Chapter Four

Gina

I woke when the bed dipped and someone brushed hair off my forehead. Gentle fingers traced my cheek and chin almost reverently.

“Hey, sweetheart.”

I opened my eyes and smiled up at Falcon. “Hey, yourself.”

“How you feelin’?”

“Little strung out. You know. Like I didn’t get much sleep.” He smiled tenderly at me, but there was something in his expression I couldn’t figure out. “Is everything all right?”

Falcon glanced away before shaking his head slightly. “I have to leave in a couple days, Gina. I hope I won’t be gone long.”

Everything inside me rebelled. I shook my head before I could stop myself. Then I closed my eyes and swallowed, trying to rid myself of the lump forming in my throat.

I sat up, pushing myself back against the headboard and tucked my knees to my chest. “Of course. Just be careful.”

Falcon hesitated a moment before reaching out to carefully take my hand and I let him. “It’s early. How about I fix us some breakfast and we can talk.”

Something about the way he spoke set off alarm bells inside my head. “What’s wrong?”

He gave me a small smile. “We can talk after we eat, baby. Everything will be fine.”

“The only time people say that is when everything isn’t fine.” I should have known this thing with Falcon was too good to be true. I’d deluded myself into thinking we could have some kind of relationship where I wasn’t a whore or someone to share with his brothers whenever he wanted a thrill.

Lord knew I’d overheard several of the club girls comment how they knew none of the patched members would ever take an old lady from the pool of club whores. Made sense, I guess. I doubted it would be comfortable if you had a woman every other man in the place had been with. Which is why I should have known better than to get my hopes up that Falcon saw me as something different.

“That’s why we need to talk. So you know the whole story. Or at least as much as I know.” He very slowly brought my hand to his mouth and kissed my fingers tenderly. “Don’t give up on me, Gina. Please.” His voice was tender and full of emotion. That was the only reason I was able to nod.

I was still dressed in the leggings and oversized T-shirt I’d had on the night before. “I probably smell gross. I should change clothes.”

“You smell incredible, baby. Nothin’ trumps the smell of warm woman after she’s woken from a contented sleep.” He smiled warmly at me. “But you do what makes you comfortable.” He stood but kept my hand which meant I either had to tug away from him or get out of bed. I didn’t have the strength for the latter so I followed where he led.

“I make a mean omelet.” Falcon grinned at me. “Any requests?”

I gave him a small smile. “You know what I like.”

“Yeah.” He gave me an arrogant lift of his chin. “I do.”

A few minutes later, we each had a plate full of fluffy omelet covered in cheese. Just the way I liked it. Basically, egg and cheese. What’s not to like? It also meant this conversation was going to be as bad as I’d feared because Falcon didn’t try to get me to have anything other than the eggs. He usually put all kinds of other shit in it. Veggies or meats. Today, though. Just an incredibly fluffy egg and cheese.

We ate in silence. Well, we pushed food around on the plate. I’m not sure either of us actually ate anything.

Finally, Falcon moved his plate away. I did the same. It was a lost cause anyway.

“Just say it,” I whispered, not looking at Falcon. I knew in my heart whatever he was going to say would change our relationship. He was probably tired of having to tiptoe around me. The mere fact he’d been watching me this whole time and hadn’t approached me before now told me he was probably trying to decide if he wanted to get to know me better. Or if he could approach me for sex again. Maybe that was it.

“If you want sex, all you have to do is ask. I know you’d never hurt me.” I spoke softly, unable to look at Falcon. I couldn’t look at him told me I wasn’t ready for intimacy with him. Or maybe I was ashamed because Falcon thought he couldn’t treat me like a normal woman.

“Baby.” He took my hand and moved to kneel in front of me. As I looked down at him, I tried my best to fight back tears. He didn’t need another round of tears or weakness on my part.

“Whatever it is you have to tell me, Falcon, just say it. I can take it.”

“Let’s clear some things up first, OK?” There was an intense light in his eyes. Whatever he was about to say, he felt passionately about. “ If we ever have sex, Gina, it will be when you’re ready. You ever don’t feel comfortable with what we’re doing or where we’re headed, you tell me.” He reached up to frame my face with his hands. “I never want you to feel like you have to do something you don’t want to, Gina.”

“But… if it’s not that, are you leaving because of me?”

“No, honey.” He took a breath. “My past is murky. Before I came to Grim Road, I let a lot of people down and they died. Before that, it was me and Rattler and his sister, Joilyn.” He winced as he said the other woman’s name. “Joilyn… I don’t know what happened to her, but up until this meeting, I thought she’d died in a car wreck. So did Rattler.”

