Chapter 4
Carol
The storm comes in like it’s personal.
Wind claws at the windows of the Executioners’ clubhouse, and snow thickens until the world outside turns to static.
I press my palm to the glass of the small room Humbug gave me, and the cold bites straight through.
There’s no way I’m walking home in this.
The road disappeared an hour ago, swallowed whole.
The heater hums, but the rest of the place has gone still, voices gone, engines sleeping under blankets of white. Somewhere down the hall, I hear his boots pacing. The sound stops. Starts again.
The biker’s restless.
So am I.
Every time I close my eyes, I see the bar again. Gunmetal flashes, broken glass, his hand around my arm dragging me out of danger. I should feel scared. Instead, I feel… alive.
More than alive, I’m aching for company.
The door creaks open, and Humbug fills the frame. No knock. No warning. Just him. The biker takes my breath.
“Power’s flickering,” he says. “You warm enough?”
“I’m fine.” My voice comes out small. “You didn’t have to check.”
He leans against the jamb, watching me. The low light hits his face just enough to show the hard lines carved there. Thirty-five years of grit and bad weather shapes him.
There’s a scar under his jaw, half hidden by the rough edge of his beard, and a few streaks of gray near his temples that don’t make him look older so much as dangerous.
He’s got the kind of body that only comes from real work, not gyms. Big shoulders and chest stretch his thermal and his forearms are thick with muscle and ink.
He’s a man built for hauling engines and breaking hearts, not small talk.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he says, eyes still on me.
“Neither can I.”
He takes a step inside. Snow whips against the roof like applause. I sense him, leather, smoke, whiskey, winter air. The scent of a man who’s been out too long and carries trouble home with him.
“You should lie down,” he says.
“I can’t.”
His gaze drags over me, slow and dangerous. “Why not?”
“Because every time I shut my eyes, I see it.”
“The robbery?”
“You.”
Something cracks between us, quiet, invisible, irreversible.
He crosses the space in two strides. His hand comes up, rough fingers curling against the side of my neck, thumb tracing my jaw. His touch is so hot, so heavy, and so very reverent in a way that feels completely wrong for a tough guy like him.
I should tell him to stop. I don’t.
“You sure about this, Carol?” he asks, in a husky drawl.
“No,” I breathe. “But I don’t want to be scared anymore.”
“Scared of me?” he chokes out.
“Scared of us,” I whisper.
That’s all it takes.
He steps back, drops his leather cut first, the weight of it thudding against the floor.
Underneath, he’s even more heat in his gray thermal shirt and worn jeans that cling in all the right places.
The firelight catches on the steel buckle of his belt.
Then my eyes go to the faded tattoos across his arms as he loses his shirt.
His skin looks bronzed by old summers, rough and perfect.
“Christ,” I whisper. “You really are… something.” Damn, he’s hot as fuck, and has me blushing.
He smirks, half shy, half sinner. “Old, you mean?”
“Older,” I correct, my voice careful. “And it looks damn good on you.” Too good. Biker’s like temptation aged to perfection.
His grin fades into something darker. “You don’t know what you’re sayin’, Peppermint.”
Laughing a bit at him calling me that again, I say, “I do.”
He exhales slow and hard, like I’ve just knocked the wind out of him. “You’re gonna be the death of me.”
“Oh, Humbug… Do you mean I’m gonna sleigh you?” I laugh a bit more but not enough to ruin the moment.
“Stop that.” He almost laughs at my callback.
He steps even closer until I can see the lines at the corners of his eyes. His rough knuckles brush my cheek, his fingers trailing down my neck, then stop, hovering like a warning.
The silence hums. Outside, the wind slams against the siding as if it wants to get in, like the storm wants to see how far we’ll go. But there’s also a storm in my mind.
Am I really doing this?
Am I crossing that line?
Cheating on Blake with a Biker who hates Christmas?
Humbug finally leans in, his sexy lips grazing mine, not a kiss, just a fucking promise.
A fucking promise that if I give in it will be so worth it.
My breath catches.
His does too. “I’ll be the one doing the sleighing tonight,” he whispers.
Then we stop pretending.
His kiss lands jagged. His beard scratches my skin, his hand slips into my hair, jerking me closer until there’s nothing left to separate us. His enormous frame swamps mine. The fire between us burns back the chill creeping in from the windows. His tongue leaves my mouth to nip my ear, my neck.
I shake against him as my whole body reacts to his sensual assault. My hands claw his bare chest, solid, warm, real. I feel his heart hammering against my fingertips like it’s trying to catch up with his body. I trace one of the tattoos on his collarbone, black wings spread wide.
