3. Rogue
ROGUE
I should go back inside. Should leave her alone with whatever's keeping her awake and go back to my room and pretend I wasn't lying there thinking about her. Pretend I didn't hear her door open and track her footsteps down the hall like some kind of obsessed creep.
Instead, I grab two beers from behind the bar and head out after her.
She doesn't turn when I approach, but I see her shoulders tense. She knows I'm here.
"Can't sleep?" I ask, dropping onto the bench beside her. I leave space between us — enough to be respectful, not enough to pretend I don't want to close it.
"Is it that obvious?"
I hold out one of the beers. She takes it, her fingers brushing mine in the exchange, and I pretend I don't feel that contact like a spark jumping between us.
"Figured you could use some company," I say. "Or tell me to fuck off. Either works."
The ghost of a smile crosses her face. "I'm not going to tell you to fuck off."
"Promising start."
She takes a sip of the beer, her eyes still fixed on the horizon. Out here, away from the city lights, the stars are thick enough to drown in. Thousands of them scattered across the black velvet sky like someone spilled a bucket of diamonds.
"It's quiet here," she says finally. "I'm not used to quiet."
"Yeah?"
"My life back home was... scheduled. Every minute accounted for.
Breakfasts, lunches, charity events, dinner parties.
Always somewhere to be, something to do, someone watching.
" She shakes her head slowly. "And now there's just...
this. Silence. Space. My own thoughts." A pause. "Turns out I'm not great company."
"You've been through a lot. It's only been two days."
"I know. That's what I keep telling myself.
" She pulls the borrowed sweater tighter around herself — one of Demi's, too big on her, slipping off one shoulder in a way I'm trying very hard not to notice.
"Two days ago I had a house. A car. A whole life, even if it was a shitty one.
Now I've got nothing except borrowed clothes and a room the size of a closet in a biker clubhouse.
" She glances at me. "I'm not complaining. I'm grateful. I just..."
"You don't know who you are without all of it."
Her eyes snap to mine. Hold there. Something passes between us — recognition, maybe. The uncomfortable jolt of being seen.
"Yeah," she says quietly. "That's exactly it. I've been Arabella Macintosh my whole life. Preston's fiancée. My father's daughter. A piece in someone else's game." She looks back at the stars. "And now all of that's gone, and I don't know what's left."
I take a long pull of my beer, buying time. I know what I should say — something light, something easy. Keep the walls up. Keep her at arm's length where it's safe.
But she's sitting there looking lost in a way that hits too close to home, and the words come out before I can stop them.
"It gets easier. Figuring out who you are when you strip everything else away." I stare at the label on my bottle, picking at the edge with my thumbnail. "Takes time. But it gets easier."
"Speaking from experience?"
"Something like that."
She's quiet for a moment. I can feel her wanting to push, wanting to ask. Most people would. Most people see an opening and they pry, dig, try to crack you open so they can poke around inside.
She doesn't. Just nods and lets the silence settle back around us.
That restraint undoes something in me. Makes me want to give her what she's not asking for.
Dangerous. This is dangerous.
"I was engaged once," I hear myself say. "Before I joined the club. I was military — deployed overseas for eight months. Had a girl back home. Kate. We were going to get married when I got back."
Bella turns to look at me, but she doesn't say anything. Just waits.
"She used to call me every week. Satellite phone, shitty connection, but she never missed a call.
Talked about wedding planning — the venue, the flowers, the fucking centerpieces.
" I laugh, and it comes out bitter. "I was sleeping in a combat zone, getting shot at, watching friends die.
And she'd tell me about table settings. I thought it was sweet.
Thought she was trying to give me something normal to hold onto. "
"What happened?"
"She was fucking someone else the whole time.
The whole goddamn time." The words are flat, matter-of-fact.
I've had years to sand down the edges. "Some guy from her gym.
She'd go from his bed to the phone to talk to me about our future.
Eight months of that. And I didn't see it coming. Not one sign. Not one slip."
