Chapter Seven
Maci
I sit across from Kera at the diner. She’s barely out of high school, so there’s a few years between us, but we made quick friends when she moved out here from Nebraska for college last year.
I was in the Springs shopping, and she was on the side of the road with a broken-down car.
I knew how to change a tire, and she loves to talk.
We’ve been close ever since. Thank God, because I don’t think I’d have gotten through the last day without her.
“I’m sorry, babe.” She reaches across the table, resting a hand on top of mine.
“I don’t know what happened,” I groan. “I got scared. Like all the sudden, I was staring at a family, a house, a life. A real one. What… I mean… I don’t know what to do with any of that.”
“You’ve known the guy a few months. I mean, he’s still red flag guy. You don’t get forever with red flag guy. You said that yourself.”
“I know what I said.” I dip a fry in my green mint milkshake and stare at my well-meaning friend.
“Something happened with him. I don’t know.
It’s like… we started with this sexual energy, and I thought…
hey, I’m just gonna have fun. Then… I started wanting more.
I started seeing myself in that old farmhouse with him.
I started seeing us raising babies and—”
“Are you listening to yourself?” She leans in. “You’re sounding crazy. He’s a hitman, Maci. You were following him because he’s a story, not because you want a family with him.”
“I know, and I don’t. I really don’t. Really. I just… I mean I’m here because I don’t.”
“Okay.” She leans back in the booth as though the issue is settled. “Well, I need your help. My mom has completely lost it. She’s serious about hiring someone to watch me next semester.”
“What?” I bite back a ridiculous grin. “I thought that was a joke.”
“Me too,” the vinyl booth creaks as she slouches deeper, “but she told me today that she’d actually hired someone.”
“No, she must be kidding.” I blink in disbelief. “There’s no way she’s that crazy, right? I mean, you don’t need a babysitter at college.”
“You’d think… but I’m pretty sure she hired the guy. The criminal looking one. Do you know how embarrassing this is gonna be?”
There’s a loud sizzle in the kitchen and someone laughs loudly in the corner booth as a waft of maple syrup passes through.
“Is he really a criminal?”
“No, I think she hired the ex-Navy Seal, but I saw pictures of the dude. He’s huge… and terrifying.”
The ice in my drink settles with a clink. “Oh, okay… now we’re talking. Big, muscles, lots of cool stories about all the crazy things he’s done. Sounds like fun. Maybe you should pull one on your mom and do a little harmless flirting.”
“Can you imagine? Dude is like twice my age. Though… I guess that hasn’t stopped you, has it?”
I drag in a deep breath and let it out slowly, reminding myself that a future with Duke has sailed. Whatever connection we had is over now. It left the second I called my friend for a ride out of his place.
That said, the way he kissed me will probably linger forever, tucked deep in some time capsule inside my psyche, quietly threatening to unravel every relationship I try to build from here on out.
“Where’d you go?”
I sigh. “Just thinking about the kiss we had in the horse ring last night.”
“That good, huh?”
I trail off, swallowing down the lump that’s uninvitedly risen. “It wasn’t about technique. It was real. Like… I don’t know. The way he grabbed me, the way he breathed, the way his body fused around mine, I just… it was like nothing I’ve ever felt.”
“Sounds special.”
“Yeah, but that’s over now.” I’m halfway through the breath when I hear the rumble of a motorcycle in the distance. I figure life will be like this for a while. Every motorcycle will sound like his, look like his, and make me wish it were his.
I twist the shades closed and redirect the conversation back toward Kera. “I don’t want to think about bikers ever again.”
The words barely settle in the air before the diner’s door swings open with the sound of rusted hinges.
“Anyway… I think we should get some tea on your new stalker. What’s his na—”
“Bunny,” a deep voice rumbles behind me, “you’re coming with me.”
I look back to see Duke standing tall and wide, leather jacket clinging to him like thunderclouds ready to break, shoulders like iron gates.
His gaze locks onto mine, and suddenly the air in the diner feels charged, as if the jukebox should cue something gritty and unforgiving.
I don’t speak. I don’t have to. He’s not asking any questions. He’s making demands.
He’s come for me like I belong to him.
He reaches for my hand, and I slide from the booth, thinking he’ll meet me where I’m at, thinking we’ll talk about something, we’ll work out some kind of emotional middle ground, but he doesn’t wait.
He lifts me up, straight over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes as the diners around us hush and stare.
I glance toward Kera whose eyes have gone wide, her hand smacked over her face like she’s hiding a giant grin. “I’m not going to ask if you want saving this time… I know the answer.”
She’s barely finished her sentence when Duke turns and carries me out of the diner, one heavy boot in front of the other. We pass through the door, under the fluorescent buzzing light, and toward his bike parked just outside the windows. I bounce against his shoulder with every step, arms pinned.
“You could’ve asked ,” I mutter.
He doesn’t flinch, just sets me onto his bike, leans in, lands his hands on either side of my face, and kisses my mouth like it’s been too long since he’s touched me last.
It’s hard and rough, deep and passionate, like the first rain after a drought, like a flood that’s determined to break me open.
When he pulls back, the silence rushes around us. My breath catches, my lips tingle, my thoughts scramble like eggs on a greasy spoon griddle.
“I’m taking you home,” he growls, thumb grazing my cheek with a gentleness that contradicts the fire in his eyes.
“That little girl who got left behind all those years ago… she didn’t have anyone to carry her out of here.
She didn’t have anyone to take care of her, but that changes now. You’re mine.”
Heat rushes over me as my chest tightens. “But Nick was right, Duke, I’m broken. I don’t know how to do any of this. That’s why I ran.”
He stares down at the pavement then up again, catching my gaze. “I went out to take that hit today. The guy I’d been after.”
My stomach churns. “What?”
His jaw clenches. “I saw his little girl and her family. I saw us… five years from now. I saw my parents sixty years ago. I saw you. I couldn’t do it.”
Duke’s shoulders tense as a breeze blows the scent of pine between us.
“But you’ve been fixated on this forever.” I swallow hard. “How do you just let all that go?”
“The same way you did, bunny rabbit.” He kisses my head and wraps me into his arms. “I start shoplifting ChapStick until the pain goes away.”
I laugh and cuddle against his chest, letting the rhythm of his heart settle me.
“That,” he beams with a sinister grin, “or I tie you back up in the center of the horse ring… until you know you’re mine.”
My clit throbs and I smile as he kisses my forehead, then swings his leg over the bike and starts the engine with that low, familiar growl.
I don’t know if I ever fully healed from what happened at the diner all those years ago. Maybe that scar will always hum beneath my skin. But right now, with Duke beside me, the road stretching wide, and his promise ringing in my ears, I’m not breaking free.
I’m finally heading home to our beginning, and to whatever he has planned in that horse ring.