Chapter Six
Jake
I hope Lauren is settling in okay.
I thought of her as I tinkered with my old bike in the garage. Because of work and the MC, I had hardly seen her since she started staying under my roof.
Or maybe I was avoiding her.
I still couldn’t believe our paths had crossed again, or that she was all grown up now. In my mind, she was still a little girl with braided pigtails and pink overalls, someone who sat on my knee and whose head I patted, but the truth was that she was now a beautiful, young woman.
And I didn’t know what to do with her.
A part of me longed to coddle her like a child, to treat her as something precious and delicate like I used to. And the other? I wanted to make her feel like a woman and teach her every way that a man could give her pleasure.
Just the thought of her in my bed, of the soft glimmer in her green eyes as she surrendered to me, was enough to nearly make me hard, something I hadn’t felt in a while. I had thought I’d given up on women, so why did I want to make her mine so badly?
I felt like hitting my head with the wrench in my hand.
Get a grip, Jake.
Even if she wasn’t a child anymore, she was still nearly half my age. Besides, she was struggling with amnesia at the moment. I didn’t want to take advantage of that. And what if she suddenly regained her memories and remembered that I was the guy in the building who used to look after her and give her art lessons while her parents worked? Would she really want to be with that guy?
I shook my head, trying to get it on straight and clear it of all thoughts of Lauren, but just when I thought I’d succeeded, she appeared in the garage in a sleeveless black top and denim shorts.
“Max said I’d find you here.” She stepped forward and offered the steaming mug in her hand to me. “Coffee?”
To someone who had been up since dawn, it smelled heavenly.
“Thank you.”
As I took the mug from her, our fingers touched. She didn’t seem to think anything of it. I tried to do the same as I brought the mug to my lips and took a sip of coffee.
Easy, old man.
Lauren looked around. “So, this is where you spend most of your time when you’re at home?”
“Yeah.”
Max had the living room. Wade hung out on the patio. I had the stuffy, messy garage.
“And are all these your bikes?” She touched the handlebar of the one closest to her.
“That’s Wade’s,” I answered. “The BMW belongs to Max and this one’s mine.” I patted the seat of my Enfield.
“And the one you’re fixing?”
I glanced at it. “It was given to me by a good friend of mine.”
“Billie? Max said you hang out at his bar a lot.”
I grinned. “Well, yeah, I do hang out at Billie’s a lot, but she’s not the friend I’m talking about.”
Lauren’s eyebrows arched. “She?”
“Her husband, Sam, was the former leader of Black Storm. He was the one who gave me this bike when I was just new to the club. It was his old one.”
“And have you been into bikes since you were a kid?”
I guess she really didn’t remember me.
“No. Sam was the one who infected me with his love of bikes when I moved out here.”
That was after I got out of jail, but I decided not to tell her that. Yup, another reason for me to stay away from her.
She nodded. “I see.”
I put my coffee down on the shelf and went back to work, hoping that she would get bored and leave. She didn’t.
“Max said you own a tattoo studio?” she asked.
“Yup. It used to be Sam’s too.”
“So, you’re an artist?”
I tightened a bolt. “I try to be.”
“You must be very good with your hands.”
The remark made me pause, instantly conjuring an image of my hands on Lauren’s bare skin. I cleared my throat as I tried to shove it away.
“I used to like drawing,” she said.
I looked at her with arched eyebrows. “You remember?”
Her eyes grew wide. “I…I mean, I must have.” She fidgeted with the pendant of her necklace. “I vaguely remember a green wall covered in drawings.”
“Do you remember any of the drawings?”
She touched her chin. “I think there was one of a cat with a ribbon on its head.”
“A cat with purple stripes?”
Her forehead creased. “How did you know?”
Because I was the one who taught her how to draw that. But shit, I shouldn’t have said that.
I shrugged. “I think I’ve seen that on the cover of a kid’s book. Maybe even on TV.”
“Oh.”
I took a sip of coffee and went back to my task so I could gather my thoughts and avoid making another mistake. Well, I tried, but I realized the tool in my hand wasn’t suited for the bolt I was supposed to tighten next.
“Do you think you can pass me the Allen wrench?” I asked Lauren since the toolbox was closer to her.
Her eyebrows furrowed. “The what?”
“It’s shaped like an L.”
“Oh, like the start of my name.”
Of course. I didn’t even think of that, but I had a feeling I was going to from now on. As if I needed another reminder of her.
I stood up. “It should be somewhere inside that box. I need the second biggest one you can find.”
“Okay.”
I watched as Lauren searched inside the large, red toolbox. The tools gave off a series of clangs as they were moved around. Her hair was getting in her way, so she gathered it in a bunch with one hand. I froze as I noticed the purplish oval mark on the back of her neck.
There was only one way she could have gotten that mark.
The first emotion I felt was shock, not expecting to see such a mark on her. The second was jealousy, wishing I had been the one to have left it on her. The third was desire, an urge to fuck her on the hood of Max’s silver truck and leave my own mark on her there and then.
I took a few deep breaths and tried to will the thoughts away.
Calm down, Jake. She doesn’t belong to you, remember?
“Are you okay?” Lauren’s voice jolted me out of my thoughts.
I forced myself to be and nodded. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
“I think this is what you’re looking for.”
She handed me the Allen wrench. I took it.
“Thanks.”
I resumed fixing the bike, trying to forget about what I’d seen. But I couldn’t.
“It seems you and Max are getting along well,” I said, suspecting that he was the one who gave Lauren that mark.
Maybe if she talked about him, it would help drive the message into my brain that she was supposed to be Max’s girlfriend, and I was supposed to be the kind of man who never touched another man’s woman. “I guess,” she replied.
“Good. I was worried that the two of you would feel uncomfortable around each other since you don’t remember him. Or do you remember him now?”
“No. It’s like we’re getting to know each other for the first time, which is actually kind of exciting. Max has just been…amazing.”
I could hear the joy and fondness in her voice. It stung a little, but I was also glad that she liked Max. And that Max had found someone as good as her.
“He is amazing,” I told her. “He’s a good guy.”
One who deserved Lauren more than I did.
“I feel like he’s hiding something, though.”
My eyebrows arched. Was she onto the fact that Max really wasn’t her boyfriend?
I looked at Lauren. “What makes you say that?”
She shrugged. “Women’s intuition.”
One of the scariest things on earth.
“But I don’t think it’s something bad,” she added. “I’m sure I’ll find out, eventually.”
I did warn Max that the truth couldn’t stay buried forever. I could only hope that when it came out, everything would be fine. The last thing I wanted was for either of them to get hurt.
“How about you?” Lauren turned to me. “Any secrets I should know of?”
I nearly choked on my coffee, but I cleared my throat. “Nope. I’m not that interesting.”
“I seriously doubt that.”
For a moment, my heart stopped. Is she saying she’s interested in me?
She tucked some hair behind her ear. “Anyway, I’ll leave you alone. I’m sure you can get more done without me around.”
And she was probably right. It was probably for the best, too, but as she started to walk away, every fiber of my being screamed for me not to let her go.
“Lauren?” I called after her before I could think.
She turned around. “Yes?”
I drew a deep breath. “If you like, I can teach you how to ride a motorcycle.”
Her green eyes grew wide, shimmering like the forest after a shower of rain. “Really?”
“Really.”
The bow of Lauren’s lips curved into a smile. “I would like that very much.”
For the first time in a long time, I felt like a kid with a present, pure joy and excitement replacing all my anxiety.
I tried not to burst with happiness as I nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”