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“Sh-she’s gone.”
“I’m sorry, Rory.” I pressed a kiss to the middle of her forehead and then tucked her head under my chin. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Just hold me.” One chilled hand touched my bare back and held on tight.
“Always,” I vowed, and I held her for a long time. I felt her tears running down my chest, but I didn’t bother to wipe them away. I let her cry it all out, just as she’d done almost every night this past week. She had known the end was coming, but I knew she hadn’t been completely prepared to say goodbye to her mom.
“She told me she loved me,” Rory muttered a long while later, her voice rough and scratchy from all the crying. “She was holding me, Matt. She barely had the strength to lift her head, but she was still the one holding me. And she wouldn’t take the pain meds, said they confused her, and she wanted to just talk to me for a little while. She was holding me and stroking her fingers through my hair like she would do when I was a little girl, and sh-she whispered she loved me.”
Her pain soaked into me. I could feel it all the way down to my bones, but I welcomed it, wanted to take it all away so she didn’t have to feel the grief that was consuming her. “Baby.”
“And then the heart monitor went crazy…be-because her heart stopped. She died holding me!” A sob tore through her, making her entire body shake. I tightened my hold on her, afraid she would physically shatter if I didn’t.
“She died doing the only thing she wanted to do, and that was always holding you, Rory,” I reminded her. She had told me all about her mother, so I knew Sabrina Michaels had passed away doing the one thing that brought her peace. “You were the only person who mattered to your mom, baby. She loved you more than life. If I were the one dying, it’s exactly what I would want my last minute on earth to be like.”
“D-don’t say that.” She sobbed harder. “I can’t lose you too!”
I kissed her forehead and began to wipe away her tears. “I’m not going anywhere. Ever. You’re stuck with me for life, girl. But let’s be honest here. One day, we’re both going to die. It’s the ultimate end game. And when I go, I want to be holding you.”
“Matt…”
“I love you.” I brushed my lips over hers, making sure not to deepen it too much, because that always led down a dangerous road. One taste of her was never enough, and my body was begging for more than just that, but there was no fucking way I was going to take things further with her until she was legal.
But this time, I lingered for a moment, wanting to put everything I felt for her into our kiss. Her fingers threaded through my hair, pulling my head down farther, silently demanding more.
My door crashing open made me jerk my head up, my arms tightening around Rory to protect her from whatever danger had just broken down my bedroom door. Looking up, I saw Sheriff Bates storm in with two of his deputies, and Mayor Michaels right behind them.
Fuck.
“Dad!” Rory screamed as the sheriff and his deputies came around the bed and yanked me up. I was in nothing but a pair of boxers, the only thing I’d pulled on before getting into bed, and my cock was still hard as a damn rock. The cops all looked down at my straining dick, which only had the sheriff pushing me up against the wall. “You sick fuck. She’s only a child.”
“She’ll be eighteen in ten weeks,” I snapped back. “And I didn’t touch her.”
“Stop! Matt’s done nothing wrong.”
“You’re an underage girl in bed with a twenty-one-year-old thug who is practically naked,” Derrick Michaels bellowed. “What the hell don’t you see wrong with that, Aurora?”
“Don’t arrest him!” she screamed when
Bates snapped on the cuffs, tightening them so hard that I knew my hands would be numb in no time.
I didn’t struggle. I hadn’t done a damn thing wrong, but there was no use in giving them something that could stick. Like assault on an officer. Jenkins could get me off on whatever trumped-up charge these idiots were trying to throw at me, but if I head-butted the sheriff and knocked out the two deputies, they would hold me on the assault charges.
“Rory, baby, call Raven,” I told her as Bates turned me around and pushed me in the direction of the door. I dug in my heels, wanting to soak up the sight of my beauty still sitting in the middle of my bed.
“Wh-what?” she choked, turning her angry gaze from her father to me.
“Call Raven,” I repeated. “She’ll handle the rest.”
“Oh.”
I shot her a wink and a grin. “It’ll be okay, baby. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
“I love you,” she sobbed as the sheriff led me out of the room.
The clubhouse was just as deserted as it had been when I’d come in earlier, and I knew no one was there for sure. There was no fucking way these dickheads could have snuck up on me if they had been around. I wasn’t worried, though. Rory would call Raven, who would get the MC’s lawyer down to the police station. Jenkins would have me out by dinnertime, and I’d pick my girl up for our date.
It was four hours later before Jenkins had me out, however. By that time, I was starving and in need of another shower, but all I wanted was to find Rory. That fucking sheriff had taken his sweet-ass time letting me out, finding every reason to keep me in a holding cell with some college prick who had been arrested for drunkenly pissing in public on campus and some guy who had been muttering to himself from the moment he’d been pushed into the cell with me.
