Damaged & Dangerous: The Sacred Hearts MC Book VI (26 page)

Red XIII…

The ride was great, but Dani had disappeared back inside of
herself again. She’d been withdrawn the last few days. Quiet and reserved,
thoughtful, and borderline secretive. And with every second that ticked by, I
felt a distance growing between us. I couldn’t read her anymore and that scared
me.

Now we were at the cabin, cleaned up and chillin’ on the one
old, wood lounge chair that I’d drug out to the end of the dock. The sun was
setting over the lake and I had some beers in a bucket off the side, cooling in
the water. We each had one open, Dani peeling the label off her bottle as she
stared thoughtfully out over the water. Her blue eyes bright enough to match
the sky earlier were vacant. Almost lost.

“I feel like I’m losing you, Baby.” The confession was out
of my mouth before I even realized I had intent to give it voice. Dani startled
and rolled her head back against my shoulder to look up at me. I looked down at
her, and I knew my expression was grim.

She frowned, “Why would you say that to me?” she asked and
the hurt in her voice was unmistakable. It killed a part of me to hear it,
knowing I put it there. I bowed my head, breaking eye contact.

“Used to be, I could look at you and see your wheels turning
and I could just
feel
what you was thinking.” I swallowed hard and took
a slug of my beer to wet my mouth, which was suddenly dry. I wasn’t used to
talking about feelings and shit but this was important. I’d never felt anything
like what I felt for Dani Broussard.

She shifted and laid her head against my shoulder, her arms
going around me before she spoke.

“A lot has happened and I feel, I don’t know, like I’ve been
flung out into space… Like I’m spinning wildly with nothing to grab on to, and
it’s confusing.” She took a shuddering breath and let it out. “I’m afraid that
I’m too needy, that you’re going to get bored or that you’re going to start
hating being my white knight. I’m afraid if I don’t get my shit together,
you’re going to resent me. I’m scared, Thirteen. I’ve never felt like this
about anyone before.”

I set my beer down on the dock and I clutched her to my
chest, smoothing my fingers through her long hair, gently combing through any
tangles. I kissed her forehead, and her eyes drifted shut.

“First, I’m no white knight, Baby Girl. If anything, I’m
just some asshole in aluminum foil.” She choked a bitter laugh and I tugged
gently on her hair, forcing her to look at me.

“I don’t think you get it. I love you just so fucking much,
and I don’t even know when it happened, Baby. I’m fuckin’ terrified that you’re
slipping through my god damned fingers and it’s putting me into a dangerous
frame of mind. I don’t want to have to let you go. It’d kill me. I’d be less of
a man without you by my side, on the back of my bike. You fucking complete me.”

She stared up at me, eyes wide, and her mouth dropped open
in a little ‘o’ of surprise. I don’t think anyone had ever told her just how
much she was worth to them, which was a damned shame all by itself.

“And on another note. You just got out of one seriously
fucked up situation. You’ve been through the wringer. Backwards, forwards, and
sideways. Dani, this shit don’t heal overnight. Just because it’s over don’t
mean that it ends there. It ain’t over ‘til
it’s over.
You get what I’m
saying?” Her mouth snapped shut and she swallowed, her blue eyes snapping fire.
Her spark was back, that keen intelligence of hers working overtime, her gears
whirring and clicking behind those gorgeous fucking eyes of hers.

“I’ve been really thinking about a lot of things,” she
admitted, then fell silent.

“Just talk to me, Baby, that’s all I’m asking.” I knew my
tone was pleading, but I didn’t fucking care.

“We can’t live at the club.” Her tone was final but I was
paying attention. I was paying attention so hard I stopped breathing.

“Okay… what are you saying?” My heart did a barrel roll in
my chest.

“I’m saying I want a life with you Thirteen, that if I have
to choose a life with you and the MC in it, that I would rather have that than
have nothing at all.” She wouldn’t look at me, her head against my chest, ear
resting over my heart.

“I’m not going to make you choose, that would be cruel and
incredibly unfair,” she said when the silence stretched on for too long. It
wasn’t that I didn’t have anything to say, it’s just that… Well fuck me! I
didn’t have a fucking thing to say! Not in the face of her bravery or
generosity, not… Oh to fucking hell with it!

