SOLID GROUND: GODS OF CHAOS MC (BOOK TWO) by Honey Palomino Page A

close to her, but thanking the heavens that she didn’t shrink away when I did.
    I reached up to push a strand of hair from her face, and the sight of my bloody knuckles stopped me cold.  I smiled at her, shrugging.  
    “I don’t want to get blood on you,”  I said, pulling away.  I sat on her bed and she sat next to me.  “I’m sorry I upset you, babe.  I had no idea that would happen, but I should have thought it through a little better.”
    She looked away, silently accusing me of who-knows-what?  Of being a monster?  She had no idea how right she was, if that was what she was thinking.  But not anymore.
    “I want to tell you a story.  You saw my bag, I told you I was a fighter before, and when you asked why I stopped, I changed the subject.”  I took a deep breath, the memories flooding back like a burst dam.  “ I don’t like to talk about it…but…well, fuck, there’s no other way to say it - I - I killed a guy.  In my first fight.”
    She turned to look at me, but this time, I turned away.  I couldn’t meet her eyes.  Not while I was right there, back in the ring.
    “I don’t know how it happened, the odds of that shit actually going down on someone’s first real fight are astronomical, but it happened.  To me”
    “What happened afterwards?”  she asked quietly.
    “Nothing.  After that, I couldn’t fight anymore.”
    “That’s awful, I’m so sorry, Riot,” she said, her voice soft and tender.
    “I loved fighting.”  I continued, the words flowing easier now. “It was in my bones. Once I realized I could do it, it was all I ever thought about.  I had bet my whole future on these hands, on my dream.”  I put my hands out in front of me, looking at them.  My weapons.   “And I got burned.  I did it too well.  Or, I did it all wrong.  However you want to look at. Either way, I’m a fucking murderer.”
    Finally, I turned to face her, the tenderness in her eyes a sweet salve on the wound I had just reopened.
    “That’s why it’s safe with me and Slade.  He’s the only person I fight, unless I have to defend myself, which is rare these days.  Most people are smart enough not to fuck with a God.  Having this patch, having the brotherhood, that keeps me from having to fight.”
    “So, I’m sorry I scared you, but I want you to know I would never hurt someone willingly.”
    “It’s okay,” she said, a tentative smile lingering on her lips.  “I guess I’m just not much of a fighter.”
    I peered into her eyes and shook my head, once again, completely dumbfounded at the beauty I found there.
    “Seems to me, that’s exactly what you are.  You’ve been through so much, Lacey.  Unthinkable things.  Things that most people wouldn’t have survived.  But you did.”  I reached up again, cupping her chin and brushing my lips with hers gently, before I continued.  “You fought.  You won, baby.  You won by living through all the shit, you struggled through it, and you did it all on your own, with help from not one single person.  You’re a warrior, Lacey.  Don’t you dare forget that."
    I kissed her again, stood up and pulled her into my arms.
    “You’re the most badass fighter I’ve ever known, Lacey Hope Carrington,” I said, looking into those green depths.
    She laid her head on my chest, and wrapped her arms around me. Once again, despite my willing it to go away, my cock twitched and hardened in my jeans. 
    I should be able to control myself more.  I was pissed that I couldn’t, that my fucking body had more control than I did.  I wanted to be a good man for her, not just another asshole in the line of assholes that had treated her badly.
    I needed to do the right thing.
    And as soon as she turned her stunning eyes up to me again, the tears drying on her cheeks, the desire burned right through me, and I couldn’t stop myself.
    I caught her lips in mine, and the passion came rushing in, my mouth possessing hers, my tongue parting her