Rake's Redemption (Wind Dragons Motorcycle Club) (6 page)

I need to remember that that’s what he goes by now. Also so I remember that I don’t know the man standing next to me.

He laughs without humor.

And I’ve had enough.

I turn and start to walk down the road, pulling out my phone. There has to be a street sign somewhere around here. Suddenly I’m grabbed around the waist and pulled back into a hard body.

“We’re going to talk, Bailey. Then I’ll take you home, all right?” he murmurs in my ear.

“We don’t have anything to talk about,” I reply, tilting my head away from his lips.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “We do. So you can come inside of your own accord, or kicking and screaming. At this point, I don’t care which one you choose.”

He wraps his fingers around my nape and squeezes firmly. “What do you have to lose? I never told Anna what happened that night. In fact, I never told a single soul. Trusting you is my burden to bear, and not a mistake I’ll ever make again.”

His comment sends me straight back to that night, just the place where I didn’t want to go.

“Fuck you,” I grit out, turning around to face him. “You don’t know shit, Adam. Just let me go. I won’t see your sister, or anyone connected to you again.”

He studies me and rubs his palm along his jaw. Then, in a simple move, he bends down and throws me over his shoulder.

“Adam!” I yell, squirming around. “Put me down, you asshole! Anna, I’m going to kill you!”

I ignore the men’s catcalls as he walks with me through their clubhouse. From upside down, all I can see is scary-looking
leather-clad men, and all I can hear is music and laughter. All I can feel is anger and embarrassment. I’m wearing a fucking dress, and who knows what everyone can see. I punch the back of Adam’s thighs, but all he does is slap my ass once and I freeze.

“No one better have seen that,” I growl, trying to push my hair out of my face. A door is opened, a light is turned on, and then I’m tossed onto a bed.

His bed.

His very large, black, could-be-a-porn-set bed.

Images rush through my mind, me on that bed, underneath him, but I shake my head and push them away, knowing that they have no place being there. I look away from the bed and study the man in question instead, causing more memories to flash through my mind. I miss the old Adam. Before everything went to hell. The Adam who I would lie with in bed, staring at the ceiling, just talking for hours. The Adam who was my best friend in the world. He paces the room, stops, gives me a cutting look, then takes off his jacket and throws it on the ground, bringing me back to reality

“I never wanted to see you again,” he says, running a hand through his short blond hair. “Yet here you are. In my fuckin’ clubhouse. Christ.”

“You brought me here,” I remind him.

“I know,” he grits out between clenched teeth.

I cross my arms over my chest, hugging myself. “Anna and Lana wanted to see me. I didn’t seek them out. And I didn’t want to say no, even though I knew I should have. I couldn’t hurt their feelings. I still care about both of them.”

“I know you do, but this isn’t fuckin’ working, Bailey,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s too fuckin’ much. You’re in my territory,
everywhere I go, when all I want to do is forget that you even exist.”

Ouch.

Why do I do this to myself?

I can’t have everything I want, and it looks like a friendship with my old friends is going to be something to add to that list. I totally see where he’s coming from. Anna and Adam are a package deal. I can’t be in her life without being in his. It is too much. Too much everything. Pain, emotions, memories. Just everything.

“I’ll stay away,” I say in a small voice. “I don’t want to be here either.”

Being reminded of everything I lost, everything that happened, isn’t a good time for me. I understand when he says he wants to forget. When you’re stuck in a place where you can’t go back, when you can’t fix the past, you need to let it go or it will eat you alive.

He looks at me then, I mean really looks at me. Looks inside me. “Why?”

“Why what?” I ask softly, swallowing hard at the emotion I see flashing in his green eyes.

“I mean,” he says between clenched teeth, “why don’t you want to be around me? You’re the one who fucked everything up, and now you’re acting like I’m the one who did something wrong, when the only thing I did was trust a woman who obviously couldn’t keep her legs closed.”

Before I know it, I’m on my feet, and I slap him right across his face. No one talks to me like that. No one.

His eyes narrow, but he doesn’t even flinch or lift his hand to rub his face. Instead, he just stares at me with heat in his eyes.

“I want to go home. Now,” I demand, touching his chest with my hand. “If you ever cared about me at one point in your life, you will get me out of here.”

