Chapter 2
“Ipinky promise you can trust me, princess. With everything and anything.” His voice was steady, really freaking confident. I wanted to believe him more than I wanted to do anything else.
I was finally across state lines. I was an adult.
More than adult since I was twenty-two. It had taken me two weeks to get across the state and into Nevada.
Staring up at the man who reminded me more of an actor from the Viking show my mom used to love to watch than a biker, I knew I had to trust in someone.
I was tired and scared, and something in my gut and heart shouted for me to take a chance on him.
“Okay,” I whispered. “I, umm, I’m running from someone.
I had to leave home.” Home. The word felt so foreign.
That place hadn’t felt like home since my mom had brought her new husband to live in it.
I’d known that. My sister had known that, too.
It was why the moment she turned eighteen, she’d walked out the front door with all her things and never looked back. Not that I blamed her.
“Your man?” I shook my head, unable to stop the look of disgust that graced my face.
“No, nothing like that.” I’d never dated.
Not really. “Umm… my mom, she…” My breathing hitched in the middle of my chest. The ache of grief and everything I’d left behind hit like a riptide ready to pull me under.
But this wasn’t the time to cry about any of that.
I’d had to do what I’d needed to. “She was sick and, well...” I shrugged and watched as his blue eyes softened.
This gentle giant of a man simply bent his body to get closer to me.
His hand stroked my face, and my eyes fluttered shut, letting a couple of the too-stubborn tears run free down my face.
I felt the thick pad of his thumb wipe them away and with it some of the loneliness that had settled inside of me long before she’d passed away.
“I’m so sorry, princess,” his deep voice rumbled. Those four sweet, simple words wrapped themselves around my soul like a soothing balm.
“Jess,” I corrected as gently as I could. I liked him calling me that way too much. It struck other things in my head and warmed the blood rushing through my veins in a way I wasn’t experienced in but had heard about from my old high school friends.
But I knew better. If I let him and his words and sweet nicknames tear down the walls I’d built, I could get as stuck as my mom had once been.
“Talk to me, Jess. Who are you running from?” he pleaded, and my eyes opened.
“My stepdad,” I shared. “He’s not a good guy. Umm, after she passed… he got a little weird.” Stone’s body stilled.
“Weird,” he repeated. “Weird, how?”
“I don’t know, I just––“
“Don’t do that, baby girl. You tell me, and I promise I got you. I’ll keep you safe. I’ll help you.”
“With finding a job?” I asked seriously. And for some damn reason, I kept talking. I had to be clear with Stone with what I needed and wanted. “And maybe a place to stay while I save enough for my own––“
“Shh,” he hushed, “I’ll help you with everything. Just tell me.”
It might have been na?ve of me to believe him.
Stupid, really, to believe in a complete stranger so wholeheartedly.
One I’d literally just met less than ten minutes ago.
But there was something about Stone that had called me.
That had made it impossible to look away, to walk away from and head to the travel station across the street from the old diner where I’d had just enough coins for a cup of coffee and some toast.
I’d been watching the giant Viking-looking man.
The way he was with the other bikers. The way he’d stared up at the sky like he was asking the stars questions the moon had been ready to answer for him.
When the wind had blown the hat off my head, I could have let it go.
Called it a wash. I’d already cut my hair short in the second bathroom of a rest station a nice old man had driven me to, so I didn’t need the disguise.
But instead of walking away, I’d chased after it knowing it’d lead me straight to him. Because there’s something about him. Something special. Different.
“He wasn’t a good guy to begin with… He sold drugs and I think… I think he had plans to sell me,” I admitted. I hated thinking about Curtis. From the moment my mom’s path had crossed with his, our lives had changed. Not for the better.
“Fuck,” Stone cursed, and his face turned stony, snapping me out of dark thoughts from the past. “You never have to worry about that ever again. You hear me?” he said like at oath.
I nodded, letting myself have this one moment of peace. He might have been a stranger, but everything inside of me was yelling at me that just for tonight, maybe a little longer, it was okay to let him take the weight I’d been carrying for so long.
“Where’s your stuff?” he asked.
“Umm…” I shifted to show him my backpack.
“That’s all you ran off with?” His scrutinizing gaze was on my bag. But when his eyes connected with mine again, they softened. There was a lot there. Emotions I couldn’t process.
“Had to keep it light,” I answered softly and honestly.
“Smart girl.” His praise made me feel like I was glowing from the inside out. “Okay, princess.” He winked. His pinky fell from mine, and before I knew it, he took the strap of my bag, taking the heavy pack and tossing it over his own shoulder like nothing. “First things first, we need to eat.”
“Eat? Oh, umm…” I pressed my lips together. “I had some toast and coffee.” My stomach chose that moment to rumble.
“You’re hungry.” He frowned.
