Chapter Eight
FUCK. WHY DID Tracy pick this exact moment to throw herself at me?
I was thirty-five years old and had never had an experience like the one I’d just had with a woman. One where no words were needed. Just our eyes, pullin’ us together. Damn, it heated my blood.
And when Lark walked away, that same blood cooled for the woman in front of me.
“Not tonight,” I told her, pushin’ away.
Tracy was still laughin’ beside me, her voice high and bright, like she hadn’t just been brushed aside. But I wasn’t a man who put on a show. If I wasn’t interested, I wasn’t. Simple.
I brushed past her without lookin’ back and headed for the only noise in this place that always made sense: the poker table. Cards slapped wood. Beer bottles clinked. Curses flew with half-smiles behind them.
Spinner, Bolt, and Rune were already dealing, the table scattered with chips, crumpled bills, and glass rings from too many beers.
I dropped into the empty chair and grabbed a bottle from the center, ignoring the look Spinner shot me, wide grin, smug as hell, the kind he only got when he thought he knew somethin’ I didn’t.
“Look who decided to join instead of tryin’ his luck somewhere else,” Spinner said, leaning back like he had all night to poke at me.
Bolt tipped his chair on two legs, flashin’ that easy grin of his. “Guess the new girl didn’t bite after all.”
“Maybe she did,” Rune said, dealin’ with quick, precise flicks of the wrist, “and he’s still trying to recover.”
“Both of you shut the fuck up,” I muttered, tossing a few bills onto the pile. “Deal the damn cards.”
Rune smirked. “Someone’s touchy tonight.”
“Someone’s talkin’ too much,” I shot back.
They laughed, that low, rollin’ sound men get when they’ve bled together long enough to know what’s a fight and what isn’t.
Spinner’s ol’ lady hollered from across the room, voice cuttin’ as a knife. “Try not to lose so much like last night!”
Spinner grinned wider. “Hear that? Woman thinks she runs me.”
“She does,” Bolt said without missing a beat. “Same way Fiona runs me. Only difference is, I don’t waste breath pretendin’ otherwise.”
Rune snorted, tossing cards. “Yeah, you two are real damn inspirations.”
“Damn right,” Bolt said, throwin’ a card down hard. “Settled men, happy lives.”
Spinner raised his beer. “No reason to play with trouble when you’ve already got it at home.”
I grunted, hiding a smile. “You’re both gettin’ soft.”
“Maybe,” Spinner said. “But at least we’re sleepin’ regular.”
Their laughter rolled through the group, loud and easy, until the front door slammed open hard enough to rattle the walls.
Horse stomped in, heavy boots, heavier mood. The man looked carved from old storms, fifty-somethin’, shoulders like timber, jaw set tight enough to crack teeth. Mean on a good day, damn near feral when Brenda was pissed at him.
“Speakin’ of not sleepin’ regular,” Spinner muttered.
Bolt leaned closer to me. “Guess Brenda’s out again.”
“Fifth time this month,” Rune said, dealin’ a new hand like he hadn’t missed a beat. “I’m guessing she told him she’s done waiting on him to claim her.”
“Horse don’t listen,” Spinner said. “Still stuck in the grave with his wife. Brenda’s just the one diggin’ him out.”
I took a drink, swallowing slow. “He’ll lose her if he keeps pretendin’ she doesn’t matter.”
“Already is,” Bolt murmured. “Woman’s got a big heart but a mean line in the sand.”
Horse dropped into a seat across the room, slammin’ a beer down so hard bottles nearby rattled. No one went near him. We all knew what it looked like when a man fought the past and lost, the kind of loss that bled slow and dragged every small happiness down with it.
Rune’s eyes flicked toward the door again — subtle, but I caught it.
The man was waitin’ on Amy without admitin’ he was waitin’.
She was nineteen, maybe twenty now. Too young to drink in half the states but old enough to know better than to orbit a man who didn’t know a good thing when it stood in front of him.
Spinner noticed too. “You expectin’ somebody?”
Rune didn’t look up from his cards. “Nope.”
“Bullshit,” Bolt said. “You’ve been glancin’ at that door every ten seconds since I sat down.”
Rune gave him a flat look. “Maybe I’m just waiting for you to shut up.”
We laughed, because under the joking and talk, there was that quiet, familiar tension. The kind that shows up when a man wants somethin’ he knows he can’t have without hurtin’ it.
The hand played out quick, Rune won, Bolt cursed, Spinner accused him of cheatin’ just like always. Same old rhythm. Same old noise.
But I wasn’t in it.
My mind wasn’t on the cards or the beer or the brothers sittin’ around me.
It kept driftin’ back to the door she’d slipped through, shoulders straight, steps even, chin high like she wasn’t hurt at all by what she’d seen. Like that sweet butt’s hand on my chest hadn’t meant a goddamn thing. Like she hadn’t noticed at all.
But she had. I knew she had. I’d seen it flicker in her eyes before she covered it, quick, searing, gone as fast as breath.
And hell if that didn’t twist somethin’ in me.
Lark wasn’t soft. Wasn’t breakable. Wasn’t like any woman I’d ever had in my bed or in my hands.
She was the kind of trouble that didn’t burn out, the kind that got in a man’s bloodstream.
The kind that waited him out in silence.
The kind a man didn’t see comin’ until she was already under his skin.
I took another drink, but it didn’t settle the feeling in my gut.
If I wasn’t careful, if I kept watchin’ her the way I was, if she kept lookin’ back at me like she already knew what I wanted — that woman was gonna own me.
And I couldn’t decide if I wanted to stop it.
Or let her.