Page 38 of Cognac Secrets

CHAPTERELEVEN

Bennie…

I listened to the cadence of her breath in the dark as it softened, deepened, and evened out. I lay awake, thinking for a long time after she began to sleep, though. The scars on her back were one thing, her caution in speaking about her family was something else.

She was afraid, and it was an almost fresh fear. I thought the math was mathing on why it’d taken her so long to talk to the cop when we’d been pulled over.

If I were a betting man, which I was on occasion but only when I knew things were mostly in my favor, I would say that she had gone no contact, had perhaps even pulled a runner, and that her family was still out there looking for her.

The odds of it were pretty even. I didn’t even really have to question why.

We all had our secrets and she was entitled to hers. I had a fair few myself.

I thought that was part of the reason I was starting to like her so much. She didn’t pry. She didn’t want to fix me or heal me by scraping at old scar tissue and wounds. She was bright, effervescent, and full of life and happiness, but she clearly knew a thing or two about the dark and chose not to let it dim her shine.

I admired her for that.

It felt good to have her in my arms, which was a complication I hadn’t exactly foreseen.

I thought this would be easy – that I’d get myself off and she’d be just like any other girl since Mia, but I knew just a few thrusts in, with the way I held her and the way she held me, that I was deluding myself on that front.

I was intrigued. I was getting sucked in, and I honestly didn’t know how to deal with that. It both felt too soon and a long time coming. It was a confusing jumble of emotions. I felt like a bottle of soda that’d been shook up. This nameless pressure building, like I was about to pop my top but it wasn’t –fuck.It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t rage. It wasn’t happiness, or joy or grief, or any of those things. I didn’t know what it was.

It felt like this itch in the center of my chest behind my breastbone. It felt like I wanted to come out of my skin and run down Bourbon, naked, screaming like a lunatic – but I honestly had no name for it.

Panic? Anxiety?

Over what, though?

Over that kind of loss again?

Shit was heavy for me and my club. There was no denying that.

Sandrine was beautiful and smart. Funny, and incredibly kind… and I didn’t want to see anything happen to her. I didn’t want her anywhere near the possibility of club shit spilling over onto her, but I also didn’t want to keep this a one-time thing.

Fuck!

I didn’t know. It was overwhelming. Like, a lot. Everything just hit me all at once, full force, like a wrecking ball to the center of my chest.

I wasn’t honestly sure if the universe could have picked a worse fucking time to put Sandrine in my path, but I also didn’t know if there could or would have been a better one.

That was the nature of this life.

I just… it wasn’t the life for her. Maybe it was a shit decision on my part. Maybe I was being a fucking cave man. Fuck, I didn’t know – but I liked her. More than I probably should. She struck a chord with me, deep in that hidden place where only Mia had reached to pluck my heart strings before, and instead of butterflies, I feared in some ways they were moths in my stomach. That kind from that serial killer movie with the demented cannibal doctor. The kind with the skulls on their backs.

I held her close, listening to her breathe, my fingertips playing back and forth over the warm, slick, ridge of scar tissue intersecting on her otherwise smooth back and found myself caught in a purgatory of wanting to be the man who kept her from ever being hurt again, and knowing I was the type of man that was guaranteed to cause her pain no matter what I did.

I just didn’t know how far I could let this go.

I knew how far I wanted to take it, and it wasn’t no friends-with-benefits scenario, but I just didn’t know if it was the right fucking thing to do.

Goddamn it.

* * *

“Why doyou look like you just sucked on a lemon?” Louie asked as I dropped into my seat around the table at the next church.

I shook my head.

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