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“Did you ever think about getting married?” Adelina picked at one of the silk flowers on her ample skirt.
Her voice had been so quiet I didn’t realize it was her speaking. The haunted tone could have been a ghost living in the church. I’d never been a religious man, and churches seemed like they would be prime targets for all those trapped in purgatory.
I swallowed the saliva building in my mouth. Nausea had been twisting my guts over the late morning and afternoon while Adelina readied herself, and especially when her mother pushed up her skirts to slide the garter up her thigh.
My eyes lingered now on the skirt, at about the spot where the garter would be hidden. The images before my eyes flashed like a strobe. One image of her modestly covered by the white, fluffy material, and the next of her bare calf and thigh. And finally, the vision of her tied to the table. Rinse, wash, repeat.
Flash. Flash. Flash.
These flashes were the reason I had to leave the Marines. The military couldn’t tolerate a soldier who left reality on occasion.
“Rafe?” she asked. “Did you hear me?”
I blinked furiously. Flash. Flash. Flash.
The reel was fading; I was coming back. This was a problem with me, and probably another good reason I would never find “the one.” Since that one raid and my resulting discharge, these kinds of visions stopped me cold, like wires were crossed in my brain and putting me into fritz mode.
“Rafe?” Adelina repeated.
“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “No. I never thought about getting married. It wouldn’t work.”
“Why?”
My mother made me a bastard. The war made me a freak. “I never thought about it. Besides, who’d want to be with me for eternity?” I tried for a smile, but likely failed.
“Why would that be so bad?” She tilted her head.
Genuinely shocked, I asked. “Really?”
But she changed the subject. “Do you think it would be hard to be with just one person?”
I wasn’t sure what game she was playing or what Sas had whispered in her ear. Or Graff. I couldn’t even ask as someone knocked on the dressing room door. Instinct had me twitching for my gun behind my back. Adelina moved toward the door, but I held her off.
“Who’s there?” I demanded.
“Graff,” called the man from the other side of the door, and I recognized his voice.
I dropped my hand to my side, walked over, and opened the door. “I’m surprised you didn’t just walk in.”
“Nah, man. You got me confused with the Veep.” He grinned easily. “Besides, I didn’t want to see anyone indecent.”
Graff stepped inside the dressing room, and I checked the hallway, taking inventory of the guards.
“Speaking of Sas”—I closed the door—“I thought you would be with him.”
“I’m bringing something from him.” Graff extended a box to Adelina, and her eyes lit up.
I hated that look on her face when she thought of Sas. How the fuck had that asshole won her over? He’d never been anything but a blundering jackass with her. And rough... with the whole tied up thing and then pulling her out of the rehearsal dinner last night by her arm.
His cock? Maybe? No.
It didn’t matter because I shouldn’t have these feelings. Nor should I have witnessed Sas fucking her or Graff fingering her, all the while wishing I had been in their boots.
The connection I felt to her was a flat-out sin. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was the only woman in the world who had enough patience to deal with me. She was the only one who could pull me out of my own head, and I needed to protect that.
Somehow.
There had to be a way tonotgive that up while repressing this sick temptation. While allowing her to get married to another man. I didn’t have a choice. I would remain an officer in the MC, close enough to her, but I had to create space too.
