Ember's Burn: A Steel Demons MC Novel

by Annelise Reynolds

  My nose was slightly crooked now because of the break, and my face was an array of bruising. My bottom lip had a cut that looked like it was still healing, but thankfully there was no more swelling, because I’m sure there had been judging by the rest of my face and body. The most damage was in my eyes though. I could see it. I have been through it before. The wish for death, the questioning why it happened to me. The pain, the guilt, and the hate all burned in my eyes. To me, it was clear to see, but Dotty had taught me an important lesson all those years ago. She taught me how to smile through the pain, how to hide it behind my eyes. It was one of the hardest, and best, lessons I learned.

  I turned on the shower, setting it as hot as I could stand. I let the water pound over my body, soothing the muscles. Each time I would get used to the heat, I’d turn the cold down a little more. I washed my hair, carefully massaging my scalp. Just like Dotty had told me to do, I washed it away. I washed the memories, each kick, each slap, each punch, each time his body took mine, washed away down the drain with the suds.

  ‘It didn’t happen. It didn’t happen,’ I silently chanted to myself over again. This is how I buried all that shit before, it would work again. It had to work again. In my mind, it happened to someone else, not to me. I wasn’t kidding when I told Titan that McKenzie was dead. He thought that I meant just after all of this. The truth is that I died a long time ago, long before he knew me.

  It was well over an hour I had spent in the hot shower. I washed myself several times, scrubbed myself raw between my legs, even though I’m sure any trace of him was already gone. Thankfully, they had given me something in the hospital to keep me from getting pregnant. I didn’t want to go through that again.

  There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think about the baby girl I had given up. Every year on her birthday, I would go out to dinner by myself. I’d have the waiter bring the birthday dessert, and after that, I would go to different stores and look at things I would buy her, if she was still mine. It always caused me pain to think about her, but like everything else that caused me pain, I put it behind the wall in my head and buried it as deep as I could. Most of the time it stayed locked away. I just needed to reset, rebuild, and reinforce the wall.

  I got out of the shower and wrapped a towel around my body. I wiped the steam from the mirror and took another look at my face. My brown hair hung in wet waves down to my shoulders.

  Titan wanted something I couldn’t give him. He wanted someone that he had no clue who she was or where she had been. If all he wanted was my body, I could give that so he would leave me alone. After all, I had done that many times before, when fighting just prolonged the inevitable. He wanted more and he wasn’t giving up. The thought scared the shit out of me. How could I ever give him what he would need if I wouldn’t allow myself to trust anyone completely, much less a man? The closest person I ever came close to trusting was Phoenix and she didn’t even know everything. The best thing Titan could ever do is move on. I would have to lower my guard enough and do something drastic to help him move on, to force him to move on.

  After applying lotion to my pink, sensitive skin, I walked out the door and ran into Titan in the hall. His body drew up short when he saw me leave the bathroom wrapped in just a towel, my clothes in my arms. He looked me over, his eyes raking down my body.

  “Take a picture, this is as close as you’re ever going to get,” I grumbled at him and moved to my door. He didn’t respond to my bitchy remark, which was a first. I went into my room and leaned against the door to calm my fluttering heart down. I saw the interest and lust flash in his eye when he looked at me. As always, it caused my belly to tighten, my blood to pulse through my veins, and a tightness in my chest.

  The lights were off, but sunlight from the blinds streamed through. I felt weak and drained after my shower and all the emotions I washed away, so I dropped my towel and lay out on the bed. My skin was still heated from the hot water, so I laid on top of the covers, partially on my stomach, keeping my weight off my broken ribs.

  I don’t know how long I slept, but when I woke, the room was shrouded in darkness, and a blanket was draped over me. I winced in pain as I tried to roll over. Slowly, I moved my hand and came in contact with warm flesh. I sucked in a breath and moved too quickly. “Ahhh,” I cried out as I pushed myself back. The blanket dropped off my body, and I grabbed at my side as I backed up as quickly as my ribs would allow.