“You thought she died? Does that mean she’s not dead?”

“It looks that way. It was why we were called to the meeting. A paramilitary group has been hired to rescue a CIA deep cover operative. When this group found out who they were going after, they did some research to prepare for the job. That’s when they found out who she was in relation to Grim Road. Which is Rattler’s sister.”

When he didn’t say anything more, but looked like he wanted to, dread built inside my chest until it felt like a lead weight. “What else?” My voice was barely above a whisper.

“Yeah. What else.” Falcon looked like he was in so much pain. When he spoke, it was a hoarse rasp, like he was choking on the emotion clearly visible in his expression. And I knew.

“Joilyn. You love her.”

“I used to. I’m not ever going to lie to you, Gina. No matter how much it hurts me.” He shook his head. “I was supposed to marry her. She died. That was more than two years ago. I might not have known she was alive, but she knew how to contact me, and she never did. So it doesn’t matter if I still love her or not.”

“Yes, it does, Falcon. Your feelings matter.” I ducked my head and he let me, resting his hands on my knees as he stayed on his knees. “I understand this must be a shock to you.”

“Yeah. It is. I’m still processing, but Joilyn isn’t the important thing right now.”

“You said these people were supposed to rescue her. You’re going with them. That’s why you have to leave. Isn’t it?”

“It is. They’ve given me and Rattler the opportunity to go with them. Even if I’m not with Joilyn anymore, I can’t leave her safety in the hands of someone else. Not even men I know are competent. She’s Rattler’s sister. The three of us grew up together and relied on each other until we were adults. Even then, we had each other’s backs. No matter what. Rattler and I went into the Marines right after high school, and we sent money home to Joilyn so she could go to college. She was the smart one. Me and Rattler were grunts.”

“Sounds like you admired her a lot.”

“I did.”

“What do you think happened? I mean, with the car accident and where she’s been all this time.”

“That’s something I want to find out, but it’s not the reason I have to go with the team assigned to rescue her.”

“I don’t understand.” I was so fucking close to tears, I knew there would be no way to get much farther before I broke down. Christ, this was going to hurt. Because I could already tell there was no way I could measure up to this woman.

“Me and Rattler hadn’t been here long. We were still prospects when Rocket and Lemon first got together. Before that, we’d just come off a mission where my whole fuckin’ team was killed. Eight men and women. Rattler and me were the only two who made it. Today we learned there was a third person on that mission.”

“Joilyn?” My heart pounded. It was one more way this woman was better than me. If she’d been on the same mission Falcon had been on, did that mean she was a soldier too? Had she sacrificed her safety and freedom in the name of service? Even knowing I was likely to lose Falcon to this woman, I couldn’t hate her.

“Yeah, baby. She was the agency’s asset on the inside of that terror cell. No one told me and Rattler or we’d have burned down the fuckin’ earth to bring her home. And she’s been there ever since. Two fuckin’ years. The one thing I always promised anyone under my command was something I heard in a movie once. As a warrior, it made sense to me. Dead or alive, we all come home together. I’ve never left anyone. The fact it was Joilyn makes it so much worse.”

“Because she was your fiancée.”

“Because she was someone I considered family.”

“I understand. You need to bring her home.”

“I do, baby.”

I gave him a tremulous smile as tears overflowed and spilled down my cheeks. Falcon stood and pulled me to my feet. Instead of stepping back, though, he lifted me into his arms and picked me up. He carried me to the couch, then sat, positioning me so I straddled him and rested his hands on my hips. His expression seemed more relaxed. He wasn’t at ease by any means, but I thought maybe what he’d told me about him and Rattler and Joilyn had been something he needed off his chest.

More, I now knew he blamed himself for the death of his team. He hadn’t come out and said it that way, but for whatever reason, he felt like he’d failed them in some very important way. “I promise you, Gina, I will come back. I’ll get Joilyn back to safety, then I’m coming home.” He met my gaze and held it steadily. “To you. Then we’ll have a long talk about what we both want.”

“Just promise you’ll let me know you’re safe. When you get back. You don’t have to see me again if you don’t want to.” It hurt. God, it hurt! Falcon was a protector first and foremost. Sure, he tried to hide it under a macho exterior, but I could see that side of him in the way he’d taken care of me these last few months. There was no way he could turn his back on a woman he loved. And that woman wasn’t me. It was the woman he was supposed to marry.

“Listen to me, Gina. Really listen.” When I gave him a shaky nod, he continued. “I’m. Comin’. Back. For. You .” He said each word slowly and distinctly. “I can’t trust anyone but Rattler to get Joilyn out of whatever hellhole she’s in. But once she’s safe, I’m comin’ home. To you . Do you understand me?”