I hauled her up my body and claimed her mouth with mine. Her
beer dropped from her hand and clacked to the dock, rolling away, leaving a
trail of foam in its wake. Her hands were cool against my face where she cupped
it as our tongues mingled softly. She tasted bright and crisp and slightly
salty, which I realized were her tears a moment later. I broke the kiss and
looked at my beautiful girl.

“Dani you know you ain’t got to be afraid, right? You know
that me, my brothers, that each and every one of us would protect you until our
final dying breath. You get that, right?” I asked her. She stared at me blankly
and I realized too fucking late what it was… Dani only had the Suicide Cunts to
go by as a measuring stick. As smart as she was, she didn’t know how MC’s were
really
supposed to work. How each and every brother was supposed to
have your back
and, by default, those of the women and children belonging to you.

“Jesus Christ, I’ve failed…” I heard myself utter, even as
the enormity of what I’d done, or really the lack thereof, hit home.

“What? No! Thirteen, you gave me the courage to
get out
.
You’ve protected me, cared for me, saved my life in more than one way, how is
that a failure?” her brow creased in worry, concern radiating from her
beautiful face.

“Babe, I haven’t told you shit. Shit you should probably
know. I haven’t taught you what it is to be a part of an MC. A
real
MC.
I just kind of dragged you right along with me into my club and didn’t give you
any cues to go off of, an’ expected you to just sort of know how things are
really supposed to go. That was setting you up for big time failure and I am so
sorry.”

Dani chewed her bottom lip and I suppressed a groan. She had
no idea how hot that was but now wasn’t the time for any of that. Finally she
looked up at me and huffed out a frustrated sigh.

“Okay, you have my attention… Crash course. What do I need
to know? What did The Suicide Kings have wrong? What makes The Sacred Hearts
different?” She stared at me plaintively and I blinked. I hadn’t expected the
direct approach and fuck if that didn’t make her like a million times hotter in
my book.

“Okay, no bullshit, The Suicide Kings were a bunch of
misogynistic douche bags, for one. Sacred Hearts has it written in our fucking
bylaws. No women and no children, meaning that if or when the shit gets heavy,
if we got a beef with a dude or another club or whatever, we keep the women and
children out of it. You’re a person, Baby, not a bargaining chip, not some kind
of money making factory. We got respect for the fairer sex. That’s just a
fact.” I trailed gentle fingertips along the side of Dani’s face.

“Nothing they did to you would ever happen with any of my
brothers. No one gets held against their will, no one does anything they don’t
want to do… We protect our own, Baby, and you’re one of ours now.” I pulled her
gently so her forehead met mine.

“You’re safe, Baby Girl. That fat, nasty fuck never should
have gotten by. He never should have gotten to you. We got cocky. Not a damned
one of us ever thought that he would jump the fucking fence and come on to our
turf solo like that. I’m so fucking sorry.”

She sniffed, nodded, and pressed her lips, which were salty
sweet and damp with her tears, to mine. I held her face between my hands and
drew back to look her in the eyes.

“I mean it, Babe; you’re safe, you’re free, and - as much as
it fucking kills me - if you ever want to go, I’d let you go… I want you to be
happy.”

She threw her arms around me, buried her face in the crook
between my neck and shoulder, and let loose with a few broken sobs.

“Please don’t,” she sniffed and I smiled and cuddled her
close. I knew what she meant but I think I needed to hear it anyways, so I
asked her…

“Please don’t what?”

“Please don’t ever let me go!” she cried, and I let her have
her tears. Didn’t ask her to stop, just made soothing noises and let her have a
good, strong cry. It was what my mom always used to do for my sister, and my
sister always bounced back better than ever, so what did I have to lose?

I held Dani while we soaked in the last of the warmth of the
setting sun and continued to hold her as the lightning bugs began their lazy
dance in the air around us. Dani’s sobs tapered off into the odd sniff, until
finally she lay against me, calm and quiet.

“Better?” I asked.

She nodded against my chest, “How did you know?”

“Had a sister.”

“Had?”

“My family and me, we don’t talk anymore. I’m the black
sheep.” I smiled in spite of this, and Dani chuckled.

“If only they knew their black sheep was really one serious
white knight.”

