Chapter Ten
Breaker
“Are you going to finish what you started?”
Her eyes are dark, glinting with challenge and something else — something that makes my blood run hot. The whipped cream on her fingertip catches the dim garage light, a tiny white flag of surrender that neither of us is waving.
I should say no. I should get up, make some excuse, put distance between us before this becomes something I can't walk back from. The ghosts in my head are screaming warnings — Marcus, Danny, Angela, all the names carved into headstones because they got too close to me.
But her finger is still there, extended, waiting. And the way she's looking at me...
"Riley." Her name comes out rough, scraped raw. "You don't know what you're asking."
"Maybe I do."
I take her wrist again. Slower this time. Deliberate. Giving her every chance to pull away, to come to her senses, to remember all the reasons this is a terrible idea.
She doesn't move.
I bring her finger to my lips. This time, I don't just taste the cream — I taste her.
Savor her. The salt of her skin beneath the sweetness.
The tremor that runs through her when my tongue traces the pad of her fingertip.
The sharp intake of breath that tells me she feels this too, this impossible pull between us.
When I release her hand, it hovers in the air between us for a heartbeat before dropping to her lap.
"Breaker..." Her voice is barely a whisper.
"I know." I drag a hand through my hair, trying to ground myself. "We shouldn't."
"No. We shouldn't."
But neither of us moves. It feels like the world is closing in, shrinking until it's just this workbench, this moment, her eyes locked on mine.
"You're looking at me like I'm already yours," she murmurs.
The words hit me like a fist to the chest. Because she's right. That's exactly how I'm looking at her — like she belongs to me, like I have any right to claim her, like I'm not the worst possible thing that could happen to a woman already running from danger.
"I'm not a good man, Riley." The confession scrapes out of me, raw and painful. "I've done things. Violent things. Things that would make you run if you knew."
She pauses for a long moment, then sighs. “Then why did you do that with the whipped cream…? And why have me stay here at your clubhouse?”
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, playing it off. “What, waste good whipped cream?”
Her eyebrows lift. “You think you’re funny.”
“I think you started it.”
She lets out a disbelieving laugh, half-nervous, half-angry. “I was just trying to help.”
“What you did looked like a lot of things, but sure as hell didn’t look like help to me.”
Her cheeks flush; she sets down the pie tin with a clatter. “You’re impossible.”
“Been called worse.”
The words come easy, too easy, and that scares me more than anything. I shouldn’t be teasing her. Shouldn’t be standing this close, watching the pulse beat at the hollow of her throat. Shouldn’t be wanting to take more than just her finger in my mouth.
I take a step back. “You should get some rest.”
“You’re doing it again.” She crosses her arms, chin tilting up. The motion accentuates her breasts, and my breath catches in my throat.
“Doing what?”
“Acting like you get to tell me what to do.”
I sigh, drag a hand over my jaw. “Riley, I’m not…”
“Yes, you are. You’re bossy, overprotective, and you don’t even know me.”
I bite down the sharp retort rising in my throat.
She’s right. I don’t know her. But I want to.
God help me, I want to know everything — what put that tremor in her voice, what she dreams about when she’s not looking over her shoulder, what kind of smile she wears on her face when she truly feels safe.
“I’m just trying to keep you safe,” I say finally.
“I don’t need saving.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“Then stop looking at me like that.”
I clench my jaw so hard my molars grind. “Like what?”
She doesn’t look away. “Like you’ve already decided I’m yours.”
Her gaze is steady and clear, not a hint of mockery, except for the daring eyebrow she raises at me, like she’s daring me to just admit it — I want to claim her for my own.
The seconds drag on and she doesn’t move a muscle, like she’s not a little bit afraid.
The air between us stretches taut, a tripwire primed to set off something that can’t be walked back.
I should shut it down. I should turn my back and lecture her on how it’s better if we keep things businesslike. Instead, I take one slow, measured step forward. She lets out a soft, involuntary shudder, but she holds her ground.
“You think I’m possessive, Riley?” My voice is gravel, a warning I hope she’ll heed.
She snorts, but there’s a tremor at the corners of her mouth that betrays her. “Yes. And I think you’re dangerous.”
She’s right about that. In more ways than she knows.
I’m two feet from her, and all I can think about is how her lips look ringed with whipped cream and the way her pulse jumps in her throat when I say her name.
I want to press my mouth to that spot and feel the rhythm under my tongue, to taste her and take her and prove to her she’s safer with me than without, even if it’s everything I know I shouldn’t do.
I drag my hand through my hair, a rough attempt at self-control.
“I’m not a good man, Riley.”
She doesn’t flinch. In fact, her eyes soften. Some of the challenge in them folds away, replaced by warmth and a stubborn hope. “Maybe you’re not as bad as you think, Breaker.”
The words slam into me, a mixture of absolution and accusation. I want to reject them, to list all the reasons she’s wrong, but she’s looking up at me like she can see the cracks and still wants to touch the pieces.
Before I know what I’m doing, I reach out.
My fingers move to her cheek, hovering for a breath before gently tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
I half-expect her to recoil, but she tips her head into my touch, eyes fluttering closed for a heartbeat.
When she opens them, there’s nothing but clarity, and something hungry beneath it.
Every instinct in me fires a warning that this is the worst possible idea, that I am nothing more than a dangerous man built to break what she’s just barely started to rebuild.
But I can’t walk away.
I won’t.
“Tell me to stop,” I whisper, my thumb skimming the edge of her jaw. “I dare you.”
She draws a shaky breath, her lips parting as if she’s about to say the word. Instead, she looks at me, eyes dark and bottomless, and shakes her head just enough for me to notice.
“You wouldn’t listen.”
“No,” I say, losing the last of my composure. “I wouldn’t.”
For a beat, we’re locked, suspended in that charged, timeless space where everything is possible and nothing is safe. Her chest rises and falls, her breath warm against my hand. I can smell her — citrus shampoo, sweat, a hint of sugar from the pie, and something uniquely, fiercely her.
She says my name, soft but urgent. “Breaker…”
I don’t know if it’s a warning or a plea. Maybe both. Either way, it’s an invitation I’m powerless to refuse.
I close the distance.
The first touch of our mouths is nothing like I expect; it’s hesitant, almost chaste, just the barest brush of lips…
until she moans, a low, quiet, involuntary thing that’s like a floodgate opening.
I drink her in, every inch of restraint gone, my hand sliding from her face to the nape of her neck, tangling in soft hair.
She fists both hands in the front of my shirt, pulling me closer, not letting me go.
Her lips are sweet — sugar and salt and something desperate. She tastes like need, like she's been starving for this. All of it pours into me, setting every nerve alight. Whatever control I had left? Gone
She breaks away first, panting, her cheeks flushed and her eyes wide. She looks at me as if she doesn’t recognize herself, as if she’s surprised by her own boldness.
“That…” she starts, her voice unsteady. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
I rest my forehead against hers. It’s the only thing keeping me from kissing her again.
“No,” I say, voice rough and unfamiliar. “But I’m not sorry.”
She laughs, shaky and wild.
“I’m not either.”