Page 88 of Tracking Luxe

At some point, he’d kicked the covers off him, they sat in a heap on the floor when he rolled himself out of the bed and cursed his way to the bathroom to clean himself up in the shower.

Even while dreaming he couldn’t fully enjoy what he couldn’t have, the guilt always there looking over his shoulder, reminding him what wasn’thisto have. At least his subconscious had its head screwed on right.

His body on high alert, he scrubbed against his unshaven jaw, breathing through the commotion of his head. He hadn’t dreamed of her in months, maybe longer. He thought that nonsense was done for until Malachai had proceeded his one cop campaign to take down all MC’s and started using her name against Texas as sly digs, to pull him in line. Nothing like family for knowing where the weak spots where.

He knew why he was having dreamsnowthough. Everything bad he was doing was tied to his past. To Malachai. To Addison. He could barely think one name without the other being attached. It was how it had once been.

A visible shudder streaked down his spine meeting his image in the mirror while he scrubbed his wet hair.

Shame and sin looked back at him.

When had his life turned into this giant clusterfuck? He was a regular stand-up guy once upon a time, wasn’t he? Not so long ago in fact. Now he was weighed down by secrets he didn’t even fucking want. He was trapped in a maze with no way out.

Looking down at himself, passed the hard muscle of his tattooed torso, the cock between his legs twitched with a semi-erection that wouldn’t quit, one thought of Addison and he was ready to rut, ready to commit a crime even he couldn’t come back from.

He never would.

He couldn’t.

That’s why he’d taken off, wasn’t it?Keep remembering that.

His list of felonies within his rank of treasurer in theSoulswere racking up without adding Addison to it.

Only in his debauched dreams was he free enough to do as he wanted to, by parting her creamy thighs and ramming home spilling everything onto her skin to mar her in the same dirt he carried around in his head. Shaming them both.

Addison.

It was an echo.

A wrong sound.

It had never felt right, not at all, but then, as any of his brothers would tell Texas, what weakness had ever felt right on the skin? Addictions become chains and it’s only the strong who can break free. It was still debatable if Texas was among those strong, he sure as hell didn’t feel like it.

He never spoke it aloud, wouldn’t let his tongue shape the letters. As far as Tait---Texas was concerned he’d left her behind as easily as he’d left Harrison New York years ago and had no plans to ever go back to his well-to-do hometown or to see her again. If he was honest he hadn’t missed her, either. She was a remnant, an echo of a past he no longer wanted to be part of. He wasn’t that person anymore, never was really, it had taken falling in with the Renegade Souls to finally feel at home in his own bones. He couldn’t do country clubs any more than he could gouge out his own eyeballs and smile about it. No matter how much his family wanted to shove his square peg into a round hole, the fit was just all wrong.

Feeling severed from any sense of logic, he dressed without looking at his guilt worn face again, styling his hair with products he kept on the bathroom counter, he took an inordinate amount of time choosing a tie today, tying the thick teal knot at his neck, slipping into his leather cut with the Renegade Souls emblem on the back, his corrupt sin felt like a weighted anvil around his neck, tight like the designer jeans he wore every day.

Sitting on the side of the bed he was lacing up his boots when his phone rang and rang and rang.

Tempted to ignore his twin brother, he pressed green before he could change his mind.

“What?”

“Good morning to you, too, Tait.”

Pain cranked his chest wide open. Nervous energy had him popping up the moment his boots were laced, he paced out into the wide-open plan of his apartment to grab a coffee, the phone hooked against his neck, he waited.

“Mom wants to -------”

“Nope. It’s not happening,” he cut Malachai off instantly before that conversation got any speed behind it. “Don’t even finish that sentence. She made it clear where we stand.”

“You’d say no to your own mother?”

“Absolutely,” his mother didn’t deserve the sweat on his brow if she were on fire. “Was that it?”

Malachai’s voice became muffled as though he was talking to someone on his end. Texas had a mouthful of sweet coffee when his elder brother by a few minutes came back on the line.

Nothing good came from these calls and god help him they were becoming more frequent.Change my damn number already.

---