“I can wait till tomorrow.” I had to if I was going to make the last hundred bucks I had to my name stretch as much as possible. He stared at me for a while.
“This about money?”
“Everything in this world is about money.” The words slipped past my lips by accident. I was shocked to see how beautiful Stone’s face was when it transformed from serious to a mile-wide smile beneath that scruffy long beard.
He was gorgeous.
Breathtaking.
Easily one of the most handsome men I had ever laid eyes on.
“If that’s not the fucking truth, cookie.” He winked again, and wet warmth sluiced through me.
Cookie. Another nickname.
Maybe that was his thing? Giving everyone one so he never had to remember their actual name. Like the guys mom warned my sister and I about who would always call women babe.
“What’s that look about?” he asked, noticing the way my face had changed as my thoughts drifted. I opened then shut my mouth, slowly shaking my head.
“Nothing,” I answered softly, fully lying.
“Hmm…” he rumbled, his hand taking mine again.
“You should know something about me, Jessie.” He leaned closer, and my breath shuttered.
It was a windy night. The air a weird mix of cold and hot summer air blending and mixing together.
The air around us was thicker, headier. I might have been a virgin, but I wasn’t obtuse.
I was attracted to a man who very well might be old enough to be my father.
His hand brought mine up higher, settling it between us. Stone’s gaze fell down to it, making me do the same. My darker skin contrasted against his lightly sun-kissed freckled skin.
“This is going to sound like a lot, and it might freak you out, but there is something you need to know when it comes to the kind of man I am before you agree to get on the back of my bike and I take you into Vegas and help you out with your situation.” This was when the shoe was going to drop.
He was going to say something stupid or make a gross offer that would make me recoil. I could feel it in my bones. He’d been too good to be true in the few minutes we’d been talking.
“I don’t do anything I don’t want. I don’t say anything I don’t mean. And I don’t give up when I wanna know something or when I know something or someone is important to me.”
“Umm,” I started to say, but he simply shook his head and kept talking. With every word he said, it felt like my body awoke. Feeling truly alive for what felt like the first time in my life.
“Now… I’m not going to push you to tell me where you just went right now.
We just met and it takes trust. Trust that you should know I intend on earning from you.
Eventually, if this goes the way I want it, which like I said, I’ll work tooth and nail to get, we’re going to reach a point where you’re going to tell me everything.
Not because I ask but because we’ll be sharing our lives in a way this kind of shit will come up naturally. ”
I blinked and blinked again.
I tried to process what he’d just said, but it was like my brain couldn’t seem to manage.
“Umm… I’m not sure what that means, Stone.”
“Shawn,” he corrected, and my eyes widened.
I didn’t know a whole lot about bikers aside from stuff from the romance novels I snuck into the house after going to the library for my volunteer hours or the ones I’d seen on TV on shows like Sons of Anarchy or Mayans M.C.
, but I knew being told their given name was a big deal.
“Shawn,” I repeated softly and felt his blue eyes on my mouth.
“Say it again.”
“Shawn.” I let his name roll off my tongue easily.
The sexy Viking rumbled, making a sound that vibrated through his chest. It made my hands ache to touch him skin to skin to feel that vibration against the palm of my hand.
He bent further, resting his forehead against mine, and I breathed in deeply.
His scent settled something inside of me, giving me peace and an excitement I wasn’t used to.
He smelled like the cigarettes he’d been smoking and sandalwood and a hint of bergamot.
My new favorite smell, I thought to myself.
“You get me?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” I answered, half-lying. “I mean… you just met me.”
“I know. And it’s okay to be cautious. It’s smart, really.
A woman who looks like you, your age, you should be wary of pretty words from some brute, baby girl.
” Baby girl. Hearing him call me that made me want to call him something else more than Shawn.
“But we both know you feel this, too, honey. You want daddy as much as he wants you. Luckily for you, he’s patient and isn’t in any rush.
” My face felt like it was on fire. How the hell does this man take every dirty thought from my head like he can hear it?
“First things first, were going to eat. Then we’re hitting the road. When we get home, you’re staying with me. Tomorrow, we’ll get you set up with a job, if that’s really what you want.”
“Yes. Please, I do.”
“Good. But to be clear, when we go eat, I pay for you. And when we get back to the clubhouse, you’re staying with me.”
“Got it.”
“And you ride on the back of my bike and only my bike, that understood?” Was this him claiming me?
“Yes, sir,” I whispered and meant it. I had never been on the back of anyone’s bike, but I had a feeling only Shawn would make me feel safe. His gaze darkened beneath the silvery glow of the full moon shining brightly overhead.
“Good girl.” I blushed, and his hand rose, cupping my cheek, his thumb stroking the overheated skin on my face.
“Let’s get you fed.” His hand dropped and tangled our fingers before he led the way back inside the diner.
Where he kept his word.
Shawn fed me until I thought he would have to roll me out of the diner.