, watching her closely. “Sex is natural, and when two people are attracted to each other, it’s good… or can be. But until you, Beth, it never involved more than my dick. When you have feelings for someone, it changes the ballgame, querida.”
“Maybe someday I’ll be able to tell the difference,” she says with a sad sigh, and I freeze. What the fuck? What does she think I’m doing here? Mierda! I know I’ve been going slow, but she has to know what I have on my mind here.
“That is not fucking happening,” I growl, and it’s a growl. Fuck, it’s a growl that might rival a bear. What the hell does she think we’re doing here?
She turns towards me. “Skull…”
“Do not ‘Skull’ me. Do not try feeding me some bullshit about how that day in the cabin was a mistake. Do not tell me how we need to be friends for Gabby’s sake. Jesucristo! What the hell do you think we’ve been doing for the last week, Beth?”
Her eyes go wide. Could she really be this clueless?
“Becoming friends?” she whispers.
Friends? Fuck me.
“I’ve got friends. I don’t see me taking Torch out every night, fixing him dinner, and trying to get him to talk to me,” I tell her, sounding like a pouting child because, hell, how can she not know what has been going on here?
“Well, if you spent that much time with Torch, you’d probably kill each other,” she says with a smile.
“Cute, querida, but I’m being serious here. You cannot tell me that you didn’t know that I want more from you, from us.”
“Skull, what happened in that cabin was—”
“Fucking phenomenal.”
“It doesn’t change the fact that barely two weeks ago, you hated to even look at me. It doesn’t change the fact that a week ago, you had another woman in your bed, and it doesn’t change the fact that the past will always be between us.”
I take a breath, rubbing the back of my neck. Hell, why do women have to complicate shit?
“I was angry at you,” I start, the words lodging in my throat.
“You’re still angry with me, Skull. You might be trying to hide it, but it’s still there.”
“What do you want me to say, Beth? Do you want me to tell you that it didn’t rip my heart out to think you were dead? Do you want me to tell you that I thought about swallowing a bullet when I thought I had killed you? Do you want me to tell you that when I found out over two years later that you were not only alive, but that you had my child out there somewhere, that I didn’t want to…?”
“Want to what, Skull? See, now you’re being honest! Stop hiding behind whatever this is and tell me. Stop hiding from me!” she insists, and she doesn’t know what she’s asking. If I let this anger out, this monster that keeps clawing its way to the surface, I’m not sure either of us will survive.
“Beth,” I start, my voice hoarse.
“Give me the truth, Skull. You want to p
ut the past behind us? Then let’s get it all out. Let’s finally have it out,” she insists.
Shit…
I hope I know what I’m doing. I just can’t take this nice Skull. It’s good, getting to know him all over again and spending time with him. That’s all great. But he’s not the man I fell in love with. He’s trying to be someone else, and it’s driving me crazy. Worse… I don’t know why he’s trying.
He gets up, raking his hands through his hair, then walks towards the lake, giving me his back. I stay where I’m at, afraid to move.
“Beth. Fuck, I don’t want to do this.” He turns around and there’s anguish all over his face. I hate it. I despise it because, I played a part in putting it there. “Why can’t we just go forward?”
I swallow. “Skull…”
“You want the truth?” he asks, and at this point, I’m not sure, but instinctively I know I have to hear it.
“Tell me,” I whisper, wondering if he can tell how hoarse my voice is, if he can hear the fear contained in it.
“Losing you destroyed me. It felt like someone cut my motherfucking heart out. I wanted to swallow a fucking bullet and follow you. Jesus Christ, there were so many nights I almost did, but I just couldn’t make myself pull the trigger! I was weak and couldn’t just… end it.”
I thought I was prepared. I wasn’t. To picture him holding a gun even thinking about taking his life… To picture this alpha male, who is so larger than life, being that low… knowing it was my fault… it kills me. I feel the tears leaking from my eyes. I can’t stop them. My eyes are glued to Skull’s face, to the anguish so real it’s like a living thing.
“I thought nothing could be worse than that, querida. I thought that was the worst fucking thing I would ever live through. Then I find out almost two years later that you’re alive. That you have my daughter and you’re out there somewhere. I hated you, Beth. I wanted to make you suffer. I wanted to destroy you, just like you… destroyed me…”
“Skull…”
“Do you know how I found out you were alive?”
“Skull, maybe…” I start, wanting him to stop, not sure I can take what comes next.
“I was in bed with another woman. With Teena. I had been alone for a year and a half, and I just wanted to feel… alive again. I was starting to feel normal, and then I get this call, and once again, you singlehandedly destroyed my world.”
And I thought I was crying before. His words rip what’s left of my heart out. I get up and take off running back the way we came. I don’t know where I’m going; I only know that I need to get away, that I have to get away from his words, from what they mean, from the… pain.
He grabs me from behind, not letting me escape. I yank my body away from him, taking a few steps away. His face is right there in front of me and I can see his own pain and he has tears shining in his eyes.
“You can’t run away from me! You wanted me to tell you the truth!” he growls.
“I was wrong!” I scream. “I don’t want to hear about you with her. I don’t want to hear this! I don’t want to hear how you fell in love with someone else! I can’t hear that!”
“It’s been almost three years, Beth! Our daughter is two years old! What did you expect from me?”
“I don’t know!” I scream again, so loud that the frogs that had been croaking in the hot Kentucky air go silent. “I don’t know,” I cry out, quieter this time, but so much more broken. “Not once in that time did I ever look at another man. You were it for me. You were… it,” I cry at the unfairness of it all.
