Rake's Redemption (Wind Dragons MC #4)(5)

“Right,” I mutter, looking at my feet before back up at him. “Well, Rake. Please tell Anna and Lana I said ’bye.”

He scowls. “Stay away from them, Bailey. I don’t want you to have anything to do with me or anyone I care about. You’re nothing to me anymore. You haven’t been for a long-ass time. Now get the f*ck out of my club.”

The last line of the song plays, the words lingering between us.

They hurt.

The past hurts.

Everything f*cking hurts.

The last thing I need is to open those old wounds. I worked so hard at burying everything, at moving on. Apparently all it takes is one look at his face to bring every pain back.

So I turn and leave.

He isn’t worth it.





Rake


I watch her walk away from me, my chest feeling constricted—so tight it hurts to breathe. Seeing her again here, of all places, really has me feeling off-f*ckin’-kilter. I rub the back of my neck, staring at the spot where she was just standing.

Fuck.

I’m not him. I’m not the boy whose heart she broke, not anymore. I shouldn’t be feeling anything when I see her. It’s been years, but it feels like Bailey is still mine. She still looks good—I’ll give her that. Her brown hair still looks f*ckin’ soft and I know it would have smelled good too. Her brown eyes can still peer into my f*ckin’ soul.

I can’t see her again.

She’s nothing to me. I must be feeling like this because of the surprise of seeing her again. That’s all. Yeah, she has no hold over me.

None.

Fuck, I need a smoke, even though I quit.

“She’s pretty,” I hear Tracker say from behind, placing his hand on my shoulder for a second before removing it. “Lana seems fond of her. We gonna have any trouble with her?”

“No,” I growl instantly. “No trouble.” I turn to look at my brother. “And only I deal with her, all right? No one else goes near her.”

She’s my burden to bear. The walking example of what happens when you let a woman get close to you. My own personal walking lesson.

“You want me to call Kira back?”

“Who?” I ask Tracker distractedly.

He barks out a laugh and shakes his head. “Never mind.”

Bailey is back.

And my guard is up higher than motherf*ckin’ ever.





TWO




Two months later





Bailey


HE said what?” Tia gasps, then giggles.

I take a small sip of my coffee and hesitantly repeat, “He said that one of my boobs was the size of his head.”

She laughs harder, clutching her chest, her blond hair framing her oval face like a curtain. “Men these days. How hilarious are they? And by hilarious I mean stupid.”

I giggle at that. “Right? I think I’ve had enough dating to last me a lifetime.”

“You went on two dates after the whole Trevor fiasco,” Tia points out with a smirk. “And one ended between the sheets.”

I groan and put my coffee down on the table. “Please, don’t remind me.” I pause. “At least none of them had a foot fetish.”

“I don’t think he meant the boob thing as an insult,” she continues, blue eyes wide on me. “It would have been a compliment. He was merely making an observation. You do have huge boobs.”

I look down at the boobs in question. “Yeah, but he should enjoy them, not compare the size to his head! Maybe his head is just really small.”

Tia’s shoulders shake, and she wipes her eyes, which are starting to water. She always cries when she laughs. “The sex couldn’t have been that bad!”

I cover my face with my hands, not wanting to relive it. “It was horrible. He kept calling my . . . my . . .”

“Your what?” Tia asks, leaning closer to me. I point downward to my crotch. “Your *?” she supplies casually.

I nod.

“What was he calling it?” she asks, sounding both curious and on the verge of laughter.

I groan, yeah I’m not going to say that word out loud. “The c-word.”

Tia grins, slamming her hand down on my dining table. “A cu—”

“Yes,” I say, cutting her off. “That.”

“A little dirty talk never hurt anyone,” she huffs, lifting her mug to her lips, hiding her smirk.

“There is something seriously wrong with you,” I tell my neighbor. I moved next door to Tia over a year ago. We became fast friends, and so did our children. My daughter, Cara, and her son, Rhett, are almost the same age and spend a fair bit of time together; we take turns having each other over for meals and company. We became family in such a short time, and I love them both to death.

“I’m all for the dirty talk,” I agree. “But that word? Yeah, no. Why can’t he just say * like a normal dirty-talking man?” Even the word * sounds foreign on my tongue. Before I became friends with Tia, I never really spoke about my sex life.

When he told me he loved f*cking my c-word, I kind of wished I was anywhere except under him.

“Did he make you come, at least?” she asks, not shy at all.

“When did the two of us lose our boundaries?” I ask myself, staring at the ceiling for a second.