“Nobody in Montana knows that your brother’s an MC Prez? That you lived with the club for over two years?”
“No.” She traced patterns on his t-shirt, over and over again. “I didn’t know how to explain it. It’s a damn hard thing to explain to people who are outside of the one-percenter world. They either glamorize it and think it’s sexy as all hell, or they think it’s a bunch of boys on bikes, hanging around a clubhouse and being generally disrespectful to the law. They don’t get that these are hardcore criminals that you don’t want to ever come across, and being a woman forced in to that world is nothing short of terrifying and degrading.”
“Oh, honey. I know.”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “I know you do.”
“And the kick-assedness?” he said, trying to lighten the mood a bit. “How and when did that happen?”
“Oh, right.” She laughed. “I wanted to be ready in case the Highway Hellions ever reneged on our deal, or someone came looking for me as a way to get to my brother. I kickbox five nights a week, and I learned to shoot a gun, just to cover all my bases. I have my gun license and I carry, and I’m a brown belt in kickboxing.”
“Brown? How close is that to black?”
She flashed him a grin. “One level down.”
“Damn. No wonder you almost kicked my lungs clean out of my chest.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry about that. Also about the frying pan.”
“Don’t be.” He shook his head. “You were defending yourself, and you had every right to do it.”
“Are you OK?” she asked him, running her fingers over the bruise on his face. “Did I really hurt you?”
“Nah, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“You sure?”
“Totally sure. You pack one hell of a punch, baby, but I heal fast.”
She smiled again, and he returned it. Their gazes locked and held, and suddenly, they were all alone in the world. There was nothing but them in these woods, in this cabin, in this room, in front of this fire, on this small piece of floor. Nothing else existed; nobody else existed.
“So,” she said, her voice lower than usual. “We know each other better now. In all kinds of ways that really matter.”
“We do,” he agreed.
She hesitated. “And so… can we talk about what’s happening here? Between us?”
“You want something to be happening between us?”
“Yes,” Shay said simply. “I do.”
Warren paused, searching for the right words. “Even after – after what they did to you?”
She stiffened. “Does what they did to me disgust you? Are you grossed out that I was a pass-around for an MC? I know what you think about the women at your own club, that they aren’t even worth touching.”
“What? No!” he said, aghast. “Baby, no. It’s just – there are way too many similarities between what happened to you then and what’s going on here now. I don’t want to scare you, not ever, and not if I can help it. I know you said that you’re mostly past it, but I don’t want you to go back to all of that because of something that I say or do. I couldn’t stand hurting you, Shay, not even if I did it by accident.”
Despite his reassuring words, she looked away, and he felt her pulling back from him both physically and emotionally. She was shutting down, and he had to stop her from disappearing on him. He cradled her face, tried to turn her back to meet his eyes.
“Hey,” he said softly. “Hey, honey. Look at me.”
She shook her head, tried to sit up and move away.
“Please.” He was begging, and he’d keep begging until he had her back with him. “Shay, please. Look at me.”
Finally, she glanced up, and his heart broke at the sight of her tears.
“Don’t you do that,” he said. “Don’t you think for one fucking second that you disgust me. All I see when I look at you is a beautiful survivor. You’re the strongest, most stunning woman that I’ve ever laid eyes on, and I’m still in shock that you’ll let a man like me even touch one hair on your head.”
She blinked. “Really?”
“Really.”
“So – so how does this work, Warren?” He heard both the hope and the hopelessness in her question. “I mean – it can’t work, right?”
“Truth?”
“Yes.”
“No. It can’t work, baby.” He hated to say any of this, but he hated the thought of lying to her more. “I’m in the club for life, and I know you understand what that means.”
She nodded.
“The only way we can be together is if I claim you as mine, if I make you my old lady.” He saw her blanch, and he shook his head. “I know you won’t stand for that, but you need to know that even if you asked me to, I wouldn’t do it. There’s no way I’d drag you back in to the life, not after what you went through back in Utah. And the truth is that even if you were mine and that made you safe from my fellow Fallen Angels, you still wouldn’t be anything like safe.”
“I know,” she said. “Rival clubs and people looking to hurt you boys through your women. I experienced a few lockdowns at the clubhouse when things were heating up for the MC guys.”
“And not just that kind of stuff.” Warren’s voice was hard. “The Angels work closely with Kirk Jensen, and we get up to all kinds of shit for that man. More than once over the past eight months, I’ve damn near died, and I went home those nights totally unable to believe that I was still breathing. There’s no way in hell that I’m bringing you in to that kind of mess, especially since the club rules state that you’d be Fallen Angels property if anything happened to me. If I died, then you’d have to protect yourself by making sure one of my brothers claimed you after I was gone.”
Shay shuddered and he saw the flare of anger in her eyes.
“No way,” she hissed. “No way I’d ever do that.”
“Then the rules say that you’d be kicked back down to pass-around level,” he said. “And you know what that means.”
A chill ran over her skin. “I know.”
