Chapter 5 Ghost
Ghost
I get the best night of sleep in my life, even if it lasts only a few hours. When I wake, it’s not to the pounding fist telling me I didn’t do well enough to cover Diesel’s tracks. Instead, it’s because of the most minor shift of Eliza’s cheek against my chest.
My eyes open, and my heart skips. Fucking skips. All because the woman who filled my dreams has an arm loosely draped around me, sleeping like there aren’t any troubles in her life.
For a long moment, I don’t dare to breathe. I just watch her, drinking in a beauty so profound it feels like a physical ache. In the pale morning light filtering through the window, her blonde hair is a tangled halo, her lips slightly parted.
Anyone can see she’s gorgeous. There’s a reason she’s been locked away. She’s dangerous in more ways than one.
Someone like me—a broken man held together by scars and a past of healing—couldn’t possibly be seen with someone so gorgeous. It’s a pipe dream. She could have any man in the world if she set her eyes on them.
Hell, she should.
The thought is a splinter of ice, but it can’t compete with the warmth of her against me.
My control cracks at its core. Carefully, I raise my hand and stroke a stray strand of hair from her cheek.
My thumb, rough and calloused, drifts lower, tracing the curve of her bottom lip.
It’s softer than I ever could have imagined.
Her cheeks are flushed hot, turning into my favorite color. What is she dreaming of? What I’d sacrifice to get a small glimpse to see what’s happening inside.
Her eyes flutter open at the brave contact.
Now I’m staring, trapped, into a pair of curious, sleep-hazy blue eyes. She doesn’t yank back. Doesn’t startle. Instead, she slowly sits up, her attention locked onto me as if I’m the only thing in the world. Blinking like she’s in a daze, her cheeks flush into a darker shade.
Slowly, as if in a dream, she reaches out to touch me.
Her fingers find my shoulder, where the map of my damage begins.
Silently, she follows the faded, ruined skin up to my neck, her thumb gently brushing the patch of rough scars from the accident.
A touch without pity, without horror. Just… acceptance.
Her teeth catch her bottom lip, and a shaky breath leaves her lips. Did she wake from a nightmare? Is that it? Her skin is prickling up, giving the telltale signs, so that has to be it.
Then her fingertips are on my jaw, her eyes trained on my mouth. Her voice is a whisper, so soft I feel it more than hear it. “Can I try something?”
I am utterly, completely lost to her. “Yeah,” I mutter, the word rough with a hope I thought I’d buried long ago.
While I couldn’t possibly imagine what she’d want to do, I’m not prepared in the slightest for what’s to come.
She leans down, and her blonde hair tickles my skin like a whisper. Then her lips meet mine, a feather-light press, so innocent and so devastating it rewrites my entire fucking history. Any kiss I’ve received in the past doesn’t come close to the simplest of brushes.
At first, I’m absolutely useless, unable to process the moment that lasted no more than a simple second. Then, when I see her frown, I know there’s more to this brush.
“If today goes badly, I want to choose who I give my first kiss to.” Muttering her reason, she doesn’t pull away.
Her words, so full of grim foresight, are a gut-punch. But the lingering softness of her mouth on mine ignites a fire in my blood.
My body reacts before my mind can catch up, my cock thickening against my thigh, every sense snapping to a razor-sharp alertness. Hers. The first. The thought alone is enough to undo me.
I cup her cheek, my fingers tangling in the silken hair I’ve been dying to touch. I’m so gone for her, it’s not even funny.
“Eliza,” I breathe her name like it’s the only word I know, my thumb stroking the pink skin next to her mouth. “Do you want a more memorable one?”
Her blue eyes widen, the surprise in them so pure it’s clear she never considered that first, chaste touch was just an opening. That there could be more. She gives a slight nod.
I don’t waste a second. Shifting to lean on my elbow, I slide my fingers through the roots of her hair. This time, I’m in control. Guiding her mouth to mine, I don’t just take. I savor. I trace the soft seam of her lips with the very tip of my tongue, a silent, teasing request to be let inside.
For a heartbeat, she freezes, and I worry I’ve pushed too far, too fast. But then a small, breathy sigh escapes her, and her lips part for me. It’s all the invitation I need.
I plunge my tongue into the sweet, wet heat of her mouth, and a groan rumbles deep in my chest. She tastes of sleep and something uniquely, intoxicatingly her. Her initial stiffness melts in an instant, her body warming beneath my touch as if I’ve lit a fuse.
She’s a quick learner, her own tongue meeting mine with a shy, then eager, curiosity. The tentative flicker soon becomes a dance, a desperate, hungry exchange that steals the air from my lungs.
My other hand slides from her cheek, skimming down the delicate column of her throat, over the frantic pulse beating there, and down to the curve of her waist. If I could, I’d want to take hours memorizing every curve and dip of her body using nothing but my fingers.
A low, wanting sound vibrates against my mouth, and I realize it came from her. The sound of her desire turns one kiss into a second, then a third.
I kiss her like I’m a drowning man and she’s my only air. Deep, claiming strokes of my tongue, punctuated by nips at her full bottom lip. I drink down every one of her soft whimpers, each one fueling the fire coiling tight and hot in my gut.
