Twisted Steel: An MC Anthology: Second Edition by Elizabeth Knox (top 5 ebook reader txt) 📕

I fucking hated that.

Reaching out, I dragged her in, spreading my legs and settling her in between them. With one arm wrapped around her waist, I used my bad arm to reach up, my palm caressing her jaw before I slipped my fingers into her hair. I twisted the long, dark strands around them and tugged gently, earning me a soft gasp as I directed her head to the side and exposed her neck. “Don’t treat me like glass. This shit isn’t proof of how they broke me,” I growled in her ear. “It’s proof of how I came out of it in one fucking piece.”

She didn’t speak but instead reached for her dress.

My eyes followed as she pulled it up, this time right to her waist.

When I saw it, my gaze jerked back to hers, and she smiled. “Same.”

My hand slipped from her hair and moved down to cup her face. “What happened?” The soft pink scar was about six inches long and right at the bottom of her stomach, perfectly lined with her hips.

She licked her lips. “I went into labor early. Thirty-eight weeks. I had a placental abruption, so they rushed me into surgery and did an emergency C-section.” Her eyes seemed to get lost, wandering around the room as she recited a story I imagine she’d told more times than she’d like. “I lost a lot of blood and died once.”

“Fuck,” I hiss, the sharp curse making her body jerk from its daydream.

She dropped her dress and pulled back, but I moved with her.

“Kadey almost didn’t make it either. And my recovery was long. I couldn’t even hold or feed her on my own for a week or more,” she explained, scuffing her feet on the concrete. “Thank goodness for the nurses in the PICU. They mothered her when I couldn’t.”

“Your mom and dad didn’t help?”

“Nope.”

“Her dad?”

She scoffed, and I prepared myself for just how stupid the answer was about to be, already knowing this fuckhead’s track record. “He doesn’t like the smell of hospitals, so he refused to come in for the birth… you know, where I died. And then, he still wouldn’t come in to help with his little girl for the three weeks we spent there. He didn’t see her until we got home.”

“I need to stop asking,” I commented, clenching my jaw.

She waved her hand in the air. “Expecting less than nothing from him has become the norm now. So, when he delivers exactly that, I can just laugh it off because I never expected anything more, and I’m not disappointed.”

“I expect a man to act like a father for his daughter.”

“Then your expectations are too high.”

“The scar, how have I never seen that before?” I questioned as she stepped outside the garage and into the sunlight. The way it fucking lit her up was like a goddamn angel. Something I’d spent years telling myself didn’t exist, and yet here one was standing in front of me.

“I discovered the joy of concealer and high-waisted clothing.” She grinned, the wind whipping through her hair as she spun around to face me. “When I go on stage, I always opted for something that came up a little higher. Eventually, that kinda became my thing.” The smile on her face was so bright, so full of fucking life that I couldn’t imagine how anyone walked away from her—her parents, her ex, just any fucking guy walking down the street. A better man would’ve walked away, realizing this fucking woman deserved so much more.

There was a strength in her that I couldn’t describe.

That up until this point, I didn’t even know existed.

She’d been fighting for so long with no one there to have her back. Until now.

Because thankfully, I wasn’t a better man.

And I wasn’t walking away.

“Is it safe?” Scoop called from the doorway, hiding his eyes.

“Yes, asshole,” I yelled back, flipping him off as I followed Missy out into the hot fucking sun. “You coming in? Or was your plan all along just to come by and use me for my body, then leave?”

She held her hands up, still backing away from me toward the road. “When I make a decision, I like it made quickly before I have the chance to overthink it too much and talk myself out of it.”

“Yeah?” I smirked, wondering how long she was going to play this before I caught her and dragged her back inside. “And what decision needs your urgent attention?”

“I’m meant to be picking Kadey up from Mrs. Dawson in an hour,” she answered, coming to a stop at the tall wire fencing surrounding the compound. “I figured that gave me and Gem enough time to swing by and see Mitchell and tell him in more ways than one where he can shove his job.”

She turned to run, but I caught her around the waist, pulling her back against me as she giggled.

“You girls are gonna take the barmaid jobs?”

“You always gonna act like a damn caveman?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll work on it,” she teased as a car pulled up at the curb, Gem grinning and waving from the driver’s seat. “I gotta go.”

I finally let her slip from my grasp, realizing that was the whole reason she’d come out here, to tell me she wanted the job and probably grab the contracts. But we’d quickly got distracted, and after having my hands and mouth on that fucking body, I knew it was going to become a regular fucking thing.

When you know.

13

MISSY

“So, I’ll see you Monday for work!” Gemma called, her excited laughter still filling the air as she pulled off down the street.

We’d worked our last shift at The Rush.

Apparently, the contracts we’d signed said we had to give a week’s notice, and because neither Gem nor I could be bothered with the shit Mitchell would start if we didn’t follow through, we worked our time out until the end.

Though, I shouldn’t have been surprised when he only made us work behind