I stop, pulling her close again, and wrapping her up in my arms. Damning everything about her to memory, since that’s where she’ll be living, for me, now.
We don’t say a word as she wraps her arms around me, holding me tightly, but I can feel her body shake with the sobs. I can’t look at her crying without breaking again. Running my hand into her hair, I hold her even closer and she adjusts her arms, matching my grip.
She pulls away for a second, just long enough to slip her arms out of the jacket and hand it back to me, stuffing it into the saddlebag on the side, but without even taking my eyes off of her.
I don’t stop her when she rushes into me, slamming her mouth to mine. I just lean into it, slipping my tongue into her mouth, being able to taste her one last time. Wanting to remember every moment, every inch, every single fucking thing about her.
I cherish the length of the kiss as it continues to stretch, running my hand up into her hair, tangling my fingers in it.
I know this is as far as it will go, and I even know that we shouldn’t be doing this… here. It’s already pushing the limit, and the longer we kiss, the closer I come to not giving a fuck about anything else and taking her right here on my bike. Even if it’s only been a couple of hours, my cock likes the sound of that as well.
Painfully, I force myself to break the kiss.
We just stare at one another, neither one of us knowing what’s the right words to say in the moment are, but not wanting it to end yet. So we lean into the comfortable silence, the comfortable understanding, and into the pain that we’re both feeling at having to be ripped away from one another.
She glances back at the house. I know, wondering how many times her phone has rung. I’m sure he likes to keep her on a fucking leash.
I mean, I’d like to keep her on a leash, only on a very different type of leash.
When she looks back at me, I nod my head, telling her I know she has to go, but I squeeze her hand tighter.
She exhales, leaning into me again, this time not for passion, but for comfort.
We both wrap our arms around one another again, and I hold her once more.
Slowly, I pull away, pausing for a moment and kissing her forehead. She looks up and I nod again.
She steps backwards and I want to tell her I’m here if she needs me, but she already knows that. I want to tell her so many more things, but they’re all stuck behind my teeth.
She stops before she breaks the treeline, looking back and saying something but I just shake my head, closing my eyes. Because I can see it in her eyes what she wants to say, and if she does, if she mutters those words, I don’t know what I will do; I don’t know how I will react.
When I open them again, she nods her head, knowing why I am asking her not to.
I watch her walk to the house, opening the back door, pausing before she breaks the threshold and looking back at me.
I nod one more time before she presses her lips into a fine line and then disappears into the house.
Walking through the door of the clubhouse, I have so many conflicting emotions.
Fuck all of these emotions.
Walking up to the bar, Croft hands me a glass and a whiskey. “Leave the bottle.” I mumble to her and she tilts her head.
“Everything okay, Prez?”
“It fucking is what it is.” I mumble as I gulp down all the liquid and refill it.
“Didn’t go well?” I hear from next to me as I turn and see Axe.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I mumble before I walk away with the bottle, leaving the glass sitting on the bar.
“Brother, what’s up?” He asks me, but I just ignore him, pushing down the hall and entering the office. “Z?” Axe shuts the door behind himself and leans against it.
Sulking down, doubling over and running my hands into my hair and let myself feel everything as I tighten them into fists, knotting them into my hair, pulling strands out as I do so, but I could give a fuck less, and I let out a wail, that I’ve never heard myself make before.
“Z?!” He shouts, moving across the room and kicking the chair from underneath me.
“What?” I shout at him and his eyes widen. “What? What do you fucking want to know?” I’ve never seen Axe react this way to me before. The sob escapes me before I have a second to stop it and I kick the desk in front of me, knocking the monitor off and it smashes to the ground, just out of view. Standing up, gripping a hold of the top, I scream as I flip it over, finally letting the severity of my emotions overwhelm me.
