Chapter 5 #3
My heart stupidly kicks.
I hate my heart most of all.
“You can’t fuck, fight, or smartass your way through this one,” I say.
His gaze drops to my mouth for half a breath, and heat flickers there, dark and wrong for the room, wrong for my bruises, wrong for the fact that my wrists still wear fresh bandages.
When his eyes come back to mine, they are rougher.
“I know how to do more than that.”
“Do you?”
He steps close enough that I smell smoke, blood, and him. Darling makes a warning sound, but I lift a hand without looking back. My body remembers him before my pride can stop it. His mouth at my throat. His hand closing around my hip. The rough way he says my name when he is trying not to beg.
Shady stops just outside touching distance.
“I know how to wait,” he says.
The words are quiet.
I almost believe them.
Then Disco screams, “?Pendejo!”
The room breaks for half a second.
Magic snorts.
Even Diablo looks like he might lose a fight with a smile.
I look over my shoulder. Disco bobs hard on his perch, crest up, proud of himself.
“Exactly,” I tell the bird.
“?Dale! ?Pretty Lady! ?Pendejo!”
I point at him. “See? He gets me.”
Shady exhales through his nose. Almost a laugh. “Bird’s a cockblock with feathers.”
“Bird has standards.”
“Bird eats drywall.”
“Still higher standards than some men.”
That gets him. A little flash in his eyes, pain and humor tangled together. The man I wanted before the blood. The man I still want under the hurt.
No.
Not now.
I turn away before my face betrays me.
“Darling,” I say.
She is already beside me. “Yeah.”
“I need to leave.”
Shady goes still.
Diablo says, “Lady, this place is locked down.”
I look at him. “I didn’t ask about the locks.”
Darling’s hand slides into mine again.
Diablo’s mouth tightens, but he looks at her, not me. That matters. He waits for Darling.
She lifts her chin. “She can come with me.”
His eyes flash. “Darling.”
“No.” Her voice is soft, but there is steel under it now. The kind she earned the hard way. “You chose me in front of everybody. Now choose to trust me in front of everybody.”
The whole room hears it.
Diablo looks like he would rather be shot again.
Then he nods once.
“Vice and Six follow at distance,” he says.
I open my mouth.
Darling squeezes my hand. “Distance.”
I can live with that for tonight.
Shady can’t.
I feel it before he speaks.
“You’re not leaving without me.”
I look back at him.
His face is carved from control and panic, the exact combination that makes dangerous men do stupid things.
“I am,” I say.
“No.”
The word slams into the room.
My body reacts before my pride can stop it. Heat, fear, fury, all tangled. A man telling me no after I have been tied to a chair is a match in gasoline.
Shady sees it.
He closes his eyes for one second.
When he opens them, his voice is different.
Rougher.
Lower.
“Fuck. That came out wrong.”
“Did it?”
“Yes.”
“What did you mean?”
He swallows like the words are glass. “I meant I don’t know how to watch you walk out while you’re hurt and not lose my goddamn mind.”
My throat tightens.
That answer is worse because it is honest.
I step close again, even though I should not.
“You saved me from them,” I say.
His eyes hold mine.
“Yes.”
I force the rest out.
“Now I need to save myself from you.”
The room goes so quiet I hear Disco’s claws scrape softly against his perch.
Shady doesn’t move.
He doesn’t reach for me.
He doesn’t block the door.
For a second, I see the fight in him. Every possessive, biker, brutal instinct clawing to grab, keep, claim. His hands curl at his sides. His jaw locks. His body goes still with the effort of not becoming the man I just accused him of being.
Then he steps back.
One step.
It is the first thing he gives me that doesn’t hurt.
Darling moves with me toward the back hall. Disco screams behind us.
“?Pretty Lady! ?No roses!”
I almost break.
Almost.
At the door, I stop and look back.
Shady stands in the middle of Vice Ink, bleeding through his shirt, surrounded by brothers, smoke, and every truth he should have told me before another woman turned them into weapons.
His eyes are on me.
Only me.
“Lady,” he says.
I should keep walking.
I don’t.
“What?”
His mouth twists, not a smile, not even close. “I’m still coming.”
My pulse jumps.
“Don’t.”
“I heard you. I’m not following tonight. I’m not dragging you back. I’m not putting guards on you and calling it romance.” His voice drops, dark and certain. “But I’m still coming. When you’re ready to make me bleed for it, I’ll be there.”
My body lights up in all the wrong places. I hate that even hurt, bleeding, and furious, I still know what his voice would feel like against my skin in the dark.
Damn him.
Damn me.
Damn Miami for making every bad decision look good under neon.
I lift my chin.
“Bring better answers next time, gringo.”
His eyes burn.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I walk out with Darling before I can run back. Before grief turns into want. Before want turns into forgiveness neither of us has earned.
Behind me, Disco screams one last time.
“?Pendejo!”
Nobody argues.