Meanwhile, as the women talk, I stand frozen in disbelief, almost as if I’m paralyzed.
What the fuck just happened?
Ridge
She’s angry. I can feel the heat radiating off her.
She forces a smile as she accepts everyone flocking to her, but I can see it. She is about to blow.
Grabbing her arm, I wave everyone off.
“I’d like a minute alone with my old lady. You understand, right?”
All the guys throw out jokes and dirty comments while the women give Rain a knowing look.
We aren’t sneaking off for a quickie, though. No, I’m taking her somewhere so that she can chew my ass out in private.
Thankfully, she doesn’t pull away. She allows me to pull her down the hall and into a supply closet. I see Yak is already occupying the place with a woman I have never seen.
“Out. Now,” I growl at him.
He turns and sees us.
“Oh shit. I missed it, didn’t I? Did I win the pot?” he asks as he does up his pants.
“Did you not hear him? Get the fuck out, Yak. Before I castrate you in front of your lady friend,” Rain hisses at him.
That gets him moving. He pulls the woman from the room, slamming the door behind him.
Rain tears off the jacket and tosses it on the ground, which has my own anger rising.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she screams.
I bend to pick the jacket up, dusting it off before I set it on a shelf next to me.
“You don’teverlet your patch touch the ground. You know that.” I step toward her.
“Yeah, well, you disrespected me by not informing me that you planned to take me as your old lady. Old lady, Ridge. That’s for life. You will be tied to me for the rest of your fucking life. Unless I die first. Is that what you are counting on? That I will get sick and die so you can petition for a second old lady on the basis that your first one died?”
My stomach rolls. “Fuck you for saying that. I don’t want you dead. I have spent every moment since I met you trying to keep you alive and out of trouble. As for petitioning for a new old lady, it won’t ever fucking happen. I don’t want another old lady. It will only ever be you, whether you live or die. So get that through your thick skull.”
She scoffs, shaking her head in disbelief.
“You really are a bastard, aren’t you? Taking all my choices away. Not confiding in me. This is supposed to be a marriage, but it’s a farce. It always has been. You don’t respect me, nor do you like me, and lord knows my hatred for you only grows.”
Her words burn like coal in the fiery pit of my stomach.
“Hate? You can hate me all you want, but now you are my old lady. You have protections that even Mustang couldn’t have given you. No matter where you run to or what you do, you will always belong to this club. There is no getting away from that. You have one thing wrong, though, Rain. I don’t dislike you. Far from it.” I move closer to her until she backs into the door. “I might have rejected you when you were a teen because I didn’t see you as anything but Mustang’s little girl, but my eyes are wide open now, and you aren’t that little girl anymore, are you?”
“Ridge, what are you doing? Get away from me.”
I lean in, brushing my lips on her cheek until they reach her ear.
“Hate me. Hit me. Do whatever you want to me, but never disrespect this club again. You don’t want to wear your patch, fine, but don’t youeverlet it touch the ground again.”
She pushes my chest, so I step away from her.
“Oh yeah? What are you going to do about it if I do?”