Fractured & Formidable: The Sacred Hearts MC Book V (4 page)

“I missed you too, Red.”

She stepped out from the wall and I gave her some space so
she could sink, breathless and a little shaky, into one of the dining room
chairs. I smiled to myself and went back to finishing up dinner, checking on
the steaks in the oven.

“You always this heavy handed with everything you do?” she
demanded. I looked up from the oven.

“Go big or go home,” I said with a shrug. A weird look
crossed her face.

“You know this might go a lot better with me if you said you
were sorry!” she crossed her arms over her chest and her legs at the knee. She
wore a long cream satin nightgown under the robe, her leg safe from my prying
eyes but the way that material
clung
to her figure… well my brain went
out to dinner without me for a second. She gave an exasperated sigh.

“You know saying you’re sorry doesn’t mean that I was right
or that you were wrong… It means you care about our friendship. That it’s more
valuable than your ego,” she fixed me with an unwavering look.

I blinked. I’d never considered what she was saying, truth
was I wasn’t much for apologies. Shit happened, you did something wrong, a few
words wasn’t going to fix it. You had to do better, try harder. In my world,
actions spoke louder than words ever could. I regarded her, sitting there so
very serious, the hard set to her shoulders, the tightness around her eyes
slowly blurring and fading into lines of weariness and hurt.

“You should probably just go,” she said softly.

“Not going to happen,” I told her as I pulled the steaks out
of the oven and ditched the pan on the cooktop, switching off the broiler. I
came around the counter and crouched in front of her, putting my hands on her
knees, resting them there lightly. She met my eyes and I held hers fast with my
gaze.

“I’m sorry,” I said and she looked past me, over one of my
shoulders. I cupped her face gently between my hands and forced her to look at
me.

“I screwed up. I forgot about dinner and I got wrapped up in
the club and being a prospect. I was doing club business and couldn’t answer
the phone. When I picked up my messages I felt like a world class douche, but
then you wouldn’t answer my calls and that pissed me off and…”

Her voice stopped me, “It doesn’t matter.”

“Why do you say that, Sugar?” She shifted uncomfortably,
opened her mouth, closed it and opened it again. She looked to be on the verge
of spilling it but her eyes held such a pleading look, begging me not to make
her say it, that I had to know, so I pressed her.

“Talk to me. Not going anywhere until you do.” I said
firmly.

“I thought when you didn’t show up that something had come
up, I waited, and when a half hour went by, I tried to call you, you didn’t
answer. I was embarrassed. I waited in that restaurant over an hour. When Evy
explained that being a prospect was a lot like being a fraternity pledge I…”
she pursed her lips and rushed the rest of it out, “I thought you’d never
really been interested. That one of the guys put you up to it, or that you were
just leading me on to impress Dray and when you figured out you didn’t have to,
you just stopped bothering.”

 “What do you mean?” I scowled, I was fixated on the last
bit of what she’d said. High spots of color appeared on her cheeks. She gave a
harsh and exaggerated sigh.

“I figured you got wrapped up with one of the girls at the
club. That I was just a passing fancy and that you weren’t really serious about
me, I didn’t answer your calls the next day because I was
hurt
, Zander,”
she looked defeated. She stared at her hands in her lap for a long minute. I
was fucking floored, silent, because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I’d
had no freaking clue.

She took a breath, “I know I’m not pretty like Evy or
Shelly. That compared to them I’m, um – “

“Red stop, just stop,” I shook my head incredulous, “You’re
fucking gorgeous and I don’t ever want to hear you put yourself down again. You
hear me?” she swallowed hard, her autumn colored eyes so very wide and nodded.
I was fuming, but not at her, more at me and whoever had put these craptastic
ideas into her head. It wasn’t lost on me that someone, somewhere, at some time
or another had done something really shitty to Mandy to have her believing any of
this horse shit.

“It wasn’t either of those things,” I told her, “You know
that right?” her lips thinned down and regret and heartache flashed across her
pretty features in equal measure. I swore, low and heated and she stopped
breathing, freezing in place.