“So, you see,” Warren said. “It can’t work between us. I think we’ve got something and I wish to hell that we could give this a shot, see where it all ends up… but we already know where that is, don’t we? It’d end up with us at the clubhouse with a bunch of criminals, and me in a body bag, and you stuck in a life that you barely escaped the first time. It’d wreck us, Shay, it’d totally destroy anything that we tried to build up together. ” He smoothed her hair back from her forehead. “You know I’m right.”
She sighed. “Yeah. You are.”
He fell silent, trying to think how to say the next thing: that they couldn’t work long-term, but they could work just for a little while. That they had no hope for anything even approaching permanent, but they could commit to something temporary. That there was no future for them, but there was the present. There was this moment.
There was now.
But was now enough for her? Would she want to be with him until this whole fucking mess ended, and he went back to the hell that was the Fallen Angels, and she went back to her safe, respectable life? Would Shay agree to something temporary, to something fleeting, to something with absolutely no future? Could she be with him just for a little while?
Warren almost asked her. He had his mouth open, and he was taking a breath to speak. Then it occurred to him that he was being a selfish asshole – again – and he slammed his mouth shut.
The truth was that he needed her. He needed her to be here in his arms, so sweet and warm, so soft and trusting. He needed all of that desperately – but he needed something else more, and in this moment, he finally knew what it was that he really needed from her.
He needed her to look at him just like this.
Shay looked at him like was a good man. Like he was the kind of man who could meet an incredi
ble woman and cook her dinner, and take her to the movies, and bring her to meet his parents. Like they could hang out on the sofa and drink coffee, and laugh, and talk about nothing. Like they could get in to bed together and make love every night for the rest of their lives.
Shay made him feel… normal.
Yeah, that was it, in the end. She made him feel like a normal man, a man with a nine-to-five job, and a power bill, and a hard-earned savings account. A man who could make her promises and then actually keep them. A man who could make her happy, and for longer than just a few days. A man who could do better than a little while, or temporary, or now.
A man who could be trusted to do right by her – and do right forever.
So, a man nothing like him, in the end. No matter how badly he wanted to be that steady, strong man for her, it wasn’t ever going to happen. Shay deserved a guy like that, and he wasn’t anything even close to it. All he could offer was the relationship equivalent of a one-night stand… though it’d be closer to a one-week stand. Not that that was much better.
So he shut his mouth, kept it shut. No way he was articulating his selfish, petty wants and needs to her. Not when he couldn’t give her what she wanted and needed in return.
Shay sighed again, but she sounded exhausted this time. Right away, he tipped her chin up, met her eyes.
“Tired?” he said gently.
“Yeah.” She fought down a yawn, and utterly failed. “Oh, God, I’m sorry. It’s totally rude to yawn in someone’s face.”
He laughed. “I don’t mind, Shay. You want to brush your teeth, climb back in to bed?”
“Ummm-hmmm.” She rolled over and tried to get up, but she was struggling. He shot to his feet, helped her up. He held her under her elbows, made sure she wasn’t wavering. “So is my bed ready?”
He paused, not sure what she was asking. “Your bed?”
“Yeah. Downstairs. That is where I’m supposed to be, right?”
Oh, no. Hell, no. No goddamn way she was sleeping in the basement. It was chilly down there, and no matter how brave of a face she was putting on it, he knew she was still in pain. The thought of Shay being away from him, cold and in agony and all alone, wrenched at his gut and his heart. She was staying close, and that was the fucking end of the matter.
And just like that, every single one of Warren’s good intentions where Shay was concerned flew out the window.
“You’re not sleeping downstairs,” he growled at her.
“I’m not?” she faltered.
“You’re not. That bed isn’t comfortable and you’re still hurting. You stay up here.” He stared at her, hard. “With me.”
“You mean…”
“In my bed. Yes.”
“With you?” she squeaked.
“Yeah. I just said that.”
“I mean – with you in the same bed?”
“You got a problem with that?”
Shay gazed up at him, not quite sure what to do or say. He’d just stated unequivocally that nothing was going to happen between them, and although she had some rebellious thoughts about that, it seemed to be a done deal from his side, and she wasn’t about to throw herself at a man who wasn’t interested.
So how did sleeping in the same bed work? Maybe his concern was strictly from a medical point of view?
“Uh,” she said cautiously. “I don’t have a problem, per se, but I don’t understand. I mean… I thought that we just decided that nothing was going on between us.” She glowered at him. “Not that I agree with that, for the record.”
His breath juddered to a stop. “You – you don’t?”
“No.” Her glower turned mutinous. “I don’t.”
He blinked at her expression, suddenly found himself beating down the urge to laugh. God, everything about this woman was amazing, and even when clearly pissed off, she was still adorable.
“OK,” he invited her. “Tell me what you think.”
“I think you’re crazy if you think that I’ll get in to bed with you and not want more.”
Now he did stop breathing, and for real. “Shay…”
“No,” she ordered him, all snarling and scary-as-crap. “It’s my turn to talk, so you just shut up.”
He did. In a hurry.
