Torch (Great Wolves MC) - Jayne Blue Page 0,41

would have put her up in one of the other rooms. She didn’t. She found a smile and gave Sticks a nod.

“Good enough,” he said.

“You okay?” I went to her. “You’re safe here. You know that, right?”

“I know,” she said. “Thank you.”

“This doesn’t have to be permanent,” I said. “There are other apartments in Lincolnshire. We can start looking in the morning.”

She let me put my arm around her, and I led her inside. She followed me up the stairs. I had the last room at the end of the hall around the corner. As the most senior member of the club still living here, I had the best room. It was private, sound-proofed from the bar downstairs. I also had a private entrance off the back of the bar so I could come and go without having to pass through everyone. Right now, though, the bar was closed, and there was no one here.

I gave Sticks and Glover some cash and told them to take the rest of the night off. I wanted Sydney and I to have the place alone tonight.

It was late by the time we all got settled, almost two in the morning. Sydney walked into my room and looked around.

“Sorry,” I said. “I know it’s not much.”

It wasn’t. I had a master suite with a walk-in closet and a big bathroom. But it was still just a bedroom. I had a small table in the corner with two mismatched chairs.

It had never mattered to me before. It was home. It was a palace compared to where I’d spent five of the worst years of my life. But now, I kind of wished I had somewhere better to take her.

“It’s perfect,” she said, sitting on the bed. “I’m sorry to have to put you out.”

I smiled and sat beside her. “I want you here. That’s the thing. Since the second I saw you. I knew we’d end up here.”

She looked at me. “You did?”

“Fuck yeah. You’re mine.”

She put her head on my shoulder. She needed comfort. I would have held her like that all night.

“I want you all the time,” she said. “So much so it’s hard to breathe.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

She choked out a sob. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. Maybe it would be easier if I just went back.”

Her voice dropped so low on the last bit, I almost didn’t hear her. But I did, and it froze my heart.

“Is that what you want?”

Her tears made my shirt damp. I reached over and grabbed a tissue from the nightstand. She took it and blew her nose.

“Is that what you want?” I asked her again.

“I don’t belong anywhere,” she said. “I thought I was doing okay. Making my own way. But they still can pull the rug out from under me. I wanted to stand on my own two feet. I wanted not to need anyone. I do, though. Torch, I need you.”

I needed her too. More than the air in my lungs, it seemed.

“You don’t want to need me,” I said.

“Yes! No! I don’t know. I think ... I think I’m falling in love with you.”

She pulled away from me. Her eyes searched my face.

Love. It didn’t seem an adequate enough word to describe what I felt for her.

“For God’s sake,” she said. “Say something.”

I rose. Sydney had to crane her neck to keep my gaze. “I did,” I said. “I told you. You’re mine.”

“What …”

“It means I do better when I’m with you. You don’t know what it’s been like for me. I’m not ... when I got ... when I came to the club, I was more animal than human. I don’t even know why Colt took a chance on me, but he did. I’m still breathing because of him. But ... I feel like I’m alive because of you.”

She blinked fast. Slowly, Sydney rose. She came to me, sliding her hands up my chest.

“I love you,” she whispered. “And I’m sorry for whatever you had to go through before I met you.”

“That’s just it,” I said. “It doesn’t even matter anymore. And that’s the first time I’ve ever been able to say that. To feel it. So no, you don’t get to go back. I won’t allow it. You’re mine. I don’t care about your father or those pictures or your Uncle George. Fuck all of them. You’re mine.”

Then, I knew I had to make her prove it. Even the thought of her leaving tore my guts