Chapter 11

She kicking and scratching. Which wasn't all that unusual. She'd been a violent sleeper for as long as he'd known her. And the familiar pattern of it made him think she had been for long before that. Her sleep was full of contradictions. The only time she was settled and calm, and he could lay the closest thing to love on her, and pull her against him. Revelling in the feel of her warm bronzed skin on his. And he took these moments with both hands and begged them to stay. For it was the only time they could be that close without burning the other. But as soon as they began she would switch, a flicker of her spine would alert him to the change and he'd retreat, knowing she'd be lashing out soon. And the kicking and scratching would begin. Eventually he'd wrap his hands around her tiny wrists and lull her back to calm with soothing words and kisses into her hair. And he was convinced something in her sleep conscience knew it was him, because she never directly struck him. Just the air between them and the blankets wrapped around them.

So he tessellated his fingers into hers and ignored the fact they didn't slip as easily fitted as before. Unsure if it was because he changed, or she had. And that wasn't on him. She left. But he pulled her close again and her head found the crook in his neck and they figured out the rest as her still sleep filled eyes raised to his.

'Sorry, bad dream'

'It's okay. Yah okay?'

'Yeah yeah. I'm fine'

No you're not he wants to say. But he barely remembered how to hold her.

So instead he slides one hand from hers and pulls on her torso, anchoring her more onto his chest and slides his hand under her singlet. Pressing fingers pads into the smooth skin of her back, her warm chest against his.

'It shouldn't feel this good Scotty'

'I know. But it does'

'Yeah. It does'

'I'm not sure if this is a good idea Ally'

'Have we ever been sure?'

She moved a hand across his chest, resting in the middle, warmth spreading into his skin, bringing with it flashes of hot breaths and rough scratches, of orgasms multiplying over another.

'Jesus. Fuck'

'Go to sleep Scotty'

No matter how many crow eaters he buried himself into, nothing would feel like this. Her body was the shadow he left on other women. She moved closer against him and everything else became hazy around them. Without words that risked ruining their night of comforting denial they held fast to each other, marking each other with a resin that kept them stuck together. And he just hoped her skin could lend him an extra mile so he could slow down and take a moment to admire the landscape and drape his arm over her being there this time. When it came to her skin he was a drunk driver, just trying to walk straight steps. And as a biker he knew that people said the highway becomes a flat line if you travel it for too long, he didn't know if that was true but he wanted to fly down it trying to find his pulse against her. Along her back his fingers moved like pawns across the chessboard of her body, passing up avenues of attack because he wanted to make this last. It had always felt like she was racing past him, and she'll be gone again before he knows it, without ever really coming back and he doesn't know how to ask her to stay. And he finally understands why sailers planted their lips to the ground. He does the same to her body. It's because she tastes like home.

X

He woke up before she did. Taking another moment to memorise the feeling of her in his arms. Because the whole time she'd been gone, he'd been terrified that one day he wouldn't be able recollect it with perfection. So he committed it to memory over again, before gently untangling her never ending limbs from him. She'd always been a mess of limbs in her sleep. And her violent unconscious outburst proved that that hadn't changed. But she also slept more weighted than he remembered. Like the flighty ness had begun to anchor down. That scared him more than anything else had. Because as much as he wanted to lay claim to everything about her. An owning, a protecting and a loving. He couldn't. And it wore his heart away from his chest when he realised exactly what he had let her go for. She didn't belong here. Hell, none of the women in Sons lives did. Not even Gemma really. He'd never believed Gemma was sociopathic by nature. Just as the club had created Clay, in turn, they had created Gemma. Placed in another life where blood and violence didn't rule, she'd be a fierce mother that smoked too much and swore too much and would never be on the PTA. But not what she had become...

He brought his thoughts back to the sleeping woman in his bed. She couldn't stay with him. For all the reasons they both already knew. And he inhaled deeply the cigarette he had lit, as the honest truth hung heavier in the air than the smoke. That one day you can meet someone who starts a fire in you that cannot die, but they are not always with whom you can spend your life.