“I just realized that I couldn’t give you the attention you
deserved at the time, Babe. Patching into the club was a really big deal to me
and a long time in coming. When I set my sights on something I just, I don’t
know, I get real focused.” I sighed defeated. I wasn’t sure how to explain it.
I stood up, my knees cracking in a bit of protest and moved around the kitchen finishing
up dinner by plating it before it got cold.

“I had no idea you thought any of those things. I feel like
such an
ass.
”

Mandy sat for long moments, thinking, before finally rising
and asking, “What can I do?”

“You can just sit down and relax, let me make you dinner.
Let me try to fix this. I never meant to hurt your feelings, Red. Believe me.” I
brought the plates over and set them down contemplating her. She looked like
she really wanted to do something, anything to help rather than just sit there.

“On second thought, where’s the silverware at?” I asked, I
knew damned well where it was but she was sitting there just looking so uncomfortable
and wringing her hands, I could tell this was way outside her comfort zone.

Hadn’t any guy ever taken care of
her
? She finally
smiled and got up to get the utensils, returning with them and a couple of
paper towels to use as napkins. I held her chair for her and pushed her in.
Never saw the fucking point of doing that really. All it did was bang the chair
into the backs of her knees but it was worth it to pretend to be a gentleman,
if only to watch the warm glow that suffused her cheeks and across the bridge
of her nose when I did it.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“You’re welcome, Sugar.”

She bowed her head over her food and closed her eyes,
murmuring a prayer and I smiled and took the opportunity to look her over. She
had a long graceful neck. I’d never noticed it before with her hair always down.
An errant curl draped artfully along the side of it, the end just teasing her
pulse point. It was probably one of the most provocative things I’d ever seen
and I was hard to the point of aching from it.

“I’m really sorry, Mandy, I really suck at apologizing, but
I’m trying here,” I said when we’d been silent a touch too long.

“I can see that,” she murmured.

“Ouch,” I said dryly and smiled.

“Oh no,” she said abruptly, “I meant that I can see that
you’re trying!” She looked horrified and I couldn’t stop the laugh if I wanted
to.

“Relax, Red. I knew what you meant.” I took a bite of food
and looked her over. She was fucking beautiful when she blushed like that and I
just kept making her do it.

“So what were you planning on doing this evening?” she asked
cutting her steak into dainty bites with such a lady like precision. I chewed
through my own bite of meat.

“Keep blushing like that, you,” I said simply with a roguish
grin. I bounced my eyebrows at her and she scoffed and laughed incredulously.
She blushed even more deeply, which made me grin more broadly, and she took a
bite of her steak. I think I’d rendered her speechless.

She looked vaguely more comfortable which I claimed as a
small victory, but still she sat back straight, shoulders stiff. She cleaned
her plate, which I could appreciate a girl who wasn’t afraid to eat, but after she’d
finished, which was before me, she simply sat there solemnly, eyes fixated on a
point on the table.

“What were your plans for the night?” I finally asked her,
picking up where the conversation had left off while we ate.

“I was going to catch up on a television series I’ve been
watching,” she murmured.

“Oh yeah? What one?” I asked, expecting something completely
girly to come out of her mouth.

“Um, Sons of Anarchy,” she said and blushed again rushing
out with, “Everett and Dray got me hooked on it. I’m trying to catch up.” Well
color me impressed.

“No shit? I dig that show. Where you at with it?” I asked.

“I’m a couple of episodes in to season two.”

No sooner had I pushed my plate a couple of inches away from
me then she was up and clearing the dishes. I blinked and watched her move
around the kitchen. She did all of the cleanup, loaded the dishwasher, covered
the salad bowl with saran wrap and stashed it in the fridge. She moved around
the kitchen with sure efficiency and startled when I came in to it.

I went to the fridge and grabbed a beer, twisting off the
top. I took a drink and watched her. I recognized it. Everything she was doing.
My mom had been the same right before she ditched me with my old man, who was a
real fucking winner let me tell you… I kept my seething anger below the
surface, where she couldn’t or wouldn’t see it. I kept the poor girl on edge
enough as it was. She drifted passed me and I reached out and captured her hand.
She startled and her eyes flicked to mine, again, wide and beautiful but with
that glint of fear in them that I was really beginning to hate.

