Beyond the Horizon (Sons of Templar MC #4)(10)

I woke abruptly. My jerk hadn’t roused Aiden, who was sleeping soundly next to me, his arm thrown lightly across my midsection. He’d fallen asleep with me atop the covers, after lying and talking with me after we got home. No funny business. There was never any funny business, and he seemed content with that. It had only been a month after all, and I hadn’t exactly been in the mood that month.

I knew it would come, though, and it scared me to death. I hadn’t been with anyone since him. Three years of pining. I was like some sad, weak girl who held onto some desperate hope. Only that wasn’t what it was. It was that I didn’t want some boy to ruin that perfect memory of that night, the way Asher touched me, held me. It was the only memory I clung to after nights spent at the hospital. After having to bury my head in books on medicine after I’d watched it fail my mother. Later having to work my ass off, and keep a smile off my face even when I was dying inside. I needed it. I needed the memory of the way he made me feel.

I knew I couldn’t sleep, even though Aiden’s form kept me company in the small room, I felt more alone than ever.

I knew where I needed to go.

It was 3:00 a.m. Who went to cemeteries at 3:00 a.m? I didn’t know. I didn’t find it scary, though, the silence of the dead was comforting to me. I didn’t do well in the company of the living, so I was happy with the solitude the tombstones offered. I shivered in my jacket in the crisp air, the ground crunching beneath my feet until I stopped at a fresh grave. There was no headstone, that would come later. For now, there was only a plain white cross, with daisy chains slung around it.

“Hey, Mom,” I whispered, sinking down to my knees.

My hand pressed into the mound of dirt. Then it came. The pins and needles finally disappeared, replaced with by the pain, the utter agony of loss. I sucked in a strangled breath, a vice tightened around my chest. Tears fell onto the dirt where my mother was buried. My sobs wracked through the silent night. I knew the pain would be bad when it got to me, when it caught up. I didn’t realize it would radiate to every part of me, and that I’d drown in it.

Arms circled around me, engulfing my shaking body.

I jolted in fear, a momentary bout of terror paralyzing me until a husky voice tickled my ear.

“It’s me, Flower,” Asher muttered.

I sagged against him, letting him lift me to my feet and tuck me into his strong body. It didn’t matter we hadn’t spoken in a year, that I hadn’t been pressed against his body in three. It only mattered he was here now, to catch me when I started my free fall into the pit of grief.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured into my hair. “I’ve got you, babe. You can feel now, you can let it go. That mask you’re wearing, you don’t need it with me,” he continued softly.

And with that, with his words showing he saw straight through me, I lost it. The control, the self-preservation I’d been clinging to. I clutched his cut and sobbed, letting my tears run down the soft leather. He held me tightly against his body, murmuring into my hair, kissing my head, giving me someone. Someone to hold on to. If only for a night.

He pulled me back slightly, his head nodding down so he could meet my eyes. “Ever been for a ride on a motorcycle, flower?” he joked lightly. It was dark, but I knew there’d be a twinkle in his eye, a reference to the night we first met.

“Once,” I replied quietly.

“You like it?” he asked.

“It was one of the greatest feelings in the world,” I whispered back, unable to hide behind a mask of shyness like I usually did. It fell away with him. Everything did.

His body jolted. “Yeah,” he said, squeezing my hips. “I can think of one thing that feels better,” he added huskily.

Before my stomach could dip at that statement, he’d clasped my hand and directed us to the curb where his bike was parked. After he handed me a helmet, I hopped on silently, happy for the absence of words. I didn’t need that. I needed to plaster myself against the one body I’d known truly and intimately, the body that made me feel safe. That made me feel whole.

The ride left my worries, my grief, all of it at the curb. The only thing that existed in that moment was my body pressed against his. I didn’t know how long we rode for. Time didn’t matter. It didn’t exist. Only the road, the freedom it gave, existed in those moments. We pulled up to a shoulder on the lonely highway. It seemed we were the only people left in the world, up on the slight incline, looking at the dim morning light beginning to kiss the desolate landscape.

The motor of the Harley left us bathing in the special kind of silence only offered by early hours of the morning, before the sun was even awake. We sat like that, me still pressed against him, my head lying on his shoulder, my eyes on the horizon. Without warning, he twisted, standing to lift me and sat back down so I was straddling him.

My whole body did an internal convulse at this new intimate position. His hands framed my face.

“This is why?” he asked abruptly.

I screwed my nose up in confusion. “What is why?”

His hands seemed to tighten, and the silhouette of his head turned to regard the same horizon I had been focused on. He moved to look back at me, becoming more seeable as the light began to bathe the valley.

“Your mom, she was sick. Had been for a while I’m guessing,” he clarified.

A knot formed in my stomach at the mention of her. I only nodded.