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“Tell me why not,” I look down at him, my hands automatically resting on my hips and my eyebrows pulling together.
“Lookin’ at me like that’s gonna get you fucked again,” he warns, keeping the amused look on his face.
“I’m being serious, Brax, why would we never work?”
I wait for his answer, knowing that I’ve just opened myself up to get hurt. If Brax Marshall has taught me anything, it’s that beauty can be cruel.
“Because you smile, and you laugh,” his expression suddenly turns serious, his hand moving, and those rough fingertips sliding up my neck to my jaw so he can tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “You try to find good in people even when all they got inside ‘em is bad.”
“And what about you?” I whisper, my cheek leaning into his palm.
“Me?” His chest lifts and his long pause makes me wonder if I’ll ever get his answer. “Gracie, I live for blood, pain, and vengeance.” His eyes narrow like he’s hurting and I hate how it tugs at something inside me.
I can’t fall in love with this man.
“I like to make people hurt, because when I do it stops me from hurting.” His confession comes as a shock for both of us and as his words settle, I watch the deep swallow travel down his throat. He pulls his eyes away from me, turning his head sideways on the pillow.
But I refuse to let that be it, and my hand automatically darts to his chin, clasping his jaw and forcing him to look back at me.
“I’m a helpless cause,” he warns, before I can get the chance to tell him that I see good in him. In fact, lately I’ve been seeing it more often than I do the bad. I feel it in the way he holds me while I sleep, and how he protects me. I see it in the way he looks out for his brother and the smile he reserves just for his nephew without even knowing he does it. He’s been dedicated to getting Abby clean despite our constant arguments over his tough love approach.
Brax is a good person. He just doesn’t see it.
“When I think about revenge, the pain inside me stops for a while.” His jaw tenses under my fingers and his eyes darken a shade.
“I like how that feels too much to give it up,” he adds with a little weakness in his tone.
“Revenge? Revenge on who?” I ask.
“On the person who made me this way,” he answers, and I swear his eyes start to fill with tears.
“And what will you do when you get that revenge, what will you live for then?” I ask, wondering if this man will ever be saved from himself.
“Stop searching for the good in me, Gracie, you ain’t gonna find it.” He doesn’t give me the chance to say anything back to that, pulling me down and forcing me on to his lips.
I think about telling him that I’ve already found it as his lips move gently against mine, his tongue filling my mouth as his cock stirs inside me. But I know that he wouldn’t believe me. Brax needs to find the good in himself before he takes anyone’s word for it. And that’s the real heartbreak in all of this. Because he’s so convinced it isn’t there, that he refuses to look for it.
They say time goes fast when you’re having fun, and with nine names on a hit list and Gracie in my bed every night, the last two weeks have sped by.
Me and Gracie have picked up a routine, both of us pretending like what’s happening between us isn’t getting closer and closer to ending with every name that gets struck off.
Jessie seems a lot more at ease since Clunk’s death, though he isn’t adjusting to Maddy’s new found freedom as well as she is. I swear I’ve heard more arguments come from their cabin in the last two weeks than I have since I arrived at the club
“I’m just asking you to take someone with you,” I hear Jessie yell as he storms out of his cabin after her.
“Jessie, I’m a grown woman, I can go to the store and pick up milk by myself,” Maddy argues back. I feel a warm hand curl around my waist, and me and Gracie both watch on together, laughing quietly while Jessie slowly loses his shit.
“You infuriate me sometimes Maddy Summers,” he calls out at her as she gets in the car and starts the engine.
“And I love you with all my heart,” she blows him a kiss, leaving a dust cloud behind her as she pulls out the yard. Jessie storms toward me and Gracie, frustration turning his skin flame red.
“Brax, get your cut, we’re going to work,” he cracks his knuckles, and heads inside his cabin, slamming the door.
“Looks like I’m going to work, princess.” I stub out my cigarette on the porch step, stand up and dust off my jeans. Gracie goes back inside and comes out with my cut in her hands, she helps pull it over my shoulders. Then flicks something imaginary off my chest once it’s on.
“I know, be careful,” I repeat the same thing she always says when I leave the cabin, even if I’m just going to church or to hang out at the club.
“It’s the last name, isn’t it?” she looks down at the ground not wanting me to see the sadness in her eyes.
