Chapter 3 — Cain
The intelligence reports aren't holding my attention.
It's past seven and I'm at the clubhouse staring at Marrow movement patterns that should matter more than they do.
I can't focus.
I close the laptop, this isn't productive.
Tate's at the bar talking to Holt. Diesel's in the garage. Clint left an hour ago. I should go home, get some sleep, come back tomorrow with a clearer head.
I'm on my bike heading toward her property before I consciously decide to go.
The ride takes twelve minutes.
Her property comes into view through the trees. I can see her at the back near the access road, installing something. Another camera, looks like.
She's documenting us. Smart. Also irritating.
I park near the road and walk toward her. She hears the bike, turns. Even from here I can see her pulse kick at her throat.
I stop about ten feet away from where she's working. Take in the cameras mounted to trees, the fresh No Trespassing signs. She's been busy.
"You're documenting us," I say.
"I'm protecting my property." She straightens up, hammer still in her hand.
"You think you need protection from me?"
Her eyes meet mine and hold. "I think I need documentation of who uses my land and when. That's what we agreed to negotiate."
"We agreed to meet Tuesday."
"We did. This is me preparing for Tuesday." She gestures at the camera mounted to the tree. "If you use this road before we finalize terms, I'll have a record of it."
My jaw tightens before I can control it. "The club hasn't used this road since you put up the fence."
"Good. Then the cameras won't be a problem."
We're staring at each other and the air feels different than it did in her kitchen. She's annoyed I showed up unannounced. I'm annoyed she doesn't trust my word. Neither of us is backing down.
"Why are you here?" she asks.
Fair question. "Wanted to see the property. Assess what maintenance would actually involve."
"At eight o'clock at night?"
"I work when I work."
"Without asking permission first..."
"It's not permission if we haven't finalized the easement." I gesture at where I'm standing. "And I'm on the edge of your property, not using your road."
Technically true. She knows it. I can see her frustration that I'm right.
"So what do you actually want?" she asks.
To know if what I felt yesterday was real. To know if you felt it too. To understand why I can't stop thinking about you when I should be focused on actual work.
Can't say any of that.
"To know if you're serious about negotiating or if this is a stalling tactic."
"I'm serious."
"Then why the cameras?"
"Because I've seen how this goes." She takes a step toward me and I catch the flash of real anger under her control. "Organizations say one thing, do another, call it a misunderstanding later. I want documentation."
"We're not the Devils."
She goes very still. "I didn't mention the Devils."
"You didn't have to." I take a step closer.
We're maybe six feet apart now. "You're from Detroit, you research everything, and you're treating this negotiation like enemy territory.
So either you think we're going to screw you over or you're looking for an excuse to walk away from this whole thing. "
Her anger goes cold. I can see it in her eyes, the way her spine straightens. "I'm looking for accountability. Something you might not be familiar with given how many police reports I found with your name and zero charges."
That lands. "You've been digging."
"I told you I would. I need information before I make decisions. That includes knowing who I'm negotiating with."
"And what did you find?"
"That you were present at a scene where someone ended up beaten badly enough to be hospitalized. That your club has a pattern of being just outside what can be proven. That you operate exactly like every other MC I've seen."
Every word is a cut. Clean. Precise.
She's comparing me to men who destroyed her neighborhood and she believes the comparison is accurate.
"We're not every other MC."
"Prove it."
The words snap out sharp and I watch her realize she said it before she meant to. We're too close now. Something shifts in me from irritation to something hungrier.
"You want proof," I say, voice dropping. "What would count as proof?"
"Keeping your promises. Following through on the terms we set. Not using my road without permission."
"We haven't used it."
"Yet."
"You don't trust me."
"I don't know you!"
The volume surprises us both. She's breathing harder, angry and frustrated and something else underneath that I recognize because I'm feeling it too.
"You could," I say.
The words hang there. She looks at me like she's trying to figure out what I mean.
I'm tired of this. Tired of defending myself against comparisons to men who had no code, no limits, no honor. Tired of her treating me like I'm going to prove her worst assumptions right.
Tired of wanting her and fighting it.
"You want to know what makes us different?" I ask. "What makes me different from the men in Detroit?"
"Yes." She steps closer, getting in my space. Challenging. "Tell me what makes you so different."
I move fast. Cup her face with both hands. "This."
Then I kiss her.
She makes a sound, surprise or anger or want, and then her hands are fisting in my shirt and she's kissing me back just as hard.
Fighting me. Matching me. Giving nothing.
It's exactly what I wanted.
I walk her backward until her spine hits a tree. My hands slide into her hair, grip, control the angle. She gasps and I use it, deepen the kiss, taste her. She tastes like anger and want and something I can't name but need more of.
Her leg comes up around my hip.
I catch her thigh, thick and soft under my palm, hold it there and press against her. She rolls her hips and the friction makes me groan into her mouth.
My hand slides up her thigh.
The shorts are thin. When I reach the top I realize she's not wearing anything under them. That knowledge fractures what's left of my control.
I break the kiss, move to her throat. Bite down where her pulse is jumping and she makes a sound that goes straight to my cock.
My hand moves under her tank top, finds bare skin, keeps going until I'm cupping her breast. Full and heavy in my palm. Perfect.
I squeeze and she gasps, nails digging into my shoulders through my shirt.
"Cain—"
I don't know if that's a warning or encouragement and I don't care. My thumb brushes her nipple and she arches into my hand, making that sound again.
My other hand slides from her thigh toward the center of her. I can feel heat even through the fabric.
She shoves hard at my chest.
I release her immediately. Step back. Training overrides everything else because no means no, always, no question.
We're both breathing hard. She's against the tree, chest heaving, lips swollen. I'm hard enough it's painful, straining against my jeans.
For three seconds neither of us moves.
Then her eyes drop to my crotch, land on the obvious evidence of how much I want her, and something in her expression shifts.
"Get out," she says.
"Anna—"
"No." She pushes off the tree and I can see her hands shaking. "You don't get to show up here unannounced and kiss me like that and then—" She stops. Her jaw works. "Just get out."
"I'm not sorry I kissed you," I say.
"I didn't ask you to be sorry. I asked you to leave."
"I'm coming back."
"Why?" The question comes out sharp. "Why would you do that?"
"Because you want me to."
Her breath catches. She can't deny it after how she kissed me back, how she moved against me, the sounds she made. We both know what this is now.
"Tuesday," she says, voice tight. "Seven o'clock. Bring the insurance documentation and a draft agreement."
I walk back to my bike.
The night air hits cold but does nothing to cool the heat under my skin. I can still taste her. Still feel the weight of her breast in my palm, the heat of her through those thin shorts.
I get on my bike. She's still standing where I left her, near the tree line. Not moving.
I sit there longer than I should before starting the engine and riding out.
The clubhouse is dark when I pass it. I don't stop, I keep going to my place.
Inside I stand in my kitchen replaying every second.
How she tasted. How she felt. The fury in her eyes when she told me to leave that was half anger and half want she wasn't ready to admit.
I should shower. Sleep. Be ready for actual work tomorrow.
Instead I'm hard and wanting her and furious at myself for both.
I handle it the way I handle everything I can't control. Strip down. Get in the shower. Take myself in hand and think about her underneath me, on top of me, any configuration that ends with me inside her while she's still arguing with me.
The release helps. Doesn't fix anything.
I dry off, and lie in bed staring at the ceiling.
Sleep won't come. Keep seeing her expression when I stepped back after she pushed me. Like she wasn't expecting me to stop. Like the Devils wouldn't have stopped and she was testing whether I'm different.
I stopped.
Whether that's enough to make her trust me is what I'm trying to figure out.