“Jax…”
“When I tell you to stay somewhere, Bree. You fucking stay.”
“I’m not a dog,” she whispers. I look over my shoulder and she’s standing there, her face heated, wringing her hands nervously.
“Remember the deal? No one knows about us. It’s not even been one fucking day and you already broke the damned rules.”
“I think I’ll just go,” she whispers turning away.
“The fuck you will,” I growl, buttoning my pants and turning around to grab her shoulders and holding her still. “You will stay in this fucking apartment and not leave. You do not open the door, you do not go anywhere.”
“I can’t stay here. My grandfather will be expecting me!”
“There’s no way you’re going back there until we find out what the fuck is going on. Did you not hear what Keys said? I have a brother missing and another in the hospital. Who knows what the fuck is happening, baby. You are not walking into a fucking snake pit until I know you’ll be safe.”
“Why do you care?” she asks and that makes me want to do nothing more than show her exactly how much I care, but I don’t have time for that. My hand wraps against the side of her neck, pulling her face in close to mine.
“Don’t push me on this, Bree. I need to know you’re safe. You might not understand, but after what we’ve shared together, you’re mine, and I take care of what’s mine. So, do not push me, baby girl. You won’t like how I retaliate.” I watch as what I said registers with her. Her eyes widen, and maybe I gave too much away, but it doesn’t matter. I’m keeping Bree, until the world comes crashing in on us—and I have no doubt it will eventually.
“I’ll stay,” she agrees, moistening her lips.
“Good. Now give your man a kiss.”
“You’ll be careful?” she asks, leaning into me when I loosen my hold.
“You’d care?” I ask her, turning her words back on her.
“I’d care…a lot,” she says, and fuck if that pain in my chest doesn’t hit me again.
“Then I’ll make sure to get back to you in one piece. Now, those lips,” I demand.
“Yes, Daddy,” she purrs as our lips connect. My hand moves to her hair, and I can feel the way it trembles. She’s wrapping me around her finger and she doesn’t even know it. Fuck, I’m not even going to try to get away. I don’t want to.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Bree
I stand looking at the door where Jax left. He’s been gone for ten minutes and adrenaline is pumping through my blood. He promised he’d be back. I don’t know what’s going on, but surely Pops wouldn’t hurt them. He’s been doing everything he can to build a bridge between the Devil’s Blaze and the Saints. I may not get into that side of his life much, but he hasn’t made a secret of that. He wants to be closer to his grandchildren. He wants me to have a relationship with Beth and Katie. Still, just to make myself feel better, I hunt my phone and call him.
“Breezy you okay?” Pops asks when he answers the phone. His nickname for me makes me smile. We may have not had a lot of time together, but he really has tried to make things up to me, and I love him; I’m starting to think he loves me too.
“Yeah Pops, I just had a favor to ask.”
“What do you need?”
“I was hoping you’d let me stay with Roxanne a little longer. She’s just getting over a cold, and I’d like to stay and help her.”
“Breezy you’re always trying to help save the world.”
“Pops, you know I love Roxanne. She was good to me when I didn’t have anyone else.”
I should feel guilty here. I’m using Roxanne, who has been nothing but good to me, and I made her promise to lie to Pops if he called her. Roxanne was a club girl when my father was in charge. He treated her horrible. He beat her, he made her service men from other clubs who were quite literally monsters. I remember mornings she’d come in to check on me and she would be black and blue, her lips bruised and bloody, one of her eyes swollen and discolored, and burns on her body. The smart thing would have been to run. And she probably would have…if I hadn’t been around. She stayed around to protect me and she somehow managed to.
When Pops made it clear he wasn’t condoning anything my father did and hadn’t known, she risked her life yet again to tell him about me. I can still remember Pop’s face when he finally found me. I say found me because my father was a bastard and he went to great lengths to keep me hidden. I’m not proud that I wasn’t strong enough to run away, but I wasn’t. I was scared…a scared kid. It’s something I never want to be again.