His throat works as he swallows. Did he realize the line he just crossed? “All right, let’s go then.”

I exhale in relief, then follow him out of the clubhouse.

I don’t look anyone in the eye.

I don’t say good-bye.

I just get the fuck out of there.

*   *   *

I hand Adam his helmet, then walk down my driveway without looking back.

“Bailey,” he says, making me stop and turn to him.

“What?” I ask quietly, just wanting tonight to be over with. I like to think that I’m a strong woman, but there’s only so much I can take.

I’m surprised when he walks down my driveway and stops in front of me. “You know, I try not to be an asshole to you, I really do. But when I see you, my mind is fuckin’ clouded and I can’t control my emotions.” He sighs. “You’re the only person who it happens around, and it’s a weakness.”

“A weakness?” I ask, not sure what he means by that exactly.

“Showing emotion is showing weakness,” he says, looking into my eyes. “If two people are angry, and one stands quietly while the other rages and breaks shit, who do you think is the most powerful, mentally?”

“Does it matter who is most powerful?” I ask, tilting my head to the side. “I guess the quiet one would be, but then he would hold it all inside, and it would slowly eat at him. The man who
raged and reacted may have less control, but he gets all the emotions out, so they don’t destroy him.”

“Yeah, well,” he says, looking down at his feet. “You make me rage. You make me feel shit I don’t want to feel.”

I swallow hard at the emotion in his voice.

“I’ll wait until you get inside and lock the door,” he says, but I don’t move. I just look into his eyes, seeing how much of my Adam is still in there.

“Bailey, go,” he whispers, eyes narrowing.

I nod and slowly walk to my front door.

I’m about to close it when I hear him say, “It would help if you weren’t so fuckin’ beautiful.”

But that must have been my imagination, right?

I close the door, lock it, turn around, and collapse against it. My breaths come in pants, in and out, in and out in quick puffs. I squeeze my eyes shut, emotions running through me. Ghosts from past pains, past wounds that are now being split back open. Why did this have to happen? I don’t want to deal with all of this. I was finally in a good place, and now . . . I won’t let him ruin that. He made me so angry, but then when we just spoke . . . he made me feel something else. Something I need to bury. The anger, yeah, I can understand that. The other emotions—no, I don’t need to concentrate on those. They don’t exist. I need to learn how not to let him get under my skin.

It’s been years, I tell myself over and over again.

The past can hurt me only if I let it.

I need to be stronger.

When I get my breathing under control, I pull myself together, have a long, hot shower, and then go and pick up a sleeping Cara from Tia’s house. I put her in bed next to me, cuddling close.

But even then, sleep doesn’t come.

All I do is replay his words in my head, over and over again, in a loop.

The only thing I did was trust a woman who obviously couldn’t keep her legs closed. The only thing I did wrong. The only thing.

He has no idea, and it’s my fault he doesn’t.

The truth is, I’ve been protecting someone who doesn’t deserve it. Adam’s anger, bitterness, and venom—I don’t deserve them.

Why don’t I just tell him? I don’t want to go back there, but I can’t keep going on like this either.

The truth will set me free, but it will enslave Rake.

I don’t want to hurt him, but right now all I’m doing is hurting myself.

What the hell am I going to do?

*   *   *

The next time I see Adam is several weeks later. In the wrong place at the wrong time, again.

After picking up Cara from school and then taking her to her dance class, I was too tired to cook, so I decided to stop at one of the diners we pass on the way home. Had I paid attention and seen the two bikes out front, I would have turned around. But I didn’t. So here I am, sitting across the booth from my daughter, waiting for our orders, while Adam and one of his biker friends sit with two women, eating, laughing, and being generally obnoxious. They haven’t seen me yet, and I hope to keep it that way.

“How was your class today, Mom?” Cara asks me sweetly.

My expression softens as I look at her, my worries fading away. “It was great, Cara. My students learned a new letter of the alphabet. How was your day?”

“Good!” she beams. “It was library day, so I got a new book.”

“Which book did you get?” I ask her, just as a waitress brings us our drinks.

“Thank you,” I tell the young girl, then look at my daughter expectantly.

