When she appeared in the kitchen ten minutes later, I took in her hung-over state and fuck if my dick didn’t jerk again at the sight. This woman could make me want to fuck her even if she was dressed in a fucking sack and had a shaved head.

She’s it for me.

I grabbed my keys off the table and jerked my chin towards the front door. “You ready to go?”

She nodded and slowly headed outside. I followed close behind, watching her ass sway in that sexy-as-fuck black dress she’d worn to the pub last night. She’d ripped it off as soon as we’d gotten back to my place and done her best to get me to fuck her, but I’d had no intention of sleeping with her. Not in that state. No, the first time we had sex again, we’d both be sober. I needed to know she wanted this as much as I did. And until I got her to that point, I wasn’t laying a hand on her. As hard as that would fucking be.

***

I still hadn’t decided what I was gonna do about Peter and Gambarro when I picked Evie up from work that afternoon. Seeing her, though, pushed me towards the decision of getting involved. How the fuck could I let her father die?

I drove her home and insisted on walking her inside so we could finish our conversation from the other night.

“Okay,” she agreed, seemingly as keen to talk as I was.

Aside from the other night and this morning, I hadn’t been in Evie’s house for over a year. She lived about twenty minutes from me, in a small house she’d saved for years to buy. I clearly remembered the day I’d moved her in and we’d christened a few of the rooms. Back then, it had been in need of renovating and I’d helped her. It looked as if she’d done more since I’d been here last.

As we walked down the hall, I murmured, “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

“You like the colours I’ve added?”

I smiled. “Yeah, baby, I like it.” Evie loved colour and she’d painted feature walls throughout. Teal seemed to be her favourite colour these days, judging by the amount of it in her home.

We made it to the kitchen and she dropped her bag on the counter and looked up at me, seeming rather hesitant. “Why didn’t you sleep with me last night? I thought you were all up for sex and then you fobbed me off.”

That was unexpected, but I was more than happy to discuss it. “I am all for sex with you but not like that.”

“What does that mean, Kick?” she asked me, clearly frustrated.

“It means you’re worth more than a quick fuck to me. If I can’t have you... have your heart, then I don’t just want your body.”

Silence surrounded us as she processed that. I waited patiently. She had to relent soon.

Finally, she said, “I need more. It’s not enough for you to just show back up after all this time and say you’ve changed your mind.”

“What do you need? Tell me and I’ll give it to you.”

“I need all of you.”

My body stilled. She wanted the parts of me I didn’t want to give. She wanted the parts of me that no one in their right mind would want to know.

The parts she would run from if I showed her.

“No, you don’t.”

She stepped nearer to me. Our bodies were so close I could feel her warm breath on my skin, and fuck, I needed more.

I needed to feel her body on mine, her hair between my fingers, her pussy around my dick.

Her words at the end of the day.

Her love wrapped around me, taking all the shit away.

“I’ve known you since I was seven, Kick. You used to share yourself with me back then. Your thoughts and feelings. And then, after all the shit went down with our families, you started to pull away and when you joined Storm, it was like you disconnected from me. I tried so hard to get through to you, to let you know I loved you, all of you, but you never took that in. I get that there’s stuff you can’t tell me, and I don’t want to know the ins and outs of it all, but give me something. Anything. Show me you. Let me love you.”

Fuck.

I didn’t deserve her. She was lightness to my darkness and I had no idea how to combine the two. Or even if I wanted to.

I reached out and ran my finger lightly down her cheek. “I love you, Evie, but I don’t know how to do what you’ve asked. I can try, though,” I whispered, total honesty spilling from my lips.

She smiled sadly at me, a look of defeat in her eyes. “I know.”

When she moved away from me and just watched me in silence, I feared I’d fucked it all up.

I’m losing her again.

And then I did what I always did when fear and hopelessness threatened to overtake me - I resorted to anger and frustration. “This isn’t the fuckin’ end of this,” I snapped, and stalked out of the room without waiting for her response.

I didn’t need to see her rejection again.

I just needed to find a way to get through to her.

Chapter Nine

Evie

I hadn’t heard from Kick in two days. Not since he told me he didn’t know how to be in a relationship with me. My heart hurt and that pissed me off. Why did he have to show up and create these feelings when I was doing okay without him? And why did he struggle so much with letting me in? When we’d been together in the past, it was like Kick lived two lives. One with me, and one with his other family, the club. I could never work out why he kept the two completely separate. What kind of person doesn’t want to introduce you to his friends? It made me feel like shit when he refused to let me meet them. I wouldn’t put myself through that again.