OtherSide Of Fear (Outside The Ropes #3) (10 page)

“Babe. You’ll always have my heart. I love you,” he sighed, kneeling between my legs, looking over me with care and adoration. And desire.

I pushed myself up to sitting and grabbed the bottom of his shirt, pulling it over his head. “I love you too.” I kissed along his shoulders, running my hands down his back. “I always will.” Raising my head to meet his eyes, I repeated. “Always.”

Then he brought his lips to mine, both of us collapsing back on the bed with the force of it, sealing in our words. They had to be true. Always. I couldn’t take any less.

It took barely a second for him to kick off his pants, and he didn’t break the kiss. In another second he was sliding into me, a searing heat melting me like butter. We both paused at first, meeting each other’s gaze, searching for something. His eyes were no longer clouded with doubt, but clear and bright, determined.

“Always,” he gasped as he pumped into me, driving in the promise or delicious threat.

He continued his promises with every joining, in between kisses and groans. My head was spinning too much for me to speak or think. I could only feel him, nerves firing, lit up like sparklers by his touch.

But I absorbed his words, like I absorbed his touch, this moment. I could feel his need and love, and I could feel his strength and assurance increasing the deeper he went, till finally the dam holding us broke and we both released into each other. Emotions flooded out with our orgasm. He pressed his cheek to mine, whispering in my ear as he rolled me into the crook of his arm, still inside me, holding me close.

“I need you. I need you to understand. Keep fighting for me. I’m going to try and be worth it. I’m so sorry. I love you. I love you.” His cheeks were slick against mine, tears falling as he spoke. His thumbs glided under my eyes, wiping away my tears as he rambled on the apology I wanted but didn’t need to hear. I felt it.

He continued to move in me, slow rolls of his hips that picked up speed and intensity only to slow back down as his lips moved over mine, stretching out the moment, a moment that I was more than happy to stay in, not wanting to think beyond. I was floating, surrounded by him.

We moved in this intoxicating ebb and flow until there was nothing left between us. We were left bare and open, vulnerable, but safe with each other. He invited me into the dark, and I joined him willingly. In this moment we belonged to each other, and the power and surety in that charged us both, filling the parts of me he had left empty these past months.

When we both lay exhausted, tangled in each other’s slick and heated embrace, we let the sound of our breathing and heartbeats comfort us. As our bodies stilled, the cool air of the room touched us, absorbing our heat and sweat, leaving goose bumps in its wake. The sheets were kicked off the bed at some point, scattered on the floor. I held tighter to Gage’s waist, trapping warmth between us, doing my best to not let go of this moment.

But I felt the shift in the rise and fall of his chest as his breathing shallowed and sped up. And I knew I had to let him talk. I had to trade in the comfort I felt in his arms, for this temporary moment, so this man could spill his secrets and hopefully find relief in doing so. So we could find this comfort with each other more often.

His fingers dragged circles on my arm. His whispered words echoed in his chest, under my ear. “Are you tired?”

I shook my head and looked to the clock on our nightstand table. It was only 8:45, still early. The beat of his heart was light and quick and his nerves transferred to me, tensing my drained muscles.

His arms tightened around me, and he rolled us so I was on my back with him pressed on top of me, sinking me into the mattress. When he lifted his head to look at me, I saw the flash of panic there before he closed his eyes and kissed me with trembling lips. It was a soft, brief kiss that sent a chill through me.

“You ready to do this tonight?” His eyes darted over me, looking for any hesitation.

“I’m ready. It’ll be all right.” I moved my hands to his face, his stubble rough beneath my palms as they slid to the back of his head. My fingers gripped his still damp hair, and I pulled him back down to me, kissing him this time to wipe away the chill his kiss had left.

He dropped his weight on me, large hands moving to my head, palms cupping my face as his fingers slipped through my hair. He took over the kiss, his tongue dipping into my mouth a couple of times before he stilled.

His lips moved over mine as he spoke, “All right.” He pulled back suddenly and rolled off of me so he was sitting on the edge of the bed, his back to me. “We should get dressed.”

I slid my hand to his back, knots tightening in my stomach as I raised myself up behind him. “Do we have to? We could talk like this, right now.”

