Cruz (Dark and Dirty Sinners' MC #5) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,99

keep that on," she chided gruffly.

"No, I need to talk to you without sounding like I'm underwater, Indy." I reached up and cupped her chin. "A smart woman would run out the door without a backward glance. We both know you're more than smart, Indy. We both know you're an incredibly intelligent woman."

"Yeah? Well, I don't feel so smart at the moment."

"I can guarantee that you don't, and I get it. Totally. One hundred percent. You'd be a fool not to be thinking about leaving and walking into the fucking sunset, but—"

When I hesitated, she looked at me. Didn't look at my chin, at my nose, at my fucking eyebrows, she looked me in the eye.

"But, what?"

"I'm gonna ask that you don't do that."

"Why?" she rasped, her jaw tensing.

"You know why."

"Maybe I do, maybe I don't. Things changed tonight, Cruz. I don't know what you guys are involved in, and I don't want to know, but the fact that it could lead a bomber to your goddamn front door tells me that I'm not safe with you."

"You are safe," I denied.

"How the fuck can you even say that?" she snarled, dragging her hand away from mine. "How can you even think that when, tonight, I'd have been there if it wasn't for Laura making a last minute appointment and me fitting her in?"

"Because I'll kill to keep you safe, and I'll die before I let anything happen to you."

"This isn't some romance novel, Cruz. This is real life. We bleed. We die. We cease to exist. This isn't Snow White. I'm not going to get hit up in a shooting only to wait for you to kiss me to wake me up.

"Once I'm gone, I'm gone, and I've—"

"You think I don't know that?" I snarled back. "What? You reckon that I believe we're living in some kind of fairy tale? No, Indy, I don't think that. I know reality bites, but I'd prefer for reality to bite with you at my fucking side than with you back in New Orleans and me stuck up here, wishing I was with you, and you wishing you were with me.

“Separated because you're too chicken shit to realize that we don't choose our time. We don't get to select an expiration date, Indy.

"One thing I've learned along the way, is that it's our day to die when someone else chooses it."

"Didn't think you believed in God," she muttered.

"I don't. I believe in something though. I have to. Or it'd be too fucking depressing to wake up every morning and think that humans are behind all the shit that goes down on a daily basis.

"It's nicer to think that someone, something, some entity, be it a God or fate or fucking... whatever... to be behind it."

"Bullshit. Never heard of free will? Every human does exactly what they want to do because they want to do it. Simple as that."

"Yeah, well, you choose to think that and I can think differently. But all I'm saying is that, whether you're right or I am, I don't want to live in this fucked up world without you."

Her eyes met mine. "You're crazy to say that. You barely know me."

I laughed. "Wow, you're full of bullshit today. I think you should be grateful that I'm not in full working order, because if I was, your ass would be bright pink for that outright lie."

Her mouth pursed into a tight rosette. "I don't need to listen to this shit."

"No, you don't, and yet you're still here. Hovering, not walking away because you and I both know that what we have is something special. Maybe we can't put words to it, maybe we shouldn't, not yet, so we won't, not until both of us are ready, but I'm telling you, waking up to this cluster fuck was a damn sight more bearable knowing that you were here, waiting on me to open my eyes."

My words had her gulping, and she rasped, "You say that like I get to be at your side. Like I can stand with you. But I've got a pussy, Cruz, so there's always shit you're going to keep from me. You're always going to keep things separate because that's how the club works.

“How does that seem fair? When you demand everything from me, my submission, my trust, my heart, and all without me knowing what kind of danger you're dragging me into?" She shook her head. "I need to get out of here. I need to get