Page 55 of Reacher
Reacher
Ididn’tknowitwaspossible to feel like more of an asshole than I already knew I was. She’d just proved me wrong. Why didn’t I even think about what would happen to her, if she was thrown out with nothing? Jesus… I didn’t deserve her, but I wasn’t going to fucking let her go without a fight.
I stared at her for a long moment, wondering what the fuck I could say that would even get through to her, with her defences up like this. I found myself stepping closer again, and dropping to my knees, my arms wrapping around her middle. I pressed the side of my face against her stomach.
“I’m so sorry, woman, I’m so fucking sorry. I have no excuse. I’m a pathetic excuse for a man. That should never have happened, and I don’t know how to make it up to you. I just… I don’t think I can live without you.”
She sighed, her hands landing lightly on my shoulders.
“You don’t throw people out when you can’t live without them, Reacher.”
I tightened my arms around her. “I want to spend my life making that up to you. Please let me try. Please. I won’t mess up like that again.”
Her hands were stroking my shoulders.
“You can’t be sure of that. I’m sure you didn’t know you’d resort to that yesterday.”
“It was the lie that hurt, Ally. I don’t care that you stole the fucking drugs. I cared that you sat in my lap and played dumb, when you knew exactly what had happened.”
I felt Ally’s nails digging into the skin around my neck.
“You know, Reacher… you have a lot of flaws. Making crappy apologies is just one of them.”
I felt a chuckle rumble through me, practically before I realised it.
“I’ll do anything you want, woman. Anything to make it up to you.”
She sighed again. She was doing that a lot, or I was making her do it, I had no idea which. I lifted my head to look at her, and she was staring down at me, her hair falling forward like a curtain of gold around her face.
“It doesn’t matter, Reacher. In the end, none of it matters. I have to leave town, and I need to do it soon, before I bring trouble to you and your club. I should never have let myself get caught up in being with you. I have to run, and I almost made it, but you sent two bastards to beat me up.”
Fucking hell. I shoved up from the floor, ignoring the way my back creaked at the sudden movement.
“I didn’t send them to hurt you. I was trying to find you and bring you back here to me.”
“You didn’t have a right to send anyone. You should have let me go.”
My hand settled against her collarbone, my fingers lightly circling the base of her throat.
“I’m never letting you go again, woman. You’re mine and the sooner you realise that, the sooner you can just stop fighting me, and bitching at me. I want you here. I want to be the onekeeping you safe. I want to be the one you turn to, when you need anything.”
Her heart had started racing, and I could feel it in her throat. It was thrilling. It felt like a response. The right response. To me. To my words.
“Stay with me, woman. Let me be your everything.”
Her breaths were longer, deeper, and her cheeks were starting to warm. She was turned on, but whether it was by me, or my words, or just our proximity, I wasn’t sure.
“I can’t,” she whispered the words as she stared up at me through her hair.
“Why?”
Her eyes lowered. “I’m in trouble, and they want me dead. If I stay here, they’ll come after everyone.”
And wasn’t that just the reminder I needed, that this wasn’t just about me and her. It wasn’t just about the woman I wanted to keep for the rest of my days at all, it was about the club too. The guy we’d tortured. The attack on Ice. Where the fuck was my brain? Clearly down below my belt somewhere.
My fingers wrapped around her throat.
“You’re going to tell me about all of that, woman. No holding back. As of a further attempt on Ice last night, we now know that the people who knifed him are connected to you in some way, so it’s time to stop hiding that shit.”