He leaned forward, sliding his boxers back on his legs. As he sat up, he looked at me over his shoulder. “Yeah. We need to.” He stood, making my hand drop off of him, and searched the floor. He tossed my shirt to me. “Get dressed,” his words were heavy with regret.

I dressed quickly and waited on the edge of the bed for him to finish. He carefully turned his inside out shirt right side out, an act that extended over the heavy silence, pressing on my patience.

When his shirt was situated and on, stretched over his wide shoulders, our eyes met. I gripped the sheets on the mattress, keeping myself from speaking or moving. This was his thing; I’d let him start it his way.

He stepped to his dark suitcase that was on the ground and nudged it with his foot. “That coke is mine.”

I hated the way he watched me for a reaction, like he had expectations for how I would respond. I tried to keep the pain off my face, but my mind immediately flashed to that time I saw him use at Rusnak’s club, and my stomach tore as if I was there again. The sting of my nails biting into the fleshy part of my palm pulled me from the memory, but I couldn’t keep the questions from tumbling out.

“How much, how often?” there was barely any breath behind my words.

He didn’t break his stare from mine as he shrugged one shoulder, the rest of him statue still.

“Why? Are you completely giving up on boxing?” That was the one part of him that had been constant. My head pounded, making my vision waver.

“I don’t know.” He ran his hand over the back of his neck. With a deep breath, he stepped towards me. “I don’t know what I’m doing right now. I’m stuck in this place where I’m not sure. Fuck, I don’t want to stop boxing. But I don’t see how I can continue this way, divided. You and boxing, I was ready to give it up, but…” He sat on the edge of the bed, but not close enough to touch.

I fought down my thoughts, trying to wait for him to explain, but they kept popping up. The worst ones caused doubt to grow like a vine. He was ready to give me up for drugs?

“You’re willing to stay.” He slid close and grabbed my hand. “And I can’t let you go. And that changes everything. I can’t keep doing the same things. I’ve got to come up with a new plan, for you.”

“Wait.” I lifted my hand from his, cutting off his words. “We’ll come up with a plan together, but first you need to explain. I need to know. Everything. Starting with the drugs, how bad is it, Gage?”

He dropped his head to his hands, elbows resting on his knees. “It’s hard. It’s everywhere. I started when I was young to keep up with the late nights, the trainings, the men around me. But I always kept it under control, never going too far. It was all part of doing business. But now, I use it to stop the noise.” He rose off his hands, looking directly at me. “I know I’m letting you down. Every. Fucking. Day. You are the single most important thing in my life, and I promised to put you first, to keep you safe. Yet, everything I’ve been doing goes against that. And I’m a fucking coward because I use that,” he pointed to the suitcase, contempt filling his voice, “to escape my guilt. It’s the only time I can stop caring.”

I stared at the floor, unable to look at him as the words settled, but I wasn’t really seeing anything. My muscles tightened to the point of breaking. It let him stop caring. That scared me because his suitcase held that escape. I knew the power of drugs and how they could quickly become the most important thing in his life, replacing me.

“And now? What are you going to do now?” I looked at him, pushing through my fear. “Can you stop?”

A few breaths passed as our gazes locked. “Yes. I will. I promise, I’m going to try.” He dipped his head, looking up at me through thick eyelashes. “I need you, I know that. I knew that even when I was pushing you away, but I was trying to do what I thought was best for you. But since you’re staying, my decisions need to be clear, smart. I can do this for us. For you.” His blue eyes met mine fully, challenging me. “Do you still trust me?”

I hesitated a moment, answering carefully. “I want to.”

“You have to.” He cut into my words, surprising me with his intensity. He grabbed my hand and dropped his eyes to my ring as he traced over it lightly. His voice came out softer, “I have to trust you more too, I know. I have to trust that you can handle this, but…”

“I trust that you want to keep me safe, and I know whatever is going on is scaring you.” I lowered my head to make him meet my eyes. “And that’s why you’ve kept so much from me, but these secrets hurt. As long as you’re honest we can get that trust back, and we can get through this. So just tell me.”