Bella's quiet for a long moment. "That's not your fault."
"No?" I look at her. "I was good at reading people.
The military made me better — I could tell when someone was lying, when they were scared, when they were about to do something stupid.
I read enemies in a war zone, figured out who was a threat and who wasn't, made calls that kept my guys alive.
" I shake my head. "But I couldn't see what was happening in my own relationship.
I saw what I wanted to see. Believed what I wanted to believe. "
"So now you don't trust yourself."
The accuracy of it makes me flinch. "Something like that."
"And you keep everyone at arm's length so you never have to find out if you're wrong again."
I turn to stare at her. She meets my gaze without flinching, those dark eyes seeing way too fucking much.
"Demi talks too much," I mutter.
"Demi didn't tell me anything. I figured it out myself." She tilts her head slightly, studying me. "The charm. The smile. The way you flirt like it's breathing. It's all real, but it's also armor. You let people see exactly what you want them to see, and nothing else."
"And what do you see?"
"Someone who's tired of performing." She holds my gaze. "Someone who wants to let the mask drop but doesn't know how anymore."
The accuracy of it hits me like a punch to the chest. I should deflect. Make a joke. Slide back behind the walls where it's safe.
Instead, I say: "You're dangerous, you know that?"
"So I've been told."
"I mean it. Most people buy the act. They want to believe it, so they do. It's easier for everyone that way." I shake my head slowly. "But you see right through it. And I can't decide if that terrifies me or turns me on."
"Why can't it be both?"
The air shifts between us. Charged. Electric. Like the moment before a storm breaks.
I should back off. Should remember all the reasons this is a terrible idea. She's vulnerable, running from a psycho ex, in no state to be making decisions about men. And I'm the asshole who can't trust his own judgment, who reads everyone wrong when it matters most.
But she's looking at me like I'm something worth knowing. Like she actually wants to see the parts I keep hidden. And I'm so fucking tired of hiding.
"You want to know what I see when I look at you?" I ask, my voice rougher than I intend.
"Tell me."
"I see someone who was told her whole life that she had to be small. Had to shrink herself down to fit into someone else's box." I hold her gaze. "And I see someone who finally said fuck that and burned the box to the ground. That takes guts, Bella. That takes strength most people don't have."
Her breath catches. "I don't feel strong. I feel like I'm barely holding it together."
"Those aren't mutually exclusive."
She laughs softly — a fragile sound that does something to my chest. "You're not what I expected, you know."
"What did you expect?"
"I don't know. Someone harder. More closed off." She pauses, considering. "You have this reputation. The charming one. The smooth talker. Demi said you could talk your way into or out of anything."
"Demi definitely talks too much."
"Maybe. But I've been watching you for two days, and I don't think that's the whole story." She shifts on the bench, turning to face me more fully. "The way you are with the other guys — the jokes, the easy confidence — that's real. But it's not all of you. It's just the part you let people see."
"And you want to see the rest?"
"Yes."
The simple honesty of it undoes me.
"Why?"
"Because you're the first person in a long time who's made me feel safe." Her voice is quiet but steady. "And I want to know if that's real, or if I'm just fooling myself again."
I should lie. Should tell her it's all an act, that she shouldn't trust me, that I'm not the man she thinks I am. It would be the smart play. The safe play.
"It's real," I say instead. "Whatever else I am, that part's real."
"Good." She doesn't look away. "Then stop hiding from me."
"You don't know what you're asking for."
"I know exactly what I'm asking for." She leans closer, and I catch the scent of her — something floral underneath the plain soap from the clubhouse bathroom.
"I spent three years with a man who showed me nothing but masks.
Who said one thing and meant another. Who made me doubt my own reality.
" Her eyes search mine. "I don't want that again.
I can't do that again. So if this is something — if we're something — I need it to be real.
Even if real is messy. Even if it's complicated. "
"It'll be both of those things."
"I know."
"I'm not easy, Bella. I've got baggage. Trust issues. A tendency to push people away before they can get close enough to hurt me."
