After thanking Doretha for her kindness in letting me stay, I found myself carried back to the clubhouse in Derek's arms. Over and over again he apologises. I'm too busy staring at his black eye and busted lip. I trace it gently and he sucks his teeth frantically. I pull away, worried I hurt him.

"You didn't hurt me, if that's what you're thinking."

I blush and press my face further into his chest, even with my ex hunting me, nothing feels safer than being in his arms. It makes it worth it, all the risks, the inevitable heartbreak. I'd face it all for one last chance to be in his arms.

"Did I really frighten you?" He asks softly, nervously, as we ascend the stairs to his room. I shake my head as soon as the words leave his lips.

"I-I was just startled, I'd never seen you like that before."

"Oh." He swallows thickly and opens the door to his room. Like I'm something precious he places me on the bed, propped up against the pillows. He then sits opposite me, legs crossed, biting his nails nervously.

"We need to be honest with each other, no secrets ok? Please Elle, it's eating me alive- the not knowing."

I sit forward and kneel on my heels so I am level with Derek, looking him in the eyes.

"Are you being honest with me?" I question, jutting my chin out defiantly, hoping against hope I can back out and hide a little longer.

"No I haven't been, but I will be now, deal?"

At first I shake my head, wanting him to leave it alone, but then I look at the disappointed hurt in his eyes and start to nod reluctantly.

He holds out his arms for me and I lean towards him, I'm pulled forwards and I find myself quite suddenly in his arms. He moves, still holding me, and takes my position leaning against the pillows. Slowly, I slink down until I'm leaning against his chest, his legs outstretched and encasing mine.

His hands encase mine and he strokes my palm slowly, I let out a low sigh as I start to feel less tense about talking.

This is Derek. He's not going to hurt me.

"I'll go first," he chuckles lightly, "seeing as it was my idea to do this."

"Do we have to?" I plead, turning my head to look up into his eyes with a big begging pout.

He sighs and rolls his eyes. "You don't have to, I'd like you to, but it's not my right to force you."

"I will, but... you have to promise not to hate me after... can you do that?"

"Hate you?" He speaks like the word tastes sour on his tongue. "Elle I will always feel quite the opposite for you."

A warmth tingles across my chest and settles in the pit of my heart...that...that doesn't mean he loves me does it? He just spent hate me? That's it I suppose.

My spiral is thoughts is ended when Derek clears his throat before beginning his secrets.

"I had a happy childhood, at least until I was 11. Then my mum left me when she fell in love with someone else. I begged her not to leave or at the very least to take me with her. She said she didn't want to remember her past life, that I was better off forgotten."

Pain pangs in my chest and I nestle further back into his warm form, telling him quietly that I'm with him.

"My father was a cruel bastard, always shouting, always drinking. I suppose the one consolation to my childhood was that he was never aggressive, not with me at the very least. My mother..."

He trails off as if lost in a memory or dream. "I'm not so sure about her, if he did then I don't blame her for leaving him, I just blame her for leaving me. I was only 11, Elle, things were easy to hide from me then. And my anger at her leaving me. It consumed me. My first fight was a week after she left, the first time I won a fight was a year later."

He chuckles at that comment, I titter along with him. Trying to set him at ease, even though I'm struggling to cope with the sadness at the thought of his own mother abandoning him, and how much that must have hurt him.

"Guess I wasn't that good for a while. Until I got stronger I got the shit kicked out of me, not that I minded. I seemed to like pain it brought me. Made me feel alive."

Unable to keep my silence, I twist slightly in his arms to stroke his cheek.

"Does it still... make you feel alive I mean?"

He shakes his head slightly before leaning his head further into my caress. "Not anymore, I have something far better to live for now."

I guess it's his club or his 'brothers' as he always calls them.

"Anyway..." He continues his story, it almost feels cleansing and therapeutic to think about telling him my past. "I got in with a bad crowd, I guess you would say, started fighting for money- I had gotten so good at it, it just made sense to do so. I won thousands, strangely enough most people bet against the fifteen year old boy. But I had so much rage, such overwhelming, uncontrollable anger that I won every fight. Destroyed opponents like a wild animal would, my one consolation is that I never killed anyone. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I had. When the rage hits it's like that's all there is in my mind, maybe I'm just hot headed, maybe there's something wrong with me, but when I'm with you I don't even hear a whisper of it. Not even in the back of my head."

I never expected words to have such power, but when Derek talks to me it's like I'm permanently in a state of blushing delight. He strokes the pad of one fingertip along my cheekbone, it sets my nerves on fire in tingling bubbles of goosebumps. Derek's tone changes again as he speaks, but he continues to love my face like kisses.

"My father kicked me out of the house at 16, he told me I was on my own. He was done raising 'that bitch's son' as he told me as he threw my belongs from the house. I was homeless, convinced I was going to die bother nameless face on a street corner. But someone found me."

I can feel him smiling against my hair as he reaches the easier part of his story.

"It was Erik, Vidar's father. He took me in and gave me a roof over my head. That's where I met Vidar and he became my brother. It's where I found my calling, my family. Inadvertently, it's also where I found you."

I turn gently and look sideways up at Derek, he's smiling down at me. As if he can read my thoughts, he leans down to kiss me. It's gentle at first, our lips move slowly in sink, each telling the other words we are not yet brave enough to say. When I let out a tiny groan against his lips, it's like I unleash something in Derek, he hauls me up against him and deepens the kiss with hungry desire. It's frantic and claiming... and I love it.