“I don’t bite Mandy, I’m not going to hurt you,” I said.

“Oh! I know that! I apologize, I…” she looked like she was
heading into a state of some real discomfiture so I tugged her into my arms.

“Always been a shy girl huh Baby?” She nodded mutely.

“I make you that uncomfortable?” I asked and she gasped her
autumn colored eyes, like turning leaves from green to winter brown raised from
where they’d been fixed on my chest.

“Oh no! No… at least you didn’t before… I just, I guess… I don’t
know how I should feel.”

I nodded and thought for a second. She looked so unhappy.

“Close your eyes for me Sugar?” she looked apprehensive for
a second but then complied, her eyes drifting shut. She was ridged in my
embrace.

“Now do me a favor, think back to the hospital; remember?”
she relaxed marginally.

“Yes.”

“Then after that, at the club, remember then?” she nodded,
“I’m the same guy who was there for you back then Red, same man. I’m sorry I
dropped off the face of the earth, it was a dick move and it’s not gonna happen
again,” I whispered and I kissed her and this time she was so beautifully
responsive, her lips parted beneath mine and pressed back soft and sweet. I
flicked my tongue against her lower lip and with this soft little sigh she let
me in, her tongue finding mine, stroking. I pulled her so tightly against my
body, she was so warm and soft and Christ
what was that fucking phenomenal
smell!?
Whatever she wore drove me absolutely fucking crazy! Such a pure,
clean and delicate floral scent.

Her hands drifted to my chest from my shoulders and she
pressed a little, I pulled her tighter against me, God I wanted her so bad it
hurt! No, really, I was so fucking hard in my shorts I thought I was gonna
split my foreskin. The image cooled me off just a bit along with a more
insistent shove from my Red. I let her break the kiss, her impassioned gasp
twisting me up inside.

“I need a little room to breathe please,” she said and
patted her hands where they rested on the chest of my thin, sleeveless, Misfits
tee. An old favorite of mine. I took a step back, my hands coming to rest on
her hips and gave both of us a little breathing room.

“Sorry Sugar, too easy to get carried away with you,” I told
her honestly. I took her by the hands and she followed me in to the living room
only a little reluctantly. I sat down on the couch, well, laid down really,
propping my head on the arm, one leg resting along the back, the other bent,
foot planted on the floor. I pulled her down to sit between my legs, swept the
remote off the coffee table and propped it on my knee.

“Come here, no play tonight, I just want to hold you.”

I took a hold of Red’s hands and I gently tugged, guiding her
to lay down. She shifted her hip to make sure she wouldn’t crush the family jewels
and laid her legs sideways on the expanse of the couch, twisting her upper
body, her ear resting over my heart. I smiled, one hand on the nape of her
neck, massaging. The other I smoothed up and down her silk clad back.

“I like this,” I murmured, and switched on the TV.
Truthfully the only way I’d like it more is if I’d been smart enough to sweep
off my shirt before getting her against me. Felt like too much material was
between us as it was. I switched the television over to the blu-ray player and
brought up Netflix, I’d spent enough time over here as a prospect while the
girls were out doing girl things to know what was up. Although now that I had
more perspective, Red bolting for and shutting herself into her room made more
sense.

“Me too,” she said after a minute, her voice was timid like
she expected judgment or for me to ravish her or something and it derailed my
train of thought completely.

She was a bit stiff in my arms, but slowly began to unwind.
I got things picked up where she’d left off in the series, tossing my hat onto
floor by us, the bill had been digging uncomfortably and the damn thing didn’t
want to stay on with my head laying against the arm of the couch. I held on to her
through the mild fidgeting to get comfortable, one hand continuing to rub the
tension from the muscles in her neck, the other smoothing up and down her back
until with a soft, gasped out little sigh, she relaxed completely. Sometime
later I pulled the throw on the back of the couch down over the top of her to
keep her warm. I don’t think it was long after that both of us were out like a
traffic light.