"I know."
"And I'm not going to be able to keep my hands off you if you keep looking at me like that."
Her breath catches. "Who said I wanted you to?"
Fuck.
I should stop this. Should be the responsible one. Should remember that she's vulnerable and I'm damaged and this is a disaster waiting to happen.
But she's looking at me with those dark eyes, lips parted. And I'm done pretending I don't want her.
"Last chance," I say, my voice low. "Tell me to back off and I will. I'll go inside and we'll pretend this conversation never happened."
"And if I don't want you to back off?"
"Then I'm going to kiss you. And I'm not going to be gentle about it."
She holds my gaze for a long, charged moment. The desert stretches out around us, empty and dark and silent. We're completely alone out here. No one to see. No one to interrupt.
"Then stop talking," she whispers, "and kiss me."
I close the distance between us and take her mouth like I've been starving for it.
She responds instantly, her hands fisting in my shirt, pulling me closer. The kiss is hungry, desperate, weeks of tension cracking open all at once. I cup the back of her head and angle her where I want her, sweeping my tongue against hers, swallowing the soft moan she makes.
She tastes like beer and something sweeter underneath. I want more. Want to taste every inch of her, learn every sound she makes, take her apart piece by piece and put her back together with my hands and mouth.
I pull her onto my lap without breaking the kiss, settling her so she's straddling me on the bench. Her thighs bracket my hips, and when she rocks against me instinctively, I groan into her mouth.
"Rogue—"
"I know." I kiss down the side of her neck, feeling her pulse race under my lips. "I've got you."
"I want—"
"I know what you want." I scrape my teeth against her pulse point, and she shudders in my arms. "And I'm going to give it to you. But not out here."
She pulls back to look at me, her eyes dark and dazed. "Then take me inside."
I'm about to stand, about to carry her to my room and do every single thing I've been fantasizing about for the past two days, when my phone buzzes in my pocket.
I ignore it. Kiss her again, deep and thorough.
It buzzes again.
And again.
"You should get that," she murmurs against my lips.
"It can wait."
"What if it's important?"
I want to argue. But three texts in a row usually means something, and I'm still VP even when I've got a beautiful woman in my lap.
I pull out the phone with a growl of frustration.
Three messages from Ghost.
Black SUV spotted near the diner on Route 10.
Two men in suits asking questions. Showed a photograph.
Pretty sure it's her.
The heat in my blood turns to ice.
Bella must see something change in my face because she goes still. "What is it?"
I show her the messages. Watch her expression shift from confused to scared to something harder. Something steely underneath the fear.
"They found me," she whispers.
"Not yet. Ghost is tracking them. But they're close." I grip her hips, holding her steady. "This doesn't change anything. You understand me? They can look all they want. They're not getting near you."
"Rogue—"
"I mean it." I cup her face in my hands, making her look at me. "Whatever happens, I've got you. The club has you. This doesn't change a goddamn thing between us."
She stares at me for a long moment. Then she nods, something settling in her expression. Resolution. Trust.
"Okay," she says quietly. "Okay."
I kiss her once more — hard and quick, a promise — and then I stand, lifting her with me and setting her on her feet.
"What do we do?" she asks, and I can hear the fear creeping back into her voice. "Should we wake someone up? Should we—"
"It's 2 AM. Ghost is tracking them. There's nothing we can do tonight that can't wait until morning." I take her face in my hands, making her look at me. "Right now, the only thing that matters is that you're here. You're safe. And you're with me."
"Rogue..."
"Come on." I take her hand and lead her toward the clubhouse. But I don't turn toward King's room, or the main hall, or anywhere else.
I take her to my room.
She doesn't ask where we're going. Doesn't hesitate. Just follows me down the dark hallway, her fingers tight in mine, her breath coming fast.
Tomorrow, I'll deal with the threat. Tomorrow, I'll wake King, mobilize the club, figure out how Preston's people tracked her here and how to make them regret it.
But tonight?
Tonight, she's mine.