Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 63608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
I turn. “What now?”
He jerks his thumb toward the main room. “Your girl’s gettin’ attention.”
My heart stops.
I’m out of the room before anyone can blink.
Kelly is still on the couch, but now one of the prospects is too close. Not touching her, not talking to her, just standing there like he thinks proximity is some kind of invitation.
Kelly looks uncomfortable. Eyes darting. Shoulders tight.
I’m across the room in three strides.
“Move, dipshit.” I growl.
The guy blinks. “Riot, I wasn’t—”
“I said move.”
He moves.
My voice is tight. The one that freezes grown men.
Kelly’s eyes widen as I drop onto the couch beside her, my knee brushing hers, my presence a wall between her and everyone else.
“You okay?” I whisper as I lean into her my lips to her temple.
She nods, but her hands shake. “He didn’t say anything,” she whispers. “Just stared like a weirdo.”
“You’re not to be stared at,” I explain, far too sharply.
Her brows lift in surprise.
“Sorry,” I mutter. “Didn’t mean to.”
“No,” she interrupts with a soft smile leaning into me. “I don’t mind you being protective.” She looks down at her hands, cheeks warming. It all feels right, natural. “It actually helps.”
I swallow hard.
“Then you’ll get a lot of it,” I assure her quietly.
Her eyes meet mine. They are warm, confused, and yet still wanting. She shifts closer. Just an inch. But I feel it like a brand against my skin. I look away before I do something stupid. Like pull her into my lap in front of the entire club.
“Ledger.” Her voice pulls me back. Soft. Shaky. “Can we talk somewhere that is um, not here?”
My pulse jumps.
“Yeah,” I say. “Come on.”
Shaft watches us go with a knowing smirk. I flip him off. Kelly doesn’t see it.
I take her to the back hall, near the storage room a quiet corner where only patched members walk through.
She leans against the wall, breathing a little harder than normal. I’m about to ask if she’s dizzy when she asks, “Why do you always put yourself between me and everything else?”
I blink.
She gestures weakly. “At the cabin. At the bakery. In the truck. Here. You always step in front.” Her voice trembles. “It’s like you know what scares me before I know it.”
I stare at her. At the soft flush in her cheeks. The way her hands rest against the wall. Her curls falling over her shoulder.
Her ribs visible under her shirt because she’s still losing weight from the accident. Her bruises half-faded but still there. Her eyes too bright, yet still lost.
I breathe in slowly. “Because I’ve always known,” I give her the truth.
Her breath stutters. “Known what?”
“How to read you.”
She swallows. Hard. I step closer, just half a step, giving her room to stop me if she wants to.
She doesn’t. Exactly as I expect.
“You used to get anxious in crowds,” I whisper leaning down letting my breath fall hot on her neck. “You’d twist your fingers in your apron. You’d stare at the floor. You’d press your tongue to the back of your teeth when you were overwhelmed.”
Her hand lifts instinctively toward her mouth. I gently catch her wrist like I always do, not tight, just enough to steady her.
“You’re doing it now,” I say.
Her cheeks flush deeper.
“You were always easy to read for me,” I continue. “Always. I knew when you wanted space. I knew when you needed me to step closer. I knew when you were faking a smile at work. I knew when something scared you.”
Her eyes glisten. “And now?”
“And now I know you’re trying to stay calm even though everything in your world just got torn out by the roots.”
A tear slips down her cheek. I wipe it with my thumb, slowly, gently, deliberate.
She doesn’t pull away. “How can I trust you,” she whispers, “when I don’t know you?”
I hold her gaze, letting her see everything I’ve been hiding for months. “Your body remembers,” I tell her softly.
Her breath catches as she leans closer to me.
“And so does mine.”
Silence crackles between us, hot, intimate, electric. Her eyes shift to my mouth for a split second. I see it. I feel it.
She wants something she doesn’t understand yet.
I almost lean in. I almost give in.
But she’s injured. Confused. Vulnerable.
And I already hurt her once. So I step back. Barely. Just enough to break the moment without snapping it.
“We should get you back to the cabin,” I murmur.
She nods slowly. “Okay.”
But before I can turn fully away, she reaches out and grabs my fingers, hesitant but purposeful.
“Ledger?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t let me out of your sight.”
My voice breaks as I vow. “I won’t.”
We drive back to the cabin in silence, not the bad kind. The charged kind. The kind that says something broke open today, and once the memories catch up, it’s going to hit us both like a freight train.
And I’m not sure which scares me more—losing her again … Or having a second chance.