Her hand comes up to clutch at my shoulder, her nails digging into the fabric of my tank top and my skin, holding on as if she’s afraid I’ll vanish when my mouth leaves hers, then sighs in relief when I drag my mouth to her jaw, then my teeth to her throat.
I want to leave a mark, to show every man here that she’s already taken. I almost cave.
As good as this is, I’m the one who has the strength to break away before this turns into something more. If I’m not careful, I’m going to be the one to ask her if I can start kissing elsewhere.
I’d kill a man to get the opportunity to taste her without a single regret.
“You okay?” It’s a stupid question, but seeing her current state, I have to ask.
Her eyes are heavy-lidded, filled with a mirroring hunger that she might not even understand. She doesn’t speak, just gives a dazed, breathless nod before moving to her back.
“Does this place have a shower?” Covering her eyes with the inner bend of her arm, she bites down on her bottom lip. “I need one.”
The stiffness resting against my thigh pulsates at the thought, but it’s the realization that she’s going to have to use one of the stalls that makes this possessive urge claw at my chest.
“Sure.” Running a hand down my face, I try to calm myself. “Need one myself.”
Thanks to her, I’m going to need to get this hunger out of my system one way or another.
“Grab what you need. Once we’re done, we’ll take on the day.” Already dreading talking to Judge, a conversation that is unavoidable with the parties involved, I can only hope that I can clear the fog this woman brings with her, so I can think of a way to keep her at my side.
Now that I have her flavor on my tongue, there’s no way in hell I’ll be able to give her up now. She’s mine.
* * *
Eliza clings close to my back as we step into the bar area.
Unlike the night before, it’s quiet, bathed in the pale, dusty light of morning.
The air smells of stale beer and disinfectant.
She looks over my shoulder at Penelope, who is methodically cleaning, wiping down the sticky surface of a table.
“She’s still working?” Eliza murmurs, her voice soft with surprise. She follows my eyeline. “Talk about a hard worker.”
I can’t help the small smile that cracks my stern expression. “Yesterday, you probably saw Raven. This is Penelope.”
Runaway twin sisters adopted by the club before I was introduced.
Pen helps out during the day as an early bird, and her sister takes care of the ruckus as a night owl.
The one currently scrubbing the table raw is the one who refused to pour me drinks when I was meant to be kicking a bad habit all those years ago.
Hearing her name, Penelope lifts her gaze. Her eyes find me first, then flick to Eliza, who is still pressed against my back. I see the surprise there—a quick, assessing look. After all, I’m one of the few who have never entertained any of the women who have thrown themselves my way.
But the surprise doesn’t linger. It melts into something else, something warmer. A slow, genuine smile spreads across her face, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she looks at us. It’s an expression of quiet approval, of happiness for what she’s seeing.
Before the moment can stretch, I look around for any signs of life yet. “Judge made an appearance yet?”
Penelope’s smile tightens slightly, and her nose scrunches. “He’s outside the last time I saw him. Careful, though. I think he woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”
Great. Just my luck. I guess I don’t have to worry about ruining his mood if he’s already annoyed.
“Come on.” Shifting to the side so I have the excuse to touch her, I press my hand to the middle of her back and guide her toward the exit. “Let’s get this over with.”
We step outside, and the world is swallowed in a thick, silent fog. It muffles the morning, clinging to the pines and casting the compound in a ghostly, isolated shroud. Eliza pauses beside me, her eyes widening as she takes in the endless, misty woods surrounding us.
“It’s so… remote,” she whispers, the fog catching in her hair like tiny pearls. “Why are you all the way out here? Wouldn’t it be easier to be closer to town?”
A dry, humorless chuckle escapes me. “It was. When I first met Stacks all those years ago, the clubhouse was right in the heart of it all.” The memory is a sharp contrast to the quiet here—the constant roar of bikes, the neon signs, the chaos that was both a shield and a statement. “Then Julian Carter became mayor.”
Her lips purse together. “I’ve met him before. He’s a really good guy.”
Sure, maybe to those he doesn’t target. Then again, after looking into him myself, I guess I can say he’s one of the very few people who aren’t corrupted.
“His idea of ‘cleaning up the town’ involved politely evicting the element he saw as a stain,” I continue, my voice flat.
“Out here, we have less… attention. Fewer prying eyes. We still have businesses in town, an auto shop we fund, Diesel’s tattoo parlor, and a strip club.
Thanks to Judge’s careful management, our income hasn’t been cut off.
He makes sure the money finds its way home, even if we can’t. ”
I look down at her, her face pale and beautiful in the diffused light. Out here, in the middle of nowhere, she feels both incredibly safe and terrifyingly exposed. Just like me.
“Judge is the key to all of it,” I murmur, my gaze scanning the fog for any sign of movement. “And right now, he’s going to be the one person who can guarantee your freedom. You just have to let Steelwood take care of you. Even if our methods seem sketchy.”
Biting her lip, she nods. With the faintest pink on her cheeks, she looks ahead. “While I might not know what’s right or wrong anymore, I’m willing to trust you, Ghost.”
She’s got no clue what her words mean, or the way they settle in my chest. Trust is a big step toward something final, and I’m ready to race toward the finish line.