He was angry.
But he was defeated.
I held his angry gaze as I pulled out my phone and called my uncle. I didn’t say much. Only that he needed to pick up the piece of shit who was currently handcuffed to a patrol car on the highway between Humphrey and Destiny, because apparently, the bag of dicks had a message for him.
Oh, and just so you know, he copped an uninvited feel on the side of the road.
What Bull would do to him afterward would be something I would never be told.
But knowing how fiercely protective the Kings were, I knew it wasn’t going to end well for him.
When I spoke to my uncle later, he lost his shit over the encounter. I was not to go anywhere without an escort. I was to carry a weapon on me even in the goddamn shower. And if anyone tried anything like that ever again, I was to put a bullet in them.
“Are you going to tell Ruger?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“No, I’m not telling him. I don’t need our sergeant-at-arms dealing with this. I’m going to handle it myself. Anyway, he’s neck-deep in personal shit in New Orleans with his girlfriend.”
“Ex-girlfriend,” I reminded him, a surge of anxiety shooting up my spine.
“Yeah, right. That relationship is like a mind-fucking carousel. They fight and break up, then get back together so often it gives me a chronic case of whiplash. If he’s not back with her, then it would be a fucking miracle.”
His words broke my heart and filled me with a sudden fear that he may be right.
And it was a reminder that my uncle had no clue about us. That he didn’t know who Ruger had become to me in the last couple of months. What we had done. What I had given him that I would never be able to give to any other man.
Before I asked Bull, I already knew I wouldn’t tell Ruger.
But when I heard his voice later that night on the phone, all of a sudden, the fact that I couldn’t tell him made me angry.
Instead, I went looking for an argument. I knew what I was doing. I was taking it out on him. And he had no idea why. Only that I was being difficult. He didn’t know that a man had rubbed his hands down my body and slid them between my thighs. That he had assaulted me. Threatened me.
Suddenly, it was all too much.
The absence.
The distance.
Astrid and the baby.
The fact that he wasn’t here with me when I needed him more than ever.
I gripped the phone tighter and let everything unravel in one giant meltdown before hanging up on him and throwing my phone against the wall.
There was only so much one girl could take in a day.
And I had reached my limit.
RUGER
The next morning, I woke up unsettled from the argument with Chastity the night before. I was tired. Flat out, beat-down tired. And last night I had barely slept, thanks to my brain choosing the lonely hours between midnight and four AM to obsess over every facet of our fight.
When I woke up I checked my phone, but there were no missed calls or messages from Chastity.
My fingers hovered over the screen as I debated calling her, but thinking better of it, I threw my phone on the bed and took a shower instead.
She had unraveled on the phone. Made accusations. Questioned me. And I could hear it in her voice… I was losing her.
Under the stream of warm water, I soaped up my body and tried to shake the after-effects of her words. Despite being haunted by them, my cock was hard and needy, so I stroked myself until I came, hoping the hit of oxytocin would ease the tension tightening my skull. But it didn’t. Because I had a feeling I had just been dumped.
Chastity hadn’t come out and said it, but there was no doubt in my mind that my girl was dumping me. She had grown wary and she was done. And could I blame her? You didn’t ride off into the sunset with your pregnant ex-girlfriend and expect the girl who owned your heart not to have a problem with it.
I felt trapped between a rock and a fucking hard place.
When I stepped out of the shower my phone pinged with a message and I launched for it, hoping it was Chastity.
But it wasn’t.
It was Astrid.
Astrid: Dr Halidad had a cancelation. She can see us at 2pm.
I had a couple of things to take care of at the clubhouse and Bull wanted me to pay a visit to a few contacts while I was still in town. So the timing was perfect. I could get it all done and be back in time for the appointment.