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"Talking to you right now."
"But saying as little as possible."
"Can't change me, Janie," he shrugged in a very 'take it or leave it' way.
"I'm not trying to change you. I'm trying to figure out where I stand with you because right now it feels like I have to constantly keep one foot out the door."
"Step in or step out," he said, waving a hand toward the actual door.
"I was being figurative," I spat.
"I ain't stupid," he shot back.
"God, we both suck at this!" I groaned, raking a hand through my hair, feeling the tangles get caught on my fingers. I must have looked just wonderful right then.
"You wanted to talk."
"Talk, not argue," I clarified.
"Ain't arguing."
"Oh my god, we so are."
"Janie..." my name trailed off like he was trying to grab my attention.
"What?" I asked, sounding surly.
"Fucking spit it out."
"That's rich coming from you."
"What do you want from me?" he asked in an almost... sad tone.
And well, he wasn't using that to guilt me into letting it go. No way, no sir.
I jumped off the bed, crossing the room toward him. "Give me something, Wolf! Give me anything. I refuse to fall in love with a padlock heart. I am not the kind of woman who will spend her life sifting through boxes of forgotten keys, praying she finds the one that will unlock you. So let me in... or let me go!"
On a choked sound that sounded a bit too much like a sob, I face planted into his chest, trying to pull it together. I shouldn't have been emotional, but I was. It had been a weird fucking week and a half. In a short amount of time, he had come to mean a lot to me. And I wanted him to let me in. I wanted to know him the way he knew me, into all the dark, skeleton-filled closets. He just had to... let me.
It felt like forever before his arms closed around me, pulling me until my body was flush against his, his mass a familiar and comforting thing. I felt his chin lower down until it was resting on the top of my head. "You're in," he said with a squeeze. "You've always been in."FIFTEENWolfIf there was one quality you both had to respect and loathe about Janie, it was her tenacity. I guess it came from years of being overlooked because of her size and sex in the male-centric Hailstorm. And even though Lo ran a tight ship and would flip shit if she saw any blatant sexism going on at her camp, that didn't mean the women didn't feel the pressure. So when Janie needed to prove a point or she needed to get something she wanted, she was a dog after a bone.
What she wanted?
To get to know me.
I'd never been one for sharing. First, because I didn't need to air shit to understand how I felt about it. Second, because none of my stories were pretty. And third, because men didn't, as a rule, do that shit.
I ain't never kept a woman around long enough for her to want to learn my secrets. The club bitches knew better. They were around for a good suck or fuck. Maybe if they got one of the men pussy-whipped, they could end up with his name on her back. But it was rare and they knew it. So none of them pushed.
Janie, yeah, she wasn't a club bitch.
But she sure as fuck was a pusher.
If you'd ask me why she was different, I wouldn't have a good answer. I liked Janie. I had always liked Janie from the first time we met her and she and Reign went toe-to-toe, the tiny slip of a girl holding her own against the most fierce biker in the region. Shit was sexy. Seeing her charge in when the shit was hitting the fan when we were trying to save Summer, toting guns, fearless as any hardened criminal I had ever met, yeah that was even sexier.
But seeing her on the side of that road, burned and battling her demons in the dirt... it became more than an attraction.
It wasn't something fresh and new that I wanted to protect women who needed it. That shit came from my mother's apron strings when I was too young to do more than ankle bite. I'd lent a hand more than once before when the situation called for it. But I'd never invited a woman to my place. Fuck, I'd never invited anyone to my place before. Reign and Cash and Repo sometimes invited themselves, but as a rule, I liked my solitude. No, I didn't just like it; I demanded it. I'd go to the club; I'd spend time with the men on the road. But then I needed to go home and get lost in the woods. I needed to hunt and fish and get away from it all.
So wanting Janie there, yeah, that was out of character.
What was even more out of character? That I didn't want her to leave. Even though half of what she did was badger me.
So if the only way to get her to stick around was to tell her some things about me that I never told anyone, well, it seemed like a small price to pay.--My memories of my mother are bright, full Technicolor detail. She was light and warmth. She was homemade cookies after a bad day at school. She was bedtime stories and trips to the beach.
My memories of my father are highly contrasted black and white. He was the door slamming after coming home late from the compound, smelling like whiskey and perfume. He was a raised voice, a raised hand, a short fuse.
"What's the problem now?" he would growl at my mother who was already cowering away from him, a badass former biker groupie who never took shit from no one, shrinking away from the man she promised her life to. "Five words or less, bitch," he added, as he always did.
