Fury: Book 2 in the Vengeance MC series (10 page)

I heard every word Blaine said to Fury – the walls are paper thin in this God forsaken apartment – and while I’d like nothing more than to be angry at her for speaking out of turn, I can’t be. I know she was just doing what she thought was best, but that didn’t make my chest ache and my eyes burn any less as I listened to her.

By the time she’s finished, I have tears running down my cheeks and my breath is coming in short pants pushing me closer to hyperventilating by the second.

It continues to amaze me that after all, this time, I still react this way when I hear the details of what I went through explained in somebody else’s words. I don’t know if that makes me strange, that it’s harder to hear come from someone else’s mouth or not, but that’s how I feel. Sometimes, I can even pretend it didn’t actually happen to me when others talk about it. If I try hard enough, I can conjure the image of a faceless, nameless woman taking my place in that cell of horrors.

Curling up in the middle of my bed, I turn onto my side and face the window. Just as I can feel myself drifting off to sleep, a warm, hard body fits itself to the length of my back and a muscular arm goes around my waist dragging me closer.

“Didn’t think it was possible to be prouder of you, Ave, but I was wrong. After hearing what you went through, how much you fucking suffered, I’m all but bursting with it,” Fury whispers into the hair at the nape of my neck.

I sigh as he gives me a tight squeeze, asking,

“Why are you still here? Don’t you have better things to do than annoy me?” When all else fails, my fallback defense mechanism is sass. It always has been and it always will be.

His warm breath fans across my cheek as Fury repositions his head so that his chin is resting on my shoulder.

“No, although, Boss would probably disagree. He wanted me back at the clubhouse an hour ago, but I called him and told him not to expect me back until tomorrow. You and I have still got shit we need to discuss, and I’m not going anywhere until we do.”

Stubborn, bossy, biker.

My lame attempts to shift away from him are met with his arm constricting as tightly as a steel band around my middle. There’s no way I can escape from his grip like this. He knows it, and I know it too.

“I thought we covered this earlier. I’m not ready to talk about why you did what you did. I need time and I’d like you to respect that.”

I should have known better than to think that would be enough of an excuse to deter him.

“Yeah, and I’d agree with you if you hadn’t had plenty of time to beat the shit out of me in your head and convince yourself of why I’m the world’s biggest asshole. But seeing as you have been nursing the grudge you’ve got going for months, I’m figuring time isn’t really what you need right about now.”

“Oh, is that so?” I snap. “How would you know what I need, Fury? You don’t know me well enough to judge that.”

“I know you well enough, baby,” he purrs seductively in my ear. “I know that you want to hate me for ignoring you, but you can’t and you quite possibly hate that even more. I know you can’t bring yourself to kick my ass out because deep down, you want me here. And I know that regardless of the lies coming from your pretty mouth, you want to hear what I have to say.”

What do I say to that? Nothing, because he’s right. I do want to hear his excuses even though rationally I know that’s what they are. I also can’t bring myself to yell at him and demand he leaves. There’s something about his presence I find soothing. Just knowing that he’s here, with me, in my house is calming. I feel safe. Not that I’ll tell him as much. The man has a big enough ego as it is.

At my silence, Fury chuckles, sending sparks of awareness skittering down my spine causing goosebumps to rise on the skin of my arms.

“I hate I wasn’t around when you were hurting and needed someone to lean on baby, but you shut me out. You wouldn’t talk, not just to me, but to anyone. I was going fucking crazy pacing outside your room night and day, and I knew if I didn’t put some distance between me and your door, I would have kicked the fucker in and made everything worse. You weren’t in the right frame of mind to be dealing with me and my baggage, you’d been through enough and were trying to heal. Because that’s what it was, babe. My shit.”

I never questioned that aspect of why he left. I was fully aware he’d lost his family when he was a young boy, followed by his grandparents and then his wife. Seeing another person he cares about hurt had to have been hard for him, but it doesn’t explain why he didn’t check in like he promised.

“I heard what you said that day, you know?” I begin cautiously. “I heard every word. You promised to call every day, text, keep in contact somehow but I never heard from you. Why?”

Fury rolls me over so that I’m facing him so quickly it draws a gasp from me. Now, we’re almost nose to nose, his eyes scanning my face and his expression soft.

“Too hard, Ave. It killed me to leave you, but it would have torn me apart if I’d heard you crying on the end of the phone. There’s no way to explain this without it making me sound like an asshole, but it is what it is. I couldn’t handle texting you and having you reply that you needed me, and I wouldn’t have been able to control my reaction to you breaking down over the phone. To be honest, I wouldn’t have known what to say if you had. I barely know now. At least, when I’m here, I can hold you, dry your tears, sit with you until you come out the other side of it. Away from you? There was fuck all I could do, and that would have destroyed me more than seeing you broken like you were. It was a shit thing to do, I was a fucking coward to turn my back on you, but at the time, I thought it was for the best.”

Allowing his words to sink in, I consider all he’s said and hiss,

“Bullshit.”

“What?” He rasps.

“I said, bullshit. You leaving had nothing to do with me and how damaged I was, and everything to do with how you felt about it. Don’t pretend that it was some altruistic move on your part because it wasn’t. Bones heal, Fury. Scars fade. It was only a matter of time before the bruises were gone and the cuts had healed. Granted, my head was fucked up for way longer, but eventually, I was going to recover.”

