Page 89 of Preacher Man

“I’m gonna need more than that, Ruby. He’s your man, and you’ve made me the other guy? I’m the one you come to for a decent fuck, is that it?”

“No. Yes. Look, can we just forget this, Asher? It’s not what you’re thinking, okay?”

“Sorry, babe. Not gonna work for me.” He strode away, sat in the only armchair in the room. Looking over at her like he was so fucking disappointed in her right now, she frowned. “We can’t be honest with each other,” he said quietly.

“Seems not,” she sighed. Her expression shattered at his statement, she reached for her hoodie, zipping it up it acted as a barrier between her heart and him, guarding herself against feeling any hurt at his mistrust.

Just sex was never just sex.

Her best friend in high-school had insisted the same thing, she’d slept with the quarterback all semester long and gotten butt-hurt when he started dating a girl who didn’t mind being seen with him outside of a bed. It's never just sex when feelings are involved. Her friend and the quarterback have been married for ten years now.

It was never just sex when people got angry for no reason.

And Preacher was angry with her. She was angry with him for changing the rules on her.

“Sebastian is important to me, but it’s not … it’s not what you’re thinking, Asher. I meant what I said about us spending time together.”

“He’s not your man?”

“No, he’s not.”

“But you love him.” His voice quiet. Accusing. He’d heard her after all.

“Yes, I do. Sometimes I think he’s the only thing that gets me out of bed every day, to keep going when.” she stopped before she said too much.

“When? What?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, Ruby. Tell me.”

In that instant the ties between them, every strand of longing and lust and goodness they’d shared the past couple of days came down to this moment, from the tightness around his lips to the stark concentration in his unwavering gaze, patient and expectant. He could wait out her stubbornness his look said.

Her body settled into a sense of inevitability, that if she didn’t confide something---anything to him now they would be done. She couldn’t expect him to believe he was the man on the side and just to take it. She supposed even bad outlaws with an even worse reputation had some moral compass and being the dick on the side probably in her guestimate wasn’t gonna cut it.

Ruby’s sigh could have blown a house down.

******

Preacher always had a sixth sense about inevitability. That day in the blazing Afghanistan sun he'd had a feeling of dread he couldn't shake all day. An awareness of things out in the dark he couldn't avoid, that awareness had kept him alive more times than he could count. Of events stacking up, paths being forged, he felt now he'd been meant to be aSoulsmember, but the events having to pile up to get him there, some were too devastating for him to even think about, every choice in life, the results of which would not be seen for years to come. Usually, these inevitable things were bad. For him, anyway. For his older brother, definitely. He wished things were different. He'd give up his patch and place in his outlaw family to have that asshat back joking around with him again.

Inevitability came in many forms and every time he let his eyes land on Ruby, he felt it kick in his chest. Was she one?

Pain collected under his ribs the moment he saw she was going to avoid it all. He swallowed back a groan.

He could force her into telling him what he wanted to know, but then she'd hate him and he’d lose her. He could force her in the ways that got her off, render her weak and begging, she'd tell him anything he wanted to know, his tiny dancer was a slave to her hormones in those few minutes between the precipices of her pleasure, she'd agreed to seeing him, hadn't she? but he didn't want to force her.Tell me of your own free will, he wanted to say.

“Are you going to tell me about what happened back there with the guy?”

He never wanted her to hear. So, in that respect, he could appreciate how she was evading spilling her own secrets. Only, his attacks and screw-ups in the past had no impact on the hook-ups, it was just majorly fucking embarrassing for her to know that. So, it wasn’t the same.

“Not right now, no. If it becomes relevant to us.”

“I’m sorry about your brother.”

“Thank you.”

"When will it become relevant?"

---