Page 94 of Savage

“I’m responsible for you. Have been since the day you walked into that club. You came there looking for me, and all you got was an addiction you can’t slay on your own, and a heart full of hurt.”

“I had the addiction long before I came to your club, Tank.”

He nods. “That may be true, but coke wasn’t accessible to you then like it is now.”

“Well, it’s no longer accessible at all. Is it?” I say, pushing my plate away and glaring up at him, though I know he doesn’t really deserve my bitch fit. “Besides, I doubt Prez will let me set foot in his club again.”

“Prez is the one who asked me to get you straightened out. I don’t think you’ve done your dash with him yet, but you fuck up again, and you can bet your sweet fuckin’ arse he’ll wipe his hands clean of ya, darlin’. He doesn’t need your death on his hands.”

“It wouldn’t be on his hands. It’d be on mine,” I say solemnly.

“No, it would be on all of us,” he says, and I raise a brow. “The club looks after family.”

“Right. I don’t think the biker creed really applies to whores, Tank.”

“You’re not a whore, Ivy. You’re just a little lost right now.”

I shake my head and turn away from him. I can’t look into those bright blue eyes and see the sincerity in them. Because I know that even though he may believe what he’s saying, it’s not true. I’m not that girl. I can never be that girl.

I’m a whore. I was born innocent, and my father corrupted me—he stripped away all of the goodness within until there was nothing but rot left on the inside. I wasn’t born a whore, but I’ll die one. Just like I’ll die a junkie, because no matter how many promises I might make those around me, I’ve never been able to give it up. If I do, I start to remember everything. And being someone’s whore and being high all the time is far better than remembering.

Anything is better than that.

CHAPTER TEN

TANK

When we return to the cabin, Ivy goes to her room to sleep, and I put the groceries away that we’d picked up after breakfast, and then I head to the gym to work out. I’m three rounds into hitting the bag when I turn and see her sitting in the corner of the room. Her thin jumper is stretched over her knees as she balls herself up.

“Thought you were sleepin’?”

“I don’t sleep well,” she confesses, and her eyes are dark and shadowed. “It’s part of detoxing. Restless legs. And I still hear it, you know? The sound of his heavy boots thudding on the stairs, the locks, and the creak of the door. When you’re faced with that every night, you train yourself to sleep lightly.”

I slam my fists into the bag and then lean my forehead against it. “Give me a name, Ivy.”

She gives me a sad smile. “Can’t do that.”

“Why are you still afraid of him? You don’t need to be afraid anymore. You’re in my house. Under my protection—under the club’s protection. He can’t ever get to you.”

“I’m not afraid for me. I’m afraid for anyone who gets too close to me.”

I unwind the hand wraps from my fists and walk over to her side of the room. She’s already on her feet, ready to flee.

“Have I ever given you reason to doubt me? To doubt that I could protect you?” I say, pressing my hand to the middle of her chest and pinning her to the wall. Beneath my hand, her heart beats like the rapid thrum of a hummingbird’s wings. She’s so fragile, and I feel that with the sick sense of nausea of someone who wants to both hurt her and soothe her all at once.She makes me so fuckin’ crazy.

“What do you want from me, Tank?” she whispers.

I trail my rough hands over soft, milky skin, up to her neck where I grasp the base of her skull in my hands. Time and time again, I keep coming back to this place. To this thought: it would be so easy to take what I want from her. But I can’t, because nothing worth fighting for ever came easy.

I want her submission. I want her heart. I want her to look at me and not wish I were someone else. More than anything, though, I want to rid her of the belief that to love is to hurt, to feel pleasure is to hurt. And I want to wring my hands around her bastard father’s neck for making her believe it is. I want to squeeze the life from him and savour the sound of his last breath rasping through his clenched teeth.

That’s what I want.

I want her, and I can’t do a fucking thing about it. That shit is what eats me the fuck up inside, because just like she said, it’s not safe. It’s not smart to make her my world when it could so easily be ripped away from me, when it gives my enemies leverage. She’d be a tithe for the horrible shit I’ve done, collateral damage, and fuck me for being a selfish prick because a part of me doesn’t care. A part of me wants her, has always wanted her, no matter the cost, and that Tank doesn’t give a shit about the consequences.

“I want you,” I find myself saying. Ivy’s eyes widen, her brows shooting upwards with surprise, and then her expression turns cold, removed.

“No,” she says, as if that’s the end of it. As if I’m a kid and she’s telling me I can’t have ice cream before dinner. She shrugs out of my embrace. Brushing past me, she heads to the door.

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