face him, barely restraining herself from clambering over the bar and hugging him. She wasn’t willing to open herself so quickly to being hurt again.
“What do you care? I’m the product of my family upbringing, aren’t I? I should rot like the rest of them.” The bitterness in her tone slipped free before she could stop it, and she saw it strike a mark she hadn’t known she was aiming for. “I’m no longer your concern, Liam.”
“Baby,” he said so gently despite the pain in his eyes, “you’ve never stopped being my concern. I messaged you, wanting to apologize. Called you more times this last two weeks than I have in the past two years. You didn’t answer, didn’t call me back.”
Her throat closed; she coughed, trying to ease the constriction. “I had to sell my phone. I couldn’t afford to pay for it, and with you gone, there was no one to speak to anyway.”
Regret flashed over his face, making him look older than he was. “I’ve been right here, Bo. Right here, kicking myself for saying what I did. The stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever done. I didn’t mean it to sound the way it did. It was cruel and unjust, and you have every right to kick me out of your life if that’s what you want. But I’ve missed you so fucking much, it’s like there’s a hole in my chest that throbs with every breath.”
Yeah, she knew how that felt. “You hurt me.”
“I know. Trust me, I’d do anything to pay penance for it. Nothing’s been right since you walked out of here, Bodie. Nothing. Hell, I haven’t been able to top a partner in two weeks,” he muttered in disgust. “The last time that happened, I’d had the flu for a goddamn month. Food tastes like shit. There’s not a thing that can hold my attention because all I can think about is you and how you looked when you walked away.”
For the first time since she came back to the club, Bodie opened her eyes and let herself look at Liam. His usually immaculate blond hair was a fraction longer than he liked it, roughly tousled and unkempt, and he had the start of a rather nice beard. Untidy, untrimmed, but it had potential.
But beneath the facial hair, his cheekbones were stark. There were dark shadows beneath his tired gray eyes, a stark contrast to the paleness of his skin. In all honesty, his face looked as bad as she felt.
She wanted to cry. The pressure of her life crashed down on her hard enough she sniffled, her throat squeezing shut as though as a fist lodged in her airway. Grinding her teeth, afraid she would let the sluice gates open and not get them shut again, she focused on finding her strength, her calm, and casting aside what made her vulnerable.
“Oh Bodie. Baby.” Liam moved faster than she’d ever seen him, hurrying down the length of the bar and flipping the hatch hard enough for it to crack against the shelving unit beside it. His eyes never left her as he came to her and simply enfolded her in his arms. “I’m sorry, Bo. I’m so fucking sorry.”
Her cheek rested on his chest as he rocked them both from side to side, shushing her softly. One would think she was on the verge of hysterics, but only she knew the violence of the emotional storm brewing inside her. Breathing deep of his scent, so comforting and familiar, there was no choice but to let her anger dissipate.
Living without this, without him as her rock? She couldn’t do it. The vow she’d made to herself earlier in the day couldn’t hold up against the sense of coming home she found in his arms, but...
“I don’t know if I can trust you anymore,” she murmured and felt him stiffen. She turned her forehead to press against the tense muscles of his sternum.
His hands framed her head, eased her away so he could stare down at her. Gray eyes were dark with hurt and concern, but he didn’t push her away as she expected—as she would have done if he’d declared he couldn’t trust her. “If that’s the case, I have no one but myself to blame, Bo. I’m not making excuses for what I said, because there are none. There’s a world of difference between you and those fuckers who raised you, baby. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”
“Part of you did. The part