I laughed, how could I not? White Knight? Yeah, not on your
life. If only Dani knew the things I’d done, the lives I’d taken and the wrongs
I’d committed.

I shook my head, “Asshole, aluminum foil, remember?”

“Thirteen, I’m serious!” she cried and pushed off of me to
look at me through the dark, but that’s when she saw them, the lightning bugs,
swirling and twirling in their lazy dance along the edges of the lake. She
gasped, her eyes transfixed, and I smiled. I could watch her watch those little
flickering bugs by the light of the moon for hours, if not days.

“It’s so beautiful…” she murmured, her voice soft and demure
with wonder.

“Not half so beautiful as what I’m looking at,” my voice was
rough with just too much emotion as I stared at her beautiful face, artfully
sculpted by God himself. She turned and startled when she realized what I meant.

“Just tell me we’re okay, Baby Girl,” I said, and she
swallowed hard.

“Of course we are, Chris.” I sort of loved that she used my
real name, but didn’t have time to really soak it in because she wasn’t done.

“I love you. I mean, it was crazy how we met, and everything
that happened, but you… You’re… I don’t even have the words. You mean so
incredibly much to me. You make me laugh, you make me smile; you hold me when
I’m scared, set my body, heart and mind on fire… You’re my friend as much as my
lover and I haven’t had a friend in so very long. You’re so very precious to
me.” She turned her face into the light touch I laid against it. I couldn’t
stop touching her if I wanted to. Her words made my heart swell to something
like a million times its original size, and I couldn’t help but swell elsewhere
too.

“God, Dani, the things you do to me,” I whispered, and I
knew my voice had gone low, husky with a mixture of love and desire. She leaned
her whole body against mine and kissed me, and my cock got real uncomfortable
in the prison of my jeans.

“Make love to me,” she breathed.

I made to pick her up and she looked around. The nearest
house was some distance across the water, the light from the windows barely
visible through the tall rushes and grass around the lakeshore.

“Here,” she murmured, and I paused.

“You sure?” I asked.

“It’s secluded enough, isn’t it?” her voice was breathy, a
mixture of desire and a little fear.

“Yeah, Baby. Yeah it is… I’d love to love you out here; I
just want you to be comfortable.” My lips traced hers as I spoke gently against
her mouth.

Her arms twined around my neck and she buried her fingers in
the back of my hair, dragging my lips the rest of that tiny distance to hers.
She was straddling my hips now, and I didn’t remember that happening.

My jeans were really pinching now and with a soft groan, I
kept kissing her but let my hands drift off her trim waist to fumble at my
button and fly in an effort to relieve some of the pressure. Dani pressed her
slender body right up against mine and I got my jeans down off my hips.

Her hands left the back of my hair to gather the back of my
shirt. I raised my arms and let her drag it over the top of my head. She spared
a glance before dropping it off to the side of the wooden chaise, to the dock, keeping
it out of our earlier beer spill.

The slightly damp but still warm summer air slid across my
shoulders and back, but Dani kept my chest warm, her body pressing right up
against mine the second my shirt was off. She rose up on her knees to either
side of my hips to give me room to adjust and as soon as I was set, I let my
hands go to her hips.

She’d changed into this short, black summer dress when we’d
gotten here, in an effort to beat back some of the summer heat. Her long,
gorgeous hair an artful tangle held by a hairband at the back of her head,
tendrils loose and curling. The beautiful mess made more so by my constant
touching and playing with the dark strands.

I loved the feel of her hair. I loved the feel of her skin
on mine and right now her panties, delicate lace that they were, were in my
fucking way. I gripped them tightly in my fist.

“Gonna rip these,” I growled before giving them a rough
jerk. I was glad she wore string thongs. She gasped, her arms tightening around
me, which was fine by me. It just shoved my face into her tits. I discarded the
scrap of offending fabric and nuzzled between her breasts, kissing and nipping
along her skin.

Dani threw her head back and gave this throaty gasp, and my
cock throbbed with a very definite need to be inside her. I began to unbutton
her dress, the straps holding it up on her shoulders. I needed more skin. I
loosed button after button as swiftly as my thick fingers could get them
through the holes and trailed my mouth behind them over her silky skin.