  “Careful, honey.” Titan’s voice broke through the darkness. He moved quickly to my side and flipped the light switch on the wall. I squeezed my eyes closed against the sudden brightness, black dots danced behind my lids, as nausea rolled through my stomach.

  “Titan, what the hell do you think you are doing in here?” My voice came out hoarse from the pain in my side. I made to grab for the blanket again, but my ribs kept me from reaching to the floor.

  “Lay your ass back down before you hurt yourself.” He bent and grabbed the blanket and draped it over my body while leading me back toward the bed.

  I clutched the blanket to me as a shield against him. He had seen me naked. Fuck. Guess my earlier comment about that being the closest he would ever get turned out wrong. “Answer my question, Titan. What the hell are you doing in here?”

  He ignored me and walked out of the room, leaving the door wide open. I watched as he walked into the bathroom in nothing more than a pair of boxer briefs. The view of his back, down to his firm ass and thick, muscular thighs was mouthwatering. I watched as he turned on the water and reached into the medicine cabinet. A moment later he walked back toward me with my pain pills in one hand and a cup of water in the other. “Here, honey, take these.” He handed me the cup while he opened the pills, dumping two into my hand.

  My hand was shaking as I reached for the pills. Fuck, my ribs hurt like a son of a bitch. “Thank you,” I said, before taking the pills and swallowing them down with the tepid water. “Answer me, Titan. What are you doing in my room? I didn’t invite you here, and I don’t want you here.”

  He sighed. “I know, but I also know that you just got out of the hospital with severe injuries. I didn’t want you to be alone in case you needed something, like pain pills.”

  “Don’t call me honey, Titan. I don’t need you to take care of me. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time.”

  “I know, McKenzie. It’s why you are so damn stubborn and pigheaded. You think you don’t need anyone else.”

  “I don’t need anyone else,” I spat back at him. Damn man thought he knew everything about me. He had no fucking clue.

  “Yeah, you do, sweetheart. As much as you say you don’t, you do.”

  “Titan, get the hell out of here. I want to be alone.”

  “No. Now that you’re awake, we can put some clothes on you because you have been killing me.” He stood up and shut the door, proof of how I had been killing him tented his underwear. I looked away at the huge impression he made. Oh. My. God. He was huge. I trembled and tried to breathe normally, ignoring the fear that gripped me.

  He handed me one of his shirts. I clutched it to my chest. “One of mine will work, but I’ll get it. You can leave now.”

  “You aren’t getting up, now take the damn shirt.” His irritation was evident in his voice, so I took the shirt from him and clutched it to my chest.

  “Fine. Leave so I can change.”

  He sighed. “I’ve already seen it all, McKenzie, and you don’t have anything any other woman doesn’t have. Put the damn shirt on.” I slowly stood up and turned my back to him. I did my best to keep the sheet up while putting the shirt on, but I’m sure he saw my butt as the sheet fell away and the shirt fell into place.

  I turned back around in his shirt that hung down to my knees. I ignored the fact that it smelled amazing. I ignored the fact that it was erotic and totally wonderful to be wearing his shirt. Instead, I ripped into him. “Titan, I don’t know what you think gives you the right to order me around,
invite yourself into my bed, my room, my life, and why in the hell you think I want any part of a relationship with you, but I don’t. I don’t want you and I sure as hell don’t need you, despite what you say and think.”

  He let me rant while keeping a smug-ass smile on his face that I just wanted to smack off. When I finished, he moved slowly toward me and didn’t stop until he was right on top of me. My first reaction was to back up, but instead I held my ground and simply lifted my chin as he drew closer. “You know what I really think?” When I didn’t answer or acknowledge his question, he continued. “I think I scare you. As tough as you think you are, I think it’s all a fucking act you hide behind. You are scared, and for good reason. You’ve had a rough fucking life with shit happen to you that nobody in this world should ever have to experience, and through it all, somehow, you’ve managed to stay strong. You stayed strong by keeping everyone, including Abby, at arm’s length. You are strong, honey, there is no denying that, but you are also scared.”