“Thank you,” Cara tells her, then starts to sip on her milk shake.

“You’re welcome.” The girl smiles, then leaves our table.

“It’s a book about a unicorn,” Cara continues, wiping the milk off her lips with the back of her hand. “Can we read it tonight?”

“Sure,” I tell her, playing with the straw in my juice. “After dinner and bath time.”

I suddenly feel eyes on me, and I try my hardest not to look in their direction. From their angle, they can see me but not Cara.

Maybe he’ll just pretend that he doesn’t know me.

Or is that just wishful thinking?

I hear Adam’s friend, the bald guy, call out, “Where are you going, Rake?”

Shit.

Is he coming over here?

I don’t want to look over and check.

Would he be rude to me in front of my daughter?

I’d kill him if he did that, but to be honest I don’t think he would.

“What are you doing here, Bailey? Why are you there every time I turn around?” I hear him growl. I can now feel everyone in the diner staring at me. Goddamn the man. Did he have to be so loud? Adam never did care what people thought, but I don’t want to get attention like this with my daughter here.

I don’t even lift my head. “What? Do you own this diner too?”

“Cute,” he replies, voice closer now. “I could if I wanted to.”

Egotistical bastard.

I look up to see him almost at our table. “Well, until you do own it, you should probably just leave me alone.”

“Who are you here with?” he asks, then comes to a stop when he sees Cara sitting there, peering up at him with curious brown eyes.

“Who’s the hottie, Rake?” his friend calls out.

Adam turns to his friend and says, “Shut the . . .” He turns to look at Cara, an apologetic expression on his face, then takes a seat next to me, opposite her.

“You never told me you had a kid,” he says to me, tone gentler now as he studies her intently.

“How do you know she’s mine?” I ask him.

“She looks just like you,” he says, giving Cara a little smile. “I’m Ra— I’m Adam. What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Cara,” my daughter replies, flashing Adam an unsure look.

“That’s a pretty name,” he tells her sincerely. “And how old are you, Cara?”

I know exactly where Adam is going with this, but he’s wrong. Cara isn’t his child.

“I’m six.”

I can almost see him mentally calculating how long it’s been since we were together. If she were Adam’s, she’d have to be at least seven years old.

“She’s not yours,” I say under my breath, so only he can hear me, trying to put him out of his misery.

“Of course she isn’t,” he says in a soft, yet bitter tone.

He has no idea. None.

Let him be bitter—I couldn’t care less. I owe him nothing.

Or at least that’s what I tell myself.

Our food arrives, and Adam waits quietly as the waitress sets it down.

“Thank you,” Cara tells her politely, while I do the same. She smiles, then winks at Adam before she leaves. I ignore the stroke of jealously that hits me, because it has no right to be there.

“Listen, Bailey,” he starts, looking a little uncomfortable. “Anna and Lana haven’t spoken to me properly since that night. . . .”

He rubs the back of his neck, then watches Cara as she picks up a fry and pops it in her mouth. “Would you like some, Adam?” she asks, always considerate.

“No, thank you,” he tells her, smiling. “You’re a polite little thing, aren’t you? Your dad must be proud.”

Cara’s face suddenly drops, and I kick Adam’s leg with my left foot.

“I don’t have a dad,” she whispers sadly.

Adam’s expression softens. “Well, then it’s his loss, because you are one pretty, kind little girl.”

Cara lifts her face. “That’s what Mom says too.”

“Your mom is right,” Adam says, then turns to me while Cara continues to eat. “My own sister won’t give me the time of day. Lana gives me evil looks I didn’t even know she was capable of. They want to see you. I’ll stay away, all right? You have your girls’ nights, or whatever. As long as a few of the men are there with all of you, I won’t cause any shit.”

“It’s fine—”

“Bailey,” he says, sighing. “They want to be around you as much as you want to be around them.”

I nod my head, giving in. “Okay then. I’d like that.”

“And Bailey?”

“Yes?”

I don’t miss the way his jaw tightens. “Stay away from Talon.”

I open my mouth but then close it. I’m not going to justify that comment with a response. I will stay away from Talon because I don’t like him like that, not because he tells me so. I also don’t want to start any unnecessary trouble with everyone, especially for Anna and Lana.