“I thought you were dead! You knew I was out there! You can’t be mad because you started this whole series of events! Christo! You think I don’t hate myself, Beth? You think that I don’t despise myself for ever touching Teena when you were out there somewhere? She isn’t a bad woman. She tried to bring me comfort even knowing I was in love with another woman. And yet after one phone call, I push her away and set about trying to find you… even while hating you, even while wishing you had fucking stayed dead!” he yells, and what was left of my heart breaks with those words.
There’s nothing left to say… That says it all.
The words leave before I can stop them. I see her visibly jerk with them. See the exact moment they cut her open, just like they were meant to. The monster is loose. He got to strike out, except it doesn’t bring satisfaction. Seeing her tears, feeling the pain between us, it doesn’t help the scars from the past; it’s just making new ones. What the fuck am I doing?
“You need to let me go, Skull. When we get back to the club, just let me go. Put me and Gabby in one of your safe houses until you find Colin. I don’t care, just please set me free.”
“I can’t. Don’t you even get it, Beth? I can’t release you even if I wanted to. You’re in my blood, buried in the fucking bones of me. Jesus, cutting out my heart would be easier than releasing you.”
“You have Teena…”
“I have no one! I don’t want anyone. Mierda!” I growl.
“Then what do you want, Skull?”
“To go back. Go back to the night we pledged our love to each other. The night I was sure I had slipped inside of you as deep as you are rooted in me. The night I thought I got through to you…”
She looks up at me, her tears still flowing down her cheeks unchecked.
“I lie in bed and think of that night. I want that too, Skull. I do. I want to go back and never have to make the decision I made. I tried every way I could not to. I didn’t have a choice, Skull. If I hadn’t gone with him, he would have killed Katie. He wouldn’t have stopped. I had already cost your club so much. Poor Beast… I couldn’t risk more happening. I couldn’t let my sister die. But, if it had just been me, Skull… If it had just been the two of us, I would have taken my last breath never leaving your side. Even if that breath was just a moment more, I would have chosen you. You have to know that,” she whispers sadly.
If it was just the two of us.
“It’s just us here, now.”
“But there’s more involved when we leave here.”
“Torch would die before he let anything happen to your sister, and Gabby can only be happier if the two of us are together.”
“There’s more involved now,” I repeated. “There’s your club. I have nightmares about what happened with Jan and that sweet baby… and Beast… That’s all my fault…”
I walk to her now and cup the side of her face. “Mi cielo, no one is responsible for that except the Donahues and Jan. You did not have any control with her stealing the keys from Bull. You could not control the actions of your father or any of the other culos in that family.”
Her hand trembles as it comes up and lies over mine. She squeezes gently as my thumb absently brushes the silent tears still falling from her face.
“Skull, it’s not that simple. There are other things… There’s…”
I instinctively know what she’s going to say, and I don’t want those words to pass her lips or even exist in her head.
“I didn’t love her, Beth. She knew that, and she knows it even more now. Since the moment I found out you were alive, I haven’t touched another woman.”
“You don’t have to tell me that, Skull, I don’t have a right to know who has been in your bed since I left. I knew that when I gave birth to Gabby, me staying away didn’t have to do with that.”
“Then why the fuck didn’t you come back to me, Beth?” I ask, forgetting to tread lightly.
“I was scared. God, Skull, I was weak. I was pathetic. I don’t have Katie’s courage and I’m not sure I ever will…”
“Las tonterías.”
“Okay, I’ve learned Spanish as much as I could, but that one…”
“Bullshit,” I translate for her, and for the first time since this conversation started, I find a smile. “You’re standing here, Beth. You put your life on the line to save your sister. You faced Matthew and ended him without blinking. That’s not someone who is weak.”
/> “But…”
“And you survived your grandfather and father,” I tell her, pulling her face closer into mine. Something flashes across her face and I know there are more things to be uncovered, but I can’t tackle those tonight. Right now, I need her. “You’re strong, mi cielo. Even steel bends… when the fire forges it,” I whisper against her lips.
“Skull,” she breathes, and the taste of her lips is right there and I can’t fight it anymore.
“Give me your lips, sweet Beth. Los Necesito mas que necesito respirar,” I whisper before I claim them.
I whimper as he deepens the kiss, unable to fight it anymore. I’m tired of fighting. My hands go up, digging my fingers into his hair. I had forgotten the soft feel of his dark locks slipping against my skin. I had forgotten the taste of him, and after that night in the cabin, it has been haunting me.
He reaches behind me and undoes my hair, letting it fall around my face. I look into his eyes and they glow, so dark and demanding. This feels big. Before, it was just in the heat of the moment, and this… this can’t be explained away. This is opening ourselves back up. Can we really make it work?
His hand moves under the bottom of my shirt, his callused fingers teasing the sensitive skin on my stomach. It feels good, but makes me nervous at the same time. I’m not ready for him to see… me. I need to distract him.
I reach up to push his cut from his shoulders, letting the heavy leather material fall to the ground.
He breaks away from our kiss, staring at me. The desire in his look threatens to burn me alive.
“Mi mujer,” he whispers, my woman… Does he know how true those words are? I have been his from the first moment he looked at me. I fell fast and hard and there hasn’t been a moment since that first meeting that I didn’t want him—didn’t need him.
I drop down to my knees, using my hands on his legs to brace myself.
“Beth…”
“I used to lie awake at night and remember how it felt to hold your cock in my hands. The heat, the feel… as I wrapped my hand around it and stroked you,” I tell him while reaching up to unzip his pants and push them down his hips.