“I -- I don’t -- I don’t know.” I sobbed out the response, the dam holding back my emotions beginning to fail.

“I know I haven’t exactly earned your trust yet, but I’m asking for it. Just this once. Give me the chance to prove myself to you.”

I slowly lowered my forehead to his and sighed. The tears came faster -- it was becoming impossible to hold them back. I wanted this with everything in my being. I wanted Falcon. But I was desperately afraid my reality didn’t account for a man like Falcon. He deserved a whole woman. I was fragmented into so many pieces, there was no way to put me back together without some lingering cracks.

“God, Falcon.” I took in another shuddering breath. “Please, I’m begging you, don’t break my heart any more than it’s already breaking.”

He wrapped his arms around me then, squeezing me to him tightly. “Never, baby. I’m not ever gonna try to sell you somethin’ I don’t fully mean. I will come back. I will come to you. I’ll make sure you are given updates as often as possible and I will call you the first chance I’m able when we’re out safely.”

“You promise this isn’t a line of bullshit? Because I’m not sure I could handle it if you’re not sincere.”

“I’m completely sincere.” He rubbed my back up and down in a soothing caress. “Like I said. I will never lie to you. I’m done denying I want you for my own, Gina. Because, the more I get to know you, the more I love just being with you. So, I’m gonna do what I have to because, no matter what led her to this point in her life, Joilyn is still my best friend’s sister. She made her choice. Now, I’ve made mine.”

Falcon turned my face up to his and took my lips in a tender, soul-destroying kiss. His lips were a silky glide over mine, his tongue lapping softly. He coaxed me to open for him and, when I did, he slid inside my mouth briefly. He teased me, but I didn’t feel overwhelmed or pressured. It felt like a promise. A promise of what he could do to me if I let him. Of how good he could make sex between us. I already knew the latter. I knew part of the former, but I had the feeling we’d only scratched the surface of what he could make my body give him. I might not have been willing in the strictest sense of the word, but I couldn’t deny Falcon had pleasured me as much as I had him. Nothing he’d done to me had felt like an assault then, and I didn’t think about our encounters as anything other than pleasurable now. If my feelings weren’t normal, I guess I just wasn’t normal.

Falcon pulled back to look into my eyes. I felt like I was drowning. In him. “Falcon…”

“I’m right here, baby. Not goin’ anywhere right now. I’m stayin’ with you as long as I can before we pull out.”

“I need…” I swallowed. “I need to tell you something.”

His eyes narrowed. “You can tell me anything.”

“You never… hurt me. Not once. I was ashamed to admit it at the time, but I liked what we did together.”

Instantly, Falcon stiffened. I knew this was a bad idea, but I needed him to know this. “I’m so fuckin’ sorry, Gina. If I’d thought for one second that fuckin’ bastard Hammer was lyin’ to us when he said you were OK with him sharin’ you, I’d never have… I’d never…”

“I know. You’re a good man, Falcon. I see it every single day.”

“I’d have gotten you away from Hammer, Gina.” There was so much emotion in his voice. He swallowed several times as if he were choking on all those feelings bottled up inside him. “I’d have protected you.”

I smiled at him. “I believe that more than anything. You’re a protector. I don’t blame you for what happened. I couldn’t when I got as much enjoyment as I did. Not only that, but you were always kind.” I smiled, ducking my head again as I picked at the collar of his T-shirt. “I thought of you as the gentleman biker. You looked so rough around the edges and all dangerous with your tattoos and scars, but you were unfailingly kind to me. And you always, always asked me if I was still good with the situation. You didn’t press, but you asked. To me, that meant more than anything. The way I see it, it was my fault for lying to you.”

“No. None of that was your fault. None of it.”

“No. I know it wasn’t. But it wasn’t yours either.”

He smiled. “You’re a remarkable woman, Gina. I’ll be proud to have you on the back of my bike.”

For some reason, I felt a smile tug at my lips. Maybe I was deluding myself. Maybe he’d change his mind when he got Joilyn back -- and I knew he’d get her back. Falcon didn’t have “quit” in him when it came to something like this. So, maybe he would decide to go back to her. Until he did, though, I was going to pretend he meant what he’d just said. I’d worry about the aftermath later. For now, I was going to enjoy being with the only man I’d ever be able to love in any kind of meaningful way. I was going to take whatever he chose to give me and live in the moment. Tomorrow would work itself out. I’d deal with whatever happened when it happened because I refused to waste energy on borrowed trouble. Life was too fucking short.