Wrenching myself backward, putting much-needed distance between us, I continue.

“The thing is; you were my friend. One of my closest friends. Even if it was silent, I needed your support. In the beginning, I tried to rationalize it. I even had myself half convinced that your reason for leaving was just. After what you’d been through yourself, losing everyone close to you, I believed just like you did that distance was what you needed. But it was months, Fury. Months. Not days, or weeks, fucking months. And after a handful of them, I came to the conclusion that you’d lied to me. Not about keeping in touch,” I say as he goes to speak, “but about why you left in the first place. My ordeal stirred up bad memories for you. It had nothing to do with how badly injured I was, or what happened to me because you didn’t hang around long enough to find out the extent of what had happened. You had left before you knew the details. All of this, everything you did was because you couldn’t handle having to face your demons. So don’t look me in the eyes and lie to me, Fury. I’ve been fed all the lies I can handle in this lifetime and the next.”

With that, I scoot to the edge of the bed and fling my legs over the side before he can stop me. Standing beside my bed, I look down at him and take in the expression on his face. It’s a mixture of anger, guilt, and remorse. And I hate it.

I hate that I was right. None of why he left had anything to do with protecting me, but purely because he was too gutless to stay and fight. Not even for me, but fight his way through the demons he’d acquired throughout his life.

I’m not an evil person. I feel compassion, sympathy, and concern just like anyone else. But what I don’t and won’t tolerate is people playing on those feelings. Because that’s what he did; Fury manipulated me. He took those good character traits of my personality and turned them into weaknesses. In essence, he preyed on the fact that I’d blindly believe his lies and make excuses for him. And I did. I did exactly what he thought I would.

Inching toward my bathroom – the only room in my apartment with a lock on it, if you don’t include the front door that is – Fury moves faster than I’d anticipated. His hands go to my hips as he uses his powerful body to push me up against the wall, effectively cutting off my escape.

Dipping his mouth to my ear, he growls,

“Don’t mistake me sharing some of the details of my life with you as you knowing everything there is to know about me, Avery. What you know is only the tip of the fucking iceberg, and I don’t appreciate you making judgments on shit you don’t have the first clue about. Do you think because you know my family died in a house fire, my grandparents passed, and my wife was murdered that makes you the authority when it comes to what I’ve lost? It doesn’t. And if you think that because I don’t talk about that shit, I don’t sit around a camp fire sharing my feelings I haven’t dealt with it, you’d be wrong again. I came to terms with it years ago. That doesn’t mean it hurts less or the pain will ever go away, but I can live with it.”

Pressing a hand against the hard wall of muscle that makes up his chest, I demand,

“Step back.”

“No,” he snarls. “Not going to happen. Every time I give you an inch, you find another way to push me away and shut me out. Until you hear me out, you’re going to stay here where I can control, at least, your body’s reaction to what I have to say. Might not be able to stop your brain from taking a detour to crazy town, but I can sure as hell keep you from running off.”

Glaring at him, I raise my other hand, placing it on his chest and giving him a firm shove, but he doesn’t waver.

“Nuh-uh. No way. I don’t think so buddy. You can’t hold me here against my will.”

Grinning at me, Fury says,

“Abso-fucking-lutely, I can,” taking both of my hands in his, pinning them to the wall by my sides. “I already admitted I did wrong by you. I was an asshole and I made a mistake, which I’ve apologized for. There aren’t many more ways I can say I’m sorry, Ave, but even if there were, you wouldn’t want to hear them. And even though I’ve explained why I didn’t keep in touch with you while I was gone, you’ve found a way to twist my words to mean something entirely different. The truth is, it was better that way. You might not believe me now, or ever, but it was. I wouldn’t have been any good to you. I would have wrapped you in cotton wool so nothing could ever hurt you again, and that would’ve held you back. There’s no fucking way you would have come as far as you have because I would’ve unintentionally gotten in the way of you making any real progress the first time you broke down. I want nothing more than for you to find it in your heart to forgive me. And I can’t promise that I won’t ever hurt you again, but I can promise I’ll try my hardest not to.”

I want to believe him, I really do, but I don’t know if I can. He hurt me terribly. He broke my trust, and that’s not something I give lightly. Growing up in an MC, I learned how fragile trust truly is. Once it’s broken, it’s almost impossible to resurrect. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in second chances, I do. Fury, however, did such an outstanding job of destroying the faith I put in him that I don’t know if we can come back from that.

Searching his eyes and seeing the pain in them, I know he’s being truthful, but that doesn’t erase the pain he caused me.

“I need time to think about everything you’ve said,” I whisper. “It’s a lot to take in, and you can’t expect me to just forgive you because you’ve finally decided to share that with me.”

“How much time?” He asks gruffly, his lips grazing the shell of my ear.

An involuntary shudder wracks my body as his soft lips continue their journey south, caressing the sensitive skin of my neck. Stammering, I reply,

“A-a-a week. Maybe two?”

It comes out sounding more like a question, which only serves to amuse him.

“You don’t seem so sure about that, babe. How about we negotiate? I’ll give you four days, and you give me a kiss?”

“No,” I gasp when he nips the flesh of my shoulder through my shirt. “Ten days,” I counter.

“Five days, and I still want a kiss,” he offers kissing my jaw.

“Eight, and there will be no kissing.” Why in God’s name am I negotiating with him at all, I ponder as Fury continues to smile against my skin.