Emily is a firecracker when she's riled, which is part of the reason I love her so much. She doesn't take shit from
anyone, and on the off chance someone is stupid enough to serve it up to her, Em is more than happy to educate them as to the error of their ways.
“As soon as Em told me she was pregnant and that it was yours, I lost it. Knowing that she hated me and was only with me to protect you, created a monster - one that was set on destroying you, and Em. I'm not proud of blackmailing her to keep quiet about the kid, but if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing,” he says carefully, finally raising his head so that he can meet my eyes.
What I see in them are the signs of a broken man, which he only confirms with what he says next.
“The deal was, Em would keep quiet about my habit and pass Diesel off as my kid, and I wouldn't make it so that you had an untimely accident.”
“Fuck!” I roar, causing him to jolt, taking a few tentative steps backward to avoid my rampant anger which is directed solely at him.
“Shit,” he mumbles, dragging in one of the last full breaths I’ll ensure he’ll ever take.
Stumbling over the edge of the garden bed, Scott lands on his ass, but in less than half a second I’m in front of him, hauling him to his feet, as I get in his face and spit,
“You're seriously telling me; you’re fucking coward enough to threaten to kill me if Em didn't do your bidding? That you used her, manipulated her, guilted and forced her to hide your dirty little secrets so that you could steal my son and pass him off as yours?"
Scott visibly sags as if my words offer him some
modicum of comfort when what I really want to do is rip his fucking head off.
“No point in lying now, man. So yeah, that's pretty much what I'm telling you.”
Forget my second question. Forget me promising to let him leave. To let him live. I'm going to kill this motherfucker with my bare hands. Or I should say, I was, that is until Emily rests her hand against my back and whispers,
“Don't.”
“Why the fuck not?” I growl. “He deserves worse than I'll ever be able to do to him, and you fucking know it.”
Emmy, my Emmy runs her hand across my shoulder blades and down the center of my back until it's resting at the base of my spine. It's a soothing touch – one that would usually turn me the fuck on – but right now, it's doing nothing to calm the storm raging inside me.
Then, proving that Emily is worth ten of Scott and I put together, she states,
"Because you're better than that. Because you’re better than him. Because I don't want you to end someone's life the day you found out you created one. And because I'm asking you not to, and you love me enough to give me that."
Not now, not in the future, not ever will I confirm how right she is at that moment. I will never tell her the impact her words had on me, or how grateful I was that she stopped
me from doing something that would haunt me forever. Instead, I release my hold on Scott's cut and sending him flying, once again, landing on the cold, hard ground below.
“I want you gone. You've got one minute to get on your bike and disappear before I rethink my position on ending you. But mark me, motherfucker. If I see, hear, or get wind that you've come anywhere near Em or my son ever again, I will not be so charitable with what's left of your pathetic excuse for a life,” I assure him, sending him scrambling for his bike.
The engine roars to life, cutting through the still air like a knife through butter. But before Scott leaves, this time for good, he turns to Emily and says,
“There's not enough words to tell you how sorry I am, Em. But for what it's worth, there hasn't been a day I haven't loved you, and no matter what happens to me, I always will.”
With that parting statement, Scott kicks his bike into gear and disappears.
Two days later, his body was found by Hoss in the back alley of a dive bar on the outskirts of Denver, naked from the waist up, bloody, and lifeless. His death certificate stated that he died from natural causes, a heart attack, the coroner listed, but I knew the truth. Scott's sins had caught up with him, and he paid the ultimate price.
*****
Kicking the door shut behind me, I back Emily up into the wall in the entryway.
"You've got ten seconds to convince me why I shouldn't strip you naked, turn you over my knee, and spank your ass red for not coming to me with what you were going through."
Her breath hitches in her throat and her cheeks flame red in embarrassment, but she doesn't utter a word in protest like I thought she would. Instead, Em clutches the front of my shirt in her small fists, and a ragged moan escapes her sweet mouth.
At that moment, the house could have been burning down around us, and I would have been powerless to do a damn thing about it. I was consumed by her. How she looked, staring up at me with wide, innocent eyes, so scared and vulnerable. How she felt in my arms after all this time was like coming home and being able to take my first full breath in since I lost her all at once. But most of all, it was how she melted into me like I was her hero, her savior, the only man that could deliver her from her pain that flayed me open and laid me bare.
I wasn't losing that. I couldn't. I had waited too long to be here like this with her, touching her and breathing her in. There might have been a lot of confusion surrounding what would happen next – with our son, Scott, the club, and us – but there was no denying our connection was just as strong,
if not stronger than ever.
