Chapter Fourteen
THE RIDE WAS still runnin’ through my blood, wind in my face, her arms around my ribs, that damn laugh she didn’t mean to let loose. It kept playin’ over in my head sweet as sin, like some song I didn’t choose but couldn’t shut off.
I checked my watch. Midnight. Too early to sleep. Too wired to pretend.
The clubhouse walls felt too tight, so I headed out back.
The fire pit was already blazin’, big as a truck tire, flames lickin’ up into the dark, sparks driftin’ lazy against the night sky. The heat of it met the heat in my chest, but didn’t do a damn thing to settle me.
Music thumped deep from the speakers, the kind of beat that made the air pulse.
Voices rolled across the yard, drunken laughter blendin’ with the crackle of the fire.
Horse was sittin’ crooked in a camp chair, his eyes glaring at the flames, while Wrath grunted through an arm-wrestle with a prospect twice his size but half as mean.
Gearhead sat in a chair with a sweet butt in his lap, tellin’ a story loud enough the whole yard pretended they weren’t listenin’. Man had a gift for forgettin’ half the details and embellishin’ the other half until he sounded like a folk hero.
He spotted me and grinned big. “Well, look what the wind blew in.”
“I’m here,” I said, droppin’ down beside him.
“Coulda fooled me.” He nudged me with his elbow. “You got the look.”
“What look?”
“The ‘I want somethin’ I shouldn’t and I don’t wanna talk about it’ look.”
“Long day,” I said.
“That ain’t what I said,” he shot back, grinning.
Before I could answer, a blonde who’s name I couldn’t remember slid onto my lap like I’d been waitin’ for her. “Chain,” she purred, fingers walkin’ up my cut like she had every right. “You been hidin’ from me?”
“Not on purpose,” I said outta habit.
Normally, I’d lean back, let her talk in my ear, let the heat of the fire mix with the heat of her skin, and let the rest of the night blur. That was my routine. My escape. Easy, no thinkin’, no feelin’—just motion.
Tonight, it didn’t land.
She smelled like beer and perfume that cost less than the bottle it came in. Her laugh hit my ear bright and loud, but it felt wrong. Not because of her. Because of me.
Because all I could hear was Lark’s laugh—high, startled, real—when she’d thrown her head back on the bike and let the night hit her full force.
“You good?” Gearhead asked, leanin’ around the girl to look at me.
“Yeah,” I lied.
The blonde shifted, her hand slidin’ higher, but before she got where she was headin’, I caught her wrist gently but firm. “Not tonight, sweetheart.”
She frowned like she didn’t understand the words. “You serious?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh.” She slid off with a pout, struttin’ toward another brother who’d definitely say yes.
Gearhead let out a low whistle. “Well, shit. Mark this day on the calendar. Chain sayin’ no? Hell must be freezin’ over.”
“Shut up,” I muttered, not even botherin’ to glare.
He barked a laugh. “Brother, you got that look. The one where trouble found you and slapped you first.”
I watched a spark drift up from the fire. “Ain’t trouble,” I said quietly. “Just… different.”
Gearhead snorted. “Different’s worse.”
Maybe he was right.
After a while, the fire started burning hotter, the noise from the boys gettin’ louder, but none of it hit right. My skin felt too tight. My head felt too full.
I stood up.
“Callin’ it?” Gearhead asked. “Fire’s just gettin’ good.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Just ain’t feelin’ it tonight.”
I turned toward the clubhouse—and that’s when I saw her.
Lark.
She was standin’ in the upstairs window—her room—light spillin’ behind her, turnin’ her hair into somethin’ damn near halo-bright. One hand rested on the glass. Her shoulders were relaxed, but her face…
Her face wasn’t.
Even from down in the yard I caught it, that quick flicker of somethin’ raw and painful in her eyes. Maybe jealousy. Maybe disappointment. Maybe she saw that blonde on my lap and assumed things that weren’t wrong but weren’t right either.
Then she moved back, slow, the curtain floatin’ closed like she was shuttin’ me out on purpose.
And it hit me hard.
Low.
Somewhere I’d never taken a punch before.
I wanted Lark more than any woman I’d come across. Wanted her clean, not tangled up in smoke and lies.
I stood there in the dark, a woman I didn’t care about still hoverin’ behind me near the fire, the scent of smoke in my clothes, and Lark’s ghost sittin’ heavy in my chest where it had no business bein’.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath.
Inside, the hallway was quiet, the sound of the party muffled behind the walls. I paused halfway to my room, glancin’ back down the hallway, at where she’d been. Wonderin’ how much she saw. Wonderin’ why it mattered so damn much.
But that look she’d given from the window—that cut-deep flicker filled with somethin’ raw—followed me into my room. And for the first time in a long damn while, the night didn’t feel easy.
It felt like somethin’ had been broken.