  He was right on all counts, which scared me even more. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  His eyebrow lifted at my denial. “You’re good darlin’, but I learned your tells, it just took me a little more time than with most. For instance, when you’re around the club members, you’re careful to keep yourself between them and the door. When you’re around men you don’t know, you leave as quickly as possible. When the doctor came into the room to examine you, did you not request a woman doctor? And when Legend grabbed you around the waist, you flipped the fuck out, until I got ahold of you and you calmed down.” He moved his face closer to mine and asked the very question I had been asking myself, “Why, McKenzie? Why did you calm down when I spoke to you? Why did you calm down when you were in my arms? When you were stuck in a nightmare, my touch, my voice, calmed you down, why is that, McKenzie?”

  “I don’t want you and I don’t need you.” I gritted my teeth and forced the words out. He’s right, I did calm down after that had happened. He calmed me a lot faster than I had ever been able to calm myself before. I needed to put my plan in motion, and fast, before he discovers the truth and before I fall for him. If it wasn’t already too late.

  When I came back from church, Piper told me that McKenzie had been in the bathroom for a long time, and she was worried about her but didn’t know her well enough to intrude. I rushed upstairs and listened for a few minutes. I was about to go in when I heard the water shut off. She was ok, that is to say, at least she was alive. I waited in the hall for her to come out, just to see for myself how she was doing.

  I did not plan for her to come out in a fucking towel. Her body was compact and curvy, her skin was smooth and lightly tanned with a vibrant pink glow from the heat of her shower. Her long brown hair fell in waves around her head and shoulders. I couldn’t respond to her smartass comment about a picture because I couldn’t say a damn word. She was sexy as fuck, and she didn’t even know or care. Her parting words and the click of her door shutting put me in motion again. I went back downstairs ignoring the tightness in my jeans.

  Mom was in the kitchen making dinner. “Hey, Ma, need any help?”

  “No. Is she ok?”

  “No, but she will be. Where did Gavel go?”

  I swear my mom stiffened at the mention of his name. What the hell was going on between the two of them? “He left when you were upstairs.”

  “Is there something you aren’t telling me about the two of you, Ma?”

  “Not a thing, dear.”

  “If there is, it’s ok, Ma. Dad has been gone for years. I don’t expect you to stop living because he died.”

  “That’s sweet of you, Jason, but there is nothing going on. We never did get along, even when we were in high school.”

  That surprised me. “You went to high school with Gavel?”

  “Yes, your father and I both did. They were friends and Jed and I only ever tolerated each other for David’s sake. You would think after all these years, we would have moved past it, but no.”

  “What is there to move past?”

  “Nothing.” I watched my mother for a few minutes as she moved about the kitchen. There was more she wasn’t telling me, but I decided to let it drop. There was more going on right now that needed my attention than what was happening between Gavel and my mother.

  “When did Grit come get Phoenix?”

  “Oh, about 30 minutes before you got here. Phoenix was pissed as hell because she didn’t get to see McKenzie, but Brice made her leave. Something happened, didn’t it?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Brice. The way he was acting. He was keyed up.”

  “Yeah, we got some news today that we weren’t expecting. Don’t worry about it, Ma. We’ll take care of it.”

  I thought I was going to let it go, but I was damn curious. “Ma, you and Gavel?”

  She looked at me and sat down at the table. “There is a reason I stayed away from the club all these years. I will tell you everything, but I never want it repeated and you are not to let Jed know that you know.” I nodded in agreement, my curiosity over what passed between Gavel and my parents running rampant. “I dated Jed before I dated your father. Jed and David were best friends even then. We went out for quite a while, but he messed up with the woman who would later become his wife. David was furious because Jed had gotten drunk and cheated. I wouldn’t forgive Jed, and then I started dating your father during senior year. Shortly after graduation, we got married. A few years later we had you. I stayed away from the club because even though I loved your father and still love him, he was my best friend, and I miss him greatly. I could not watch Jed with other women, especially Brice’s mom.”