Without thinking, I fist a handful of hair at the nape of her neck while my other arm wraps around her waist, anchoring her to me. Tilting her head back until she’s looking at me and her eyes lock on mine, I groan,
“Don't tempt me, beautiful. It's been a lot of years for you, and a million fantasies about your sweet body and what I would do to it if I had the chance to get my hands on it again for me. All it would take is one word from you, and I'd lose all semblance of control.”
Leaning into me further, Em’s voice floats over my skin like a caress.
“Yes.”
And with that, I'm lost. Pulled under, dragged down, and drowning in the depths of my love for this woman.
CHAPTER TEN
~ Emily ~
Reunions and revelations
I wish I were a stronger woman. That I could have found the strength to put a stop to Scott's grand Plan-O blackmail before it ruined everything good in my life. But I wasn't, and I'm still not.
Enduring Scott's rage filled, cocaine-induced beatings, week after week, year after year, was not strong; it was weak. I could have said something. I could have left. I could have done any number of things, yet I stayed. I stayed, and now I have to face the music.
There was never any doubt in my mind that one day, Atlas would find out about Diesel's paternity. In fact, I'm surprised he hasn't put two and two together before now. Especially since, my son looks exactly like his father, right down to his chiseled jaw, the slight bump in the center of his nose, and the rich brown hue of his hair.
But I suppose, in hindsight, why would he question it? I never gave him any indication that he had fathered my son, and Scott certainly didn't let it slip. Not once. Not even to
Diesel himself.
Sure, there were times I considered approaching Atlas and telling him the truth. Every day, in fact. At night, I dreamed about how he would react, and none of it was good. They all ended up being vivid nightmares of varying degrees – all of them more devastating than the last. In one, I even envisaged Atlas striking out at me like Scott did so often. That was the one that scared me the most.
While rationally I knew that he would never, could never hurt me, I had held Atlas on a pedestal for so long that I wasn't willing to risk anything knocking him off his lofty perch. And I just knew, with every fiber of my being, that when he found out, my carefully constructed image of him would falter.
“Why?” Atlas whispers into the soft skin of my throat. “Why didn't you tell me,
Emmy? You know I would have been there for you, for him. I would have moved heaven and hell to get you away from Scott. We could have been so fucking happy together, baby.”
The pain in his voice rips me open, tears my heart from my chest, leaving it broken and splinter beyond repair. But even though it's hard for me to draw a breath, let alone form words, Atlas deserves an answer.
“If you had asked me that this morning, I would have told you I did it to protect you. That I did it because I honestly believed, Scott was capable of doing what he said
he would and taking you away from me permanently,” I admit, albeit somewhat pathetically.
“But I'm not asking you then, I’m asking you now, Emmy. Not this morning. Not yesterday. Not last week. Now,” he pushes, pressing soft kisses against my oversensitive flesh.
“Truthfully then, I don't know,” I say quietly. “Part of me wants to tell you it was all Scott's fault, that the years of conditioning and manipulation scared me into staying quiet, but it wasn't that. At least, not entirely anyway.”
“Then what was it? The truth, baby. There have been enough lies between us, so no more. My goddamn heart can't take it if you lie to me again.”
My gasp signals my loss of control over the tears that had been steadily building in the back of my eyes, and in seconds, I crumble. My knees buckle, my heart stops, and I swear, all I can hear is the rapid thrum of the blood in my veins desperately trying to keep me conscious.
“I'm not saying it'll be easy, but I can forgive you this once. Now I know the story, maybe not the full extent but enough, I can let this go. But only if you promise never to keep anything from me again. And by that, I mean anything, Em. I want to know if you stubbed your toe while I was at work. I want to know when you feel sad, happy, angry, or frustrated. I want to know every detail about your day and our boys'. I need to know I can trust you, and the only way
for me to do that is if you let me in and tell me everything.”
He asking a lot, and he knows it. It has never been easy for me to share my feelings. My dad isn't a warm and fuzzy kind of guy. He loves me, and he doesn’t hesitate to tell me so, but he isn’t what I’d call openly affectionate. In truth, ever since Scott's behavior began to escalate three years ago, the only person I have been able to open up to is none other than Atlas's best friend. Which in turn meant that I always had to hold back, keeping the intimate details to myself, for fear of him oversharing one day when he was three sheets to the wind.
In the grand scheme of things, what Atlas is offering is a no-brainer. In return for the forgiveness that I crave all I have to do is open up and give him the parts of me that have only ever been mine. Not everything that I've kept to myself is important. Certainly, nothing as extreme as hiding the fact Atlas and I have a child together. But that doesn't make it any easier for me to give Atlas carte blanche over my innermost feelings and thoughts.
I haven't always been a private person. When I was younger, in middle and high school, I was an extrovert with a tendency to overshare freely. That's not to say I had a great deal of friends to share with, but the ones I had were not short of a story or ten about me, or my crazy dysfunctional family.
