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Twenty minutes ago, I was dead set on taking her back to Lucian and Gypsy. But now, in my presence, there was no way I could let her go.
“You’ve been following me,” she accused as she attempted to pull away. “Inserting people into my life. Do you even realize how fucked up that is?”
Her voice betrayed a pain that ran deeper than I ever could have known. I’d never seen Birdie display such fragility, and it wrecked me. I wasn’t prepared to deal with her emotions, so I didn’t even know where to begin. Physically, I could take care of her. The basic needs she required as a human were easy to meet. But everything else was a purgatory I didn’t know how to navigate.
“Are you hurt?” I asked her again as I examined her. It was all I could offer as solace.
Tiny red welts had started to form on her ankles where the sand had pelted her skin as she walked. And along her calves, several new cuts had appeared. She’d been with me for twenty-four hours, and already, she looked like she’d been to the depths of hell.
“I fell into a cactus.” Her voice wavered as she turned away. “There are needles stuck in my back.”
I released my hold on her and turned her in my arms. Sure enough, red, inflamed welts dotted her lower back, prickled with spines from the cactus.
“Son of a bitch.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen it. Some of the guys from the club had met the same fate over the course of my years on the property. But they weren’t as delicate as Birdie. I closed my eyes, and a vision of the cold, lifeless face from my past resurfaced. I couldn’t save that girl. She was long past dead, and it was all my fault. But Birdie was a different story. I would do whatever it took to keep her safe, even if it meant she would hate me for it. Before I could even think about it, I was punching numbers into my phone as she turned to meet my gaze.
“What are you doing?” Her brows pinched together.
I turned away, already regretting what I was about to do. “Getting you some help.”
ACE DISAPPEARED DOWN THE HALL, mumbling into the phone before he returned a few seconds later, his face unreadable.
“Who was that?” I asked.
“Sit down.” He pointed at the sofa. “I’ll grab some shit to clean up your legs.”
“They’re fine.” I stared at him as if he were from another planet. “It’s just a few scrapes.”
“They need to be cleaned,” he grunted. “Don’t argue.”
He left me to follow his orders while he disappeared to rummage through the medicine cabinet. I didn’t get what the big deal was. He acted like it was a medical emergency every time something remotely small happened. Though there had to be a reason for his odd behavior, I just couldn’t figure out what it was.
When he returned, I was sitting upright on the sofa, which was about all I could manage in my current state. I’d neglected to tell him that I also had needles embedded into the skin beneath my waistband. I couldn’t lift my legs onto the coffee table or lean back without driving them deeper, so I wasn’t quite sure how this would work. But he seemed to consider my position, hesitating for only a second before he wordlessly knelt at my feet and began his work with unwavering focus.
He cleaned each wound with exhaustive care, inspecting them several times over to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. Maybe it was the way his mechanical mind worked, but no man had ever kneeled before me to tend to my wounds. Men had only ever seen me as something to take and use, but Ace treated me as if I were still salvageable. His large calloused fingers glided over my skin with the same reverence he held for his bike. I wanted to unravel the meaning behind that, but before I could, he’d finished.
Apparently satisfied with his work, he removed a joint from his pocket and parked beside me on the sofa. His large frame indented the cushion and dipped me closer to the heat of his body. My eyes strayed to his lips as he took a few puffs and then offered the joint to me. When I hesitated, his eyebrow arched.
“It helps the pain,” he said.
“Will it put me to sleep?”
He shook his head, a wisp of smoke leaving his mouth. “Different blend.”
Trust was a refuge I’d never known, but at that moment, I realized I trusted him. In the time that I’d known him, he’d kidnapped me, annoyed me, and foiled my plans on more than one occasion, but he’d never lied to me.