He dropped my hand and swiped his palm over his face, releasing his breath with a groan. “All right. You’re right.” His leg bounced under his elbow. “I’ll tell you.”

“A couple of weeks ago, just after I took over the club a guy came in and took one of the girls to a private room and pulled a knife on her.” He spoke fast, forcing the story out without emotion. “But she had her own blade in her boot and stabbed him, getting away long enough to press the button for a bouncer. By time I got there, the bouncer, Paul, had him knocked out, but Cherry was beat and bleeding from where he had sliced her across her chest. Paul said the guy had been saying this was a warning to Viktor.” He paused looking at me, and I saw the chaos of memory in his eyes.

“We took care of it quietly, got her help and took the guy to the back to question, but he died. Bled out before I could find out how the fuck he knew to put the club with Viktor. Nobody was supposed to know that connection except Alessandra and a few others, nobody outside of the organization. Not anybody in the club, not even Ian, knew that.”

“I went to Viktor with this new information and he promised to look into it. A few day’s later he gave me a list of names.” He took a breath, dropping his eyes to his hands clasped in his lap. “I had been muscle for Anatoli before, but this was different. I didn’t need to force information from them. They didn’t owe us money. I was only supposed to kill them, as quickly and quietly as possible.” His fingers pressed together, turning white with the pressure, voice icy as he explained. “I was so angry that someone had come into my club and hurt my girls, I had to send my own message.”

I flinched at his claim on the girls, his girls. But he didn’t notice, eyes not on me as he spoke.

“That couldn’t happen without consequence, so I did it. Over the next couple of weeks, I killed the men on the list. And each time it became harder to return to you, to hide this side of me that I was getting more and more comfortable with. And then, this last one…” his eyes closed with a deep breath and then he looked up at me. “Wednesday night, when I was out all night. That was the last one.”

I remembered him coming home in changed clothes, his distance and frustration, the way he had tried to cling to me.

He stood and paced in front of me. Agitation spilled out of every movement. His hands clenched into fists and then stretched repeatedly. “He was lured out the back of the bar he was at, just as planned, but then others showed up in the alley, like it had been expected.” He paused, fist hitting his forehead, trying to make sense of the event. “What was supposed to be one kill turned into three, but that’s not the worst part. An employee stepped out at the end, and I shot him.” He looked to me then, his haunted eyes large in his pale face and voice barely a whisper. “I shot him without thinking twice. He opened the door, and I shot him without giving him a chance. And for what? Viktor?” Gage closed his eyes. “I’ve been trying to forget, but I can’t.”

I couldn’t speak as the weight of his story settled around us. But I rose to my feet and pulled his hand to guide him back to sitting on the bed. He didn’t resist. All the while I searched for the words to say.

I stood between his legs, cupping his face to make him look up at me. “You can’t forget, but…it wasn’t for Viktor. You were protecting yourself. He could have been with them, you wouldn’t have known.”

He met my eyes for a moment, and then pulled my hands away with a sigh. “I try and tell myself the same thing, but even if he was, what’s the difference between the men I killed and myself. Don’t I deserve the same thing they do?”

“No.” I was quick to answer, but that was only emotion, not logic. “You weren’t just protecting yourself either. Those men, whoever they were with, were willing to hurt girls to send a message. Who knows what they would have done next.”

He grabbed my hips and shifted me to sit next to him, shaking his head. “On better days, I try and make the same excuse but it’s bullshit. Maybe they would have come back into the club, maybe they wouldn’t have. Truth is, I killed them because Viktor told me to.”

I couldn’t make excuses for him. I closed my eyes as a whirlwind whipped through me. He had to listen to Viktor, and by staying with him, I was under Viktor’s control as well. This was the choice I had made to be with him. I doubted my sanity but gripped his hand in reassurance, my lifeline.

“What happened to the girl from the first night?” I pulled a question from my thoughts, trying to process the story.

“She has a nasty cut across the top of her chest, but she’s okay. I offered her money so she wouldn’t have to work but she wanted to stay. She doesn’t dance anymore, but tends bar. She’s…” He shook his head. “She’s strong. The other girls like her, so she’s sort of become their manager. She handles any issues with them. She’s made herself useful.”