Things changed after I met Atlas, though. I was desperate that he saw me as a worldly, intelligent woman, not the about to graduate high school, sheltered daddy's girl
I was. So I held things back. I focused our conversations on him, his family, his job, his dreams, and where he saw himself in five years. Every question I asked, he answered thoroughly without hesitation.
He came from a broken home but was quick to tell me his mom and dad were good people, just not together. It was evident to me that Atlas respected the hell out of his dad, and loved his mom deeply – something that made me fall a little harder for him. Atlas shared that he was a mechanic, having opened his own shop recently with the small inheritance his grandfather on his mom’s side left him after he passed away two years ago. He laughed when I asked about his dreams and five-year plan, but told me he wanted what any man wanted; a woman who loved him, a home, and one day, a few kids of his own. Swoon.
It was trickier when he asked me questions, but for the most part, I got out of answering by distracting him with my hands, my mouth, or my pussy, which I quickly learned, Atlas had no ability to say no to. It was misdirection at its finest, but back then, I thought we had all the time in the world to get to know each other. So what if it took him longer to peel back my layers and get to the center of who I am, we had a lifetime. Or so I believed.
With no recourse but to try, I ask,
“But what if I can't? What if you ask things that are too painful, too raw for me to tell you?”
Brushing a strand of hair that's fallen into my eyes behind my ear, Atlas looks me square in the eyes.
“We'll start easy, and build up to that shit, Em. I won't lie to you; I need to know what went down during your marriage to that fuckwit, but we don't have to start with that. I just want real, Em. The real you. The real us. What we could have been if you'd been honest with me from the beginning.”
I grimace at his explanation, but I don't waiver. I deserved that and more. I will take every thinly veiled insult,
attack, and passive aggressive slight Atlas has to offer if it means he is the person I start and end my days with.
“Okay,” I agree sedately. “I can't promise you that you won't have to drag it out of me sometimes, but I will promise you I'll try.”
“Not try, Em. Do. There's no more half-assing this shit. You're either all-in, or you're not,” he commands, his voice turning my blood to ice.
I didn't know it then, and I would never have promised if I did, but six weeks later, I wouldn't break my promise, I would destroy my future. Entirely. Completely. And what I thought was forever.
So it goes without saying, that when Atlas prompted me for an answer less than a minute later, after I'd gone deathly silent so as to consider what he was asking me, I said yes. I promised to give him me, as long as in return, he gave me him.
*****
Atlas's mood changed in a flash after I conceded to his wishes. One moment he was holding himself back, waiting, watching, pensive, but the next, he was all over me. His hands. His mouth. His body pressed against every inch of mine. And I loved it. I missed it. I missed him.
Everything about him from the smell of leather to the
heat of his skin was ingrained in my memory. I had dreamed about him and what it felt like to run my hands over the muscles in his back. I had fantasized about tracing every inch of his skin with my tongue. And I planned to. As soon as he let me that is. But right now, Atlas wasn't in the mood to let me play. He was single-minded and focused on his task of getting me naked as soon as possible, and who was I to deny him?
“Wh-what are you doing?” I moan as Atlas grabs the outside of my thighs and wraps them around his lean hips.
“Change in plans, sweetheart. I thought I was going to be okay with fucking you right here, right now, hard, but that’ll have to wait. I need to fuck you again for the first time in a bed, not against a wall. I want to see you spread out and ready for me, and I can't do that vertical, baby.”
Heading toward the stairs, he takes them two at a time, until he reaches the last door on the left at the end of the hall.
“How did you know this was my bedroom?” I ask breathlessly as he toes the door open.
“Been in this house plenty of times, baby. You don't think I knew where you slept? Where you curled up and read in that ratty old wingback chair every night. Where you cry until you're so exhausted, you don't have a choice but to drag yourself to bed. I've always known, sweetheart,” he says gruffly, shocking the holy hell out of me.
“Um...” I mutter dumbfounded. “I'm not sure I know
what to do with that.”
“That's because there's nothing to do with it. Even though we weren't together, over the years, I made it my business to find out everything I could about you. The fact I had to tur
n into a bona fide stalker to do that is neither here nor there,” he grins unrepentantly.
“Just saying, but that's kind of creepy, Atlas,” I reply, not able to hide my smile in the slightest.
“If you say so, baby, but I prefer to call it research. Especially, when it yields information that will be helpful in me making you come harder than you ever have before.”
“Ah, say what?” I stutter embarrassed as all get out.
Oh, God. Please tell me he did not watch me touch myself.
Chuckling low in his throat, Atlas employs his evil mind reading powers and tells me,
“Yeah, sweetheart. I watched those sweet little fingers strumming your clit like it was a prize guitar more times than I can count.”
Sarge: Book 8 in the Vengeance MC series Page 13