“What’s this one mean?” I ask against his hot flesh.
He laughs low. “Used to mean freedom. Lately it means trouble.”
The sound of it, his laugh, that low rasp, strokes me between my thighs. He tugs back just enough to look at me, his storm gray eyes probing my face for any inkling of doubt.
“You don’t owe me this,” he says. “Not after what you’ve been through. Not ‘cause I pulled you outta a fight.”
“I know.” I reach up and caress his jaw, feel his rough beard. “This isn’t about owing. It’s all about wanting.”
Something shifts in him, a flicker of fear, then hunger, then surrender. He presses his forehead to mine. “You got no idea what you’re takin’ on with the likes of me.”
“Maybe I don’t want safe anymore,” I say. “Maybe I don’t want soft and easy. Maybe I want rough and real.”
He exhales a shuddering breath, and for a moment, the storm outside mirrors the one inside us.
His hands under my sweater, skate down my back, slow and deliberate, rough against my skin, and I feel it.
Not just his desire but his history. Every mile of road that made him, every scar that shaped the man standing in front of me.
He’s older, harder, heavier with the world, and that’s exactly why I can’t walk away.
“You feel this too,” I whisper.
His forehead still against mine, he closes his eyes. “Yeah. God help me, yeah.”
The wind howls. The lights flicker once, twice, before dying entirely, plunging us into shadow lit only by the storm’s reflection on the glass.
“Damn it. Breaker must’ve gone,” he mutters, voice a low growl that finds me in the blackness. “Don’t move.” He cups my face again, thumb brushing my bottom lip. “Last chance,” he murmurs. “Tell me to walk out.”
“I’d rather you stay.”
My words are soft, but they land like a spark.
In the dark, he kisses me again, deeper this time, his tongue nearly choking me, but slow, claiming, the kind of kiss that ends chapters and starts wars. His hands slide into my hair again, pulling, but anchoring me as the world outside dissolves into white noise.
Everything is sound and heartbeat and the scrape of his breath against mine. His voice rumbles low when he says my name, half warning, half prayer, and it sends a shiver down my spine.
He doesn’t need to say anything else. The storm says it for us, loud, relentless, unstoppable.
And for the first time in my life, I don’t try to outlast it.
I let it take me.
Denim thuds to the floor. The sound alone could melt the snow outside. He drops his pants and the faint blue light from the window outlines him. The biker’s completely naked.
I swallow hard.
His hands find me by touch, not sight. Rough palms brush my arms, tracing goose bumps down to my wrists before he murmurs, “Peppermint, you’re shaking.”
“Not from the cold.”
He exhales, the noise deep and rough, near enough to perceive on my skin. Then fingers tug gently at the edge of my sweater. “You sure?”
“I won’t stop you,” I whisper.
He hesitates for one heartbeat, then slips the fabric upward. My stomach feels the air, cool where his hands aren’t. He leans in, the warmth of his body replaces the cold, and I feel “it” against me. His Cock. Hard but soft all at once and hot, like a burning ember.
Damn. I stop breathing.
The heat of his hands finds and removes my bra with ease. The cool air hits my nipples, and I swallow hard.
“Carol,” he almost growls as he cups my bare breasts with his searing palms. “I’m a biker. There’s a lot you don’t know about men like me.”
“I don’t care,” I say, and mean it. I’m still focused on the hot steel beam against me.
He huffs a quiet, almost broken laugh, leaning down, his forehead resting against mine again. “You will. But maybe not tonight.” His voice roughens like it’s turning over on asphalt.
I snap out of it, just a bit. “What do you mean, I will?”
“Means I’ve done things, seen things I can’t pray away.”
As he says it, his dick twitches against me like it has a mind of its own. Again, I don’t care what he’s saying. I sigh my apathy.
By the small of my back, he guides me toward the bed. The mattress dips when I sit. He stays standing for a moment, looking down at me through the dark like he’s weighing something. The faint gleam from the snow catches the scrapes on his knuckles.
I think of how the biker saved me. But I banish the frightening scene from my thoughts. I’m safe. Humbug made sure of it.
In that heartbeat of quiet, Blake’s face flashes through my mind, safe, familiar, dull as candle wax. The picture burns away as fast as it comes. Whatever we had, it isn’t enough to stop what’s happening here.
Humbug kneels in front of me, his hands resting on my knees, thumbs drawing slow circles that make it hard to breathe.
My skirt slowly rises as he widens my legs. He reaches for my panties. There’s no going back.