  I sat back at the history my mother just poured out to me. I never saw it coming. “Does Jed know how you feel?”

  “No, and I don’t know if he should. Jason, there is a lot of history there. Your dad and I, we grew to love each other. We became best friends and we had you. I will never regret any of that.”

  “Why did you get married if you didn’t love dad to begin with?”

  “We got pregnant. I lost the baby about four months in, and that nearly ripped us apart. We stuck it out and held fast to each other. It was through our healing after the loss that we grew to really love each other. That was when he became my best friend.”

  This was so different from what I had thought about my parents’ lives together. I never knew they miscarried, that I would have had a sibling. I never knew that mom had a past with Gavel, or that my parents weren’t in love when they got married. There was a whole other person sitting in front of me, and I looked at my mother with new eyes. “Did you always have feelings for Gavel, even when Dad was alive?”

  “You never forget your first, honey. Jed was my first everything.”

  “How did you not recognize Jed as Gavel when I told you he was the reason we came to Belle?”

  “Your father promised me long ago never to talk about him. He knew, Jason. He knew how I felt about Jed, but he also knew I grew to love him as he loved me. Do I still care for Jed? Yes, there are still feelings there. Will I act on them? No. It was a long time ago. We are not the same people we once were.”

  I thought about her words a moment, and the tension that filled the room when they were together. “Exactly, Ma. You aren’t the same and he isn’t the same. If he will make you happy, then you have my support. I just want you happy, and Dad would approve.”

  “Well, it’s not even likely anything would happen anyway.”

  “I don’t know, where there’s smoke, there is typically fire.” I swear my mother blushed a little as she got up to stir the pot. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Spaghetti.”

  We were in the kitchen talking when Piper walked in. “That smells heavenly, Anita.”

  “Thank you, hon. Where is Declan?”

  “He ran upstairs to get his cars.” She turned and looked toward
me. “I hope you don’t mind, he wants to play cars with you again.”

  “Not a problem. I don’t mind hanging out with the little man.” I left to go back into the living room where we were that morning. I sat down and waited for the sound of his feet thundering down the stairs and the jangle of his metal cars clinking together as he ran with the small bucket. When he saw me, his face lit up. The hero worship in his eyes said it all. I hoped one day that I could have my own son look at me like that.

  Declan and I played cars until dinner was ready. The kid kept asking questions and kept me talking and entertained through dinner. “Has McKenzie eaten this evening?”

  “No.”

  “Ok, well I’ll let it go for tonight, but make a big breakfast, please, Ma. If you want help in the morning, let me know.” I pushed my chair back and stretched, standing up. “I’m headed up for the night. See y’all in the morning.”

  I didn’t really want to go to sleep yet, but I didn’t want to leave McKenzie alone too long either. I knocked softly on her door in case she was asleep. When I got no reply, I pushed the door open. The light in the hallway cast light in the room and I stopped short at her image. She was lying on the bed naked. The fool woman was lying halfway on her injured ribs. I shook my head, she would be in pain later when she woke up. I left the door open and walked over toward the bed. God, she was beautiful and looked so damn peaceful in sleep.

  Her brown damp curls fanned out beside her, soft snores filled the silence. I ran my eyes down her body. Her curves were soft and gentle, her breasts generous. Her nipples were puckered from the cool of the room, and I almost groaned out loud but caught myself. Shit. Tonight was going to be hell.

  I grabbed the extra blanket from the chair in the corner and laid it over her. This was going to be the most painful form of torture ever, but I pulled my shirt over my head and shucked my jeans. I put them where the blanket had been on the chair, shut the door and made my way around to the other side of the bed. I had just got my body under control and drifted off to sleep when I felt her move and her hand hit my side.