Released(Devil's Blaze MC 3)(45)
I shift uncomfortably in my seat as she keeps asking about Skull. I glance over to see if they’re watching us. He’s not; he’s busy working on the bike, but almost as if he can feel my eyes on him, he looks up at that exact moment. He gives me a smile, one like I’ve gotten every day for a week since we went out on our first date. God. He’s in an old white shirt that has grease on it. He’s not wearing his club vest, and yet standing there in old blue jeans and that greasy white shirt, I have never seen a sexier man in my life.
“Kryptonite,” I mutter.
“What?” Katie asks.
I have to shake myself. “Nothing,” I mumble. “It’s just…”
“Bethie…” Katie’s voice changes, and I know she’s finally getting it.
“I don’t know if I can, Katie,” I say, turning away from Skull.
“But you have. You two went at it at the cabin, right? Did I misunderstand…”
“No, we did, but well… mostly the clothes were in place.”
“Damn. He couldn’t even wait to get undressed?”
I sigh. “Neither of us could.”
“Bethie, you have to know… I mean…”
“Know what Katie? You remember how Skull was when he found us.”
“Yeah, but he’s done a complete one-eighty here, Bethie.”
“But why? Am I just supposed to trust that everything is fine between us now? Hell, it was just a little over a week ago that damned Dr. Torres was making nightly visits here.”
“Torch swears that cow hasn’t been around since, Bethie. I think you’re going to have to decide what you want here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, sweetheart, and I know this is hard to hear, but you were gone for over two years.”
“I know, but—”
“This is why I tried to get you to see other men. Over two years, Bethie.”
“But…”
“No buts. He thought you were dead. He thought he killed you, and who knows what shit Matthew and Colin fed to him later. It sucks he slept with someone else, but it’s not like he did it with the intent of being unfaithful to you.”
“When did you become such a Skull supporter?” I ask her, annoyed.
“It’s not that I’m a big Skull supporter. I still want to kick him in the balls, but I know you love him.”
“I don’t…”
“Bethie, you’ve always loved him. You’ve grieved him nonstop ever since our fuck-face of a father blackmailed you into leaving.”
“It’s just because he was my first…”
“Really? So you would be okay with opening your legs for someone else, now?”
“What is it you used to tell me? Sex is sex.”
“I was a stupid fool. You were the one who was right.”
“Get real.”
“I’m serious. I don’t regret my past, but I will tell you there’s not a man I remember since the very moment I laid eyes on Torch. He’s it. When you find the one you’re meant to be with, you know it.”
“You’re just all drugged up. You’re talking out of your head,” I joke, praying I’m right.
“Laugh. It doesn’t change things. Sometimes I hate myself because I’m the reason you had to give him up,” she says and my stomach tightens in reaction. I reach out and hold her hand in mine.
“Neither one of us can change what went on, Katie. It’s not your fault. It’s theirs. Besides, there’s so much we didn’t know. I mean, hell, we didn’t even know our real mother.”
“If there are things the Donahues are good at, it is definitely secrets. The thing is, Bethie, you have a second chance. You need to decide what you want to do with it.”
I sigh. “I’m just not sure I can let myself go with him now, Katie. I just… it’s all different.”
“Then you have to be prepared to let him go.”
“I know…”
“And you need to be sure that’s what you want, because you can be sure Dr. Torres or some other skank will be waiting in the wings.” She squeezes my hand. I don’t say anything else. She’s right. I just don’t know what to do. “But if you do take him back, for God’s sake, don’t make it easy for him.”
“I thought you were a Skull supporter now?”
“I’m a Bethie supporter, and I think Skull might be the only man to make you happy. It still doesn’t change the fact he was a horse’s ass. Make him work for it,” she adds with a wink.
I try to smile in response. I just wish I knew what I was going to do.