“I know that this can’t go anywhere, Warren. I do. But – we’re here now. We’re together now.” She dared to reach up and touch his cheek, ran her fingertips over his rough stubble, over the soft hair of his beard. “I want now. I want you any way that I can get you, for as long as I can get you. I just – I want you.”
He sucked in air, sure that the woman had to be a mind reader. “I just spent the past ten minutes lying on the floor, talking myself out of this very thing.”
“Really, huh?” The terrifying glare was back. “Because I just spent the past ten minutes lying on the floor, telling myself that we need to stop worrying about the future and just be here. Together. Now.”
“Just for now?” he asked, his voice so soft that she had to strain to hear him. “Just until this whole thing with your brother winds down?”
She tilted her head at him, in that sassy, gorgeous way that made him crazy. “If we took the plunge, how much time would we have together, Warren?”
He hesitated. “Maybe a week, at most. I know the plan is for you to be back at your job by the time that school’s back in session after the extended Christmas and New Year break, and that ends in ten days.”
She smiled. “Then we’d better stop wasting time and get started, huh?”
He almost fell over backwards. The realization that she was actually on the same page that he was astonished him – and freaked him right the hell out. The thought that this woman could be his, even for a short time, was like every good thing in his life had just been set down at his feet, and he was being invited to reach out and take what he desired. He was being offered a tiny piece of heaven, a glimpse of what his life could have been if he’d stayed the fuck away from the Fallen Angels.
But that wasn’t right, was it? Because if he hadn’t joined up and patched-in, then he wouldn’t be here with Shay right now. Some other guy would be – and the thought of what some other guy may have done to her made his blood run cold.
Eight months ago, Warren had set foot on a dark, twisted road… one which had led him here. To this place, to this moment.
To her.
Suddenly, he understood: that road had never been a dead end after all. It had all been about getting to her. It had always been about her.
“Shay,” he breathed. “Shay, baby…”
Her eyes flashed at his husky murmur, and everything between them changed. No more pretending, or back-and-forth, or dancing around what was happening. This was happening; they were happening.
Her gaze went to his lips, and she pressed herself to him harder, closer. His arms tightened around her amazing little body, and all he felt was her sleek curves, her soft skin.
“Warren…”
“Yeah?” he rasped.
“Kiss me.”
He’d fought it. God, how he’d fought it. But it was like a forest fire that had been smoldering and simmering for hours and hours, and then just suddenly bursting in to out-of-control flame. It was roaring hot, and huge, and wild. It was bigger than him, bigger than his worry or good intentions.
It was all he knew.
She was all he knew.
With a deep groan of surrender, he lowered his lips to hers. Her quick gasp of need was swallowed in to his mouth, and he’d never tasted anything sweeter. She was all honey and spice, all heat and silk. He’d never felt anything like her, and he was instantly, unapologetically, addicted.
His hands slid up the length of her body, gripped her head, tangled in her hair. His touch was demanding and possessive but not frightening, and she found herself yielding to Warren completely.
He was all wrapped around her, and she was enveloped in his strength and bulk.
Nothing had ever felt better. Nothing ever could feel better.
His kisses had started hot and heavy, and when she didn’t back up, he increased the intensity. He was kissing her over and over now, just holding her in place with his hands fisted in her hair, kissing her deeper and longer and stronger, kissing her like he owned her. His beard brushed her sensitive lips in the most arousing way, and all she could think about was what it would feel like to have him rubbing up against a different set of lips. Her breath started to come in gasps as she struggled for air, and her head was spinning.
“Warren,” she whispered between wicked, perfect kisses, fighting to stay vertical. “Oh, God… Warren.”
“Too much, honey?” he growled against her panting mouth, forcing himself to stop.
“No. No, I just – I think –”
Without any warning, her quivering legs gave out under her, but she didn’t fall. Of course she didn’t – he was there, and he caught her.
Warren swung her up and in to his arms, cradled her like she was the most beautiful, precious thing he’d ever held. And she was; God, she was.
“Bed time, baby,” he murmured against her tumbled hair. “C’mon.”
A wave of sheer exhaustion washed over her, unexpected and unwelcome. She fought it, but it was hopeless. She sagged in his embrace, just went limp, and he dropped a tender kiss on the top of her head.
He carried her to the bathroom, carefully set her on the floor. “You do whatever you need to in here, then you call me.” He stroked her kiss-swollen lips, already missing them. “Then we’re going to bed.”
“OK,” she whispered, dazed and feeling like her whole world had just tilted. “OK.”
He went out, shut the door behind him, and Shay stared at herself in the mirror above the sink for a while, still feeling unbalanced. She brushed her teeth, used the toilet, then went right back to staring at her own face.
She wasn’t the one-night-stand type. Not even close. She never jumped in to bed with a guy, not even a guy that she really liked and trusted. The fact that she’d actually slept with Warren for the past three nights wasn’t even the point, since she had pretty much no memory of that. As far as she was concerned, tonight was the first night that she was really getting in to his bed. She was choosing to sleep with him, and she was a woman who’d fought hard for the right to make her own choices.
Dark Curves (Dangerous Curves Book 6) Page 14
