could he fucking ask for? Here was a one of a kind woman who was unquestionably loyal and beyond capable of taking care of herself, but his dumbass brain kept falling back on old habits and insisting she needed to be dealt with like the others. Why?
Never mind Zed’s points, everything Liv had said to him was right on the money. There was no denying it, if he’d told her about the ambush from the get-go, things wouldn’t have turned into such a shitfest. And the vote was a stupid idea too. If his old lady couldn’t have an opinion on club business, who the fuck was the club to have an opinion on their marital business? He didn’t have to explain their goddamn finances to the table. Christ, he really was a jackass.
And why was he worried about her getting physically hurt, when the chances of her just getting sick of being left in the dark and walking away were even bigger? What would he do then? He couldn’t protect her at all if she bailed. And when it came to women like Liv, it was a real possibility. She wanted him, but she didn’t actually need him, not to survive anyway. She had her own money, knew how to handle her own shit, and would be just fine if anything happened to him.
But if she left? He’d lose his goddamn mind. The deep-seated truth was he needed her more than she needed him, and that scared the shit out of him. Maybe the real reason he kept falling back on old habits was a subconscious thing, you know, to force her into depending on him. After all, that’s what men like him were conditioned to see as “normal”, right? But why the fuck would he actually want a woman who demanded constant attention and hand-holding? Why would he intentionally put himself through the stress of living two separate lives? Wasn’t that exactly why he’d sworn off another marriage until she’d come along?
He was a moron for trying to fuck with perfection. Because even though she was manipulative as hell, knew how to push all of his buttons, and that feminist shit got on his nerves like nothing else, fucking perfect was exactly what she was.
Liv held out another bottle for him to throw, but he’d had enough of her frostiness. He tossed it to the ground and spun her around, wrapping an arm around her waist to keep her in place.
“Torch, leave me alone,” she grumbled. She tried to push away and refused to look up. He buried his fingers in her hair and fisted it at the back—not in a gentle sort of way either—and the sudden, rough stinging forced her eyes upward.
To his surprise, they were bloodshot, more pained than pissed. The only other time he’d seen them like this was when he’d browbeaten her into revealing her fucked up past in front of an audience, something he still regretted. Liv didn’t do emotions, she shut them out to the point of sometimes coming off as apathetic, so when one managed to creep past her defenses, he knew shit was getting to be too much.
And when shit got to be too much, he knew her way of coping was by focusing on something else. Hopefully, she’d find a healthier way of dealing with her demons one of these days, but he wouldn’t be forcing it to happen this particular night. Tonight was about reining in what he’d let spin out.
“You wanna talk about it?” he asked, just in case.
“Not really.”
He kissed her lips gently and let her go. “Okay.”
She took a step back and frowned. “Okay?”
“Yeah. Did you get the money?”
Her face scrunched in confusion, she pointed to a backpack on the ground a few feet away.
He strapped it to his back, walked over to his bike, and hopped on. After hitting the power button and bringing it to life, he glanced back over at her. “You coming or what?”
“Where?” she asked suspiciously.
“Denver. We’re gonna go pay off Cora.”
She cocked her head like she still didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. “I don’t understand what’s happening right now.”
He sighed and turned his bike back off so she’d hear him loud and clear. “Baby, if I wanted a weak bitch to rescue all the time, I would’ve found myself a princess. I picked a queen, and a proper queen stands next to her fucking king. So, are you gonna be one of those bitches