Chapter 13
ROMAN
I should be tasting dust by now from how badly I’ve been grinding my teeth.
Ushering Evie and Brielle out of the club, I keep my focus on my niece rather than the warrior of a woman beside her. If I let it stray for even a second, I’m going to have her Velcroed to my chest, and I can’t imagine how I’d explain that. Not to her, Evie, or myself.
I’m hard enough to bust a hole in my pants as I grunt at the men making eyes at the two of them, not giving half a shit as to how barbaric I sound.
I can’t make much sense of what I just saw, and that’s doing my head in.
Sure, it seems obvious enough. Brielle saw a woman bothering my niece and stepped in to protect her.
What I can’t figure out is why she’d put herself into that position when she didn’t need to.
I didn’t expect her to interfere at all, and that was my mistake.
Not only did she interfere, but she had that woman’s hair wrapped so tightly around her fist that her knuckles were white. For half a second, I was worried there’d be a bloody clump of it hanging from her fingers and we’d be spending the night in the police station.
Swallowing a thick knot in my throat, I shoulder open the door and wait for the two of them to step outside before following suit. The wind whips between us, giving me a much-needed chill.
“Sooooo, how mad are you on a scale of one to ten?” Evie slurs, glancing up at me.
“I’m not mad.”
Brielle’s bold laugh is another nail in my coffin. “I’ll rate your lying skills as a three out of ten.”
“I’d have to agree. He’s really bad at it,” Evie adds.
“Don’t think you’re off the hook just because he’s pretending he isn’t mad. I want to know who those girls were.”
I risk a look at Brielle. She’s staring at Evie with a demanding look that I already know is going to have my niece giving in without a push.
With a click on the key fob, headlights flood the dark pavement, and I hear the doors unlock. Before I have a chance to open the passenger door, Evie’s diving into the back seat. She quickly pulls the door shut and flashes me a thumbs-up before working her seat belt across her torso.
Brielle snorts, shaking her head at her. “She’s not getting off with me that easy.”
“Why does it bother you so much who those women were to her?” I ask, my voice betraying how confused this situation has made me.
She lifts her green eyes to my brown ones and tucks a red wave behind her ear. “First of all, those were immature girls, not women. And second, why wouldn’t it bother me? I don’t stand for bullies.”
“You didn’t need to insert yourself like that. I would have intervened.”
“And looked like some weird old guy picking a fight with them? That would have made a much bigger mess than anything I did.”
I shove my hands into the pockets of my pants and drift my foot over the pavement between us. “What if someone got what happened on camera?”
“I don’t really give a shit, Roman. There are much worse things to be called than a protector of your friends.”
“And that’s what Evie is to you? A friend?”
The harsh lines on her face begin to soften, exposing the warmth hidden behind them. “Yes.”
“You hardly know her,” I argue, completely uselessly. I’ve already given in. Accepted that she cares about my niece.
Because she’s right. I can think of a million things worse than Evie having a friend who will protect and stand up for her the way Brielle did tonight.
A bare, smooth shoulder jostles as she glances past me into the back seat.
“It might surprise you, Roman, but I don’t have all that many friends in my life like Aubrey.
I know you’re protective of Evie, so I’ll let some of your attitude go, but I do actually like her and would like to get to know her more. ”
“You sound like you’re asking my permission to date her,” I mutter.
Her lips quirk, followed by a light laugh. There’s a gleam in her gaze that has heat zipping up my spine. “Unfortunately, I’m strictly into men.”
“Unfortunately,” I echo, voice dipping.
“Is that disappointment or relief I’m hearing?”
“Neither should matter to you.”
“It turns out that that’s not up to you.”
I reach for the door handle and give it a tug, ending the conversation. Brielle’s satisfied smirk tells me that my silence was answer enough, though.
“Get in, Brielle.”
She doesn’t argue. With practiced grace, she takes confident steps toward me and steps off the curb.
One of her heels is stamped to the pavement when she twists her body to face mine and leans in.
The inches that remain between us feel non-existent when her lips part, and I feel the heat from her fingers swipe across my chest.
“Say please,” she whispers.
My hand snaps out, gripping her waist and guiding her into the car. Her soft gasp floods through my ears and curls hot and heavy in my groin. I palm the top of her head to ensure it doesn’t hit anything before releasing her and straightening.
Instead of giving her what she wants, I shut the door and groan under my breath. My knuckles dig into the side of the car as I take long inhales to calm myself before pushing away and rounding the hood. I can feel her eyes on me through the windshield.
“It’s not that big a deal, Elle. I mean it,” Evie says while I’m slipping into the car.
Brielle’s twisted in her seat, her attention mercifully on my niece and not me. “Okay, so then tell me their names.”
The halter top she’s wearing has ridden so damn high on her body, her entire middle is exposed. If I had a blanket in here, I’d toss it over her. Maybe then I’d be able to concentrate on anything else.
My teeth grate as I turn the car on and yank my seat belt across my front.
“Are they the girls you went out with tonight?” I ask gruffly, looking into the back seat from the rearview mirror.
Evie looks out the window, her frown deep. “They invited me.”
“How do you know them?”
Brielle doesn’t soften her words. The flirtatious lift to them from earlier has been replaced with a cool indifference.
“They were in a photography class I took a few months ago. I didn’t know they even remembered me until they texted earlier and asked if I’d go out tonight,” Evie explains, her voice so soft it’s almost impossible to hear.
Brielle slowly sits back into her seat, bouncing her knee. “They’re losers, Evie. I hope you didn’t take anything they said to heart.”
“Would it be so bad if I did? It was just wardrobe advice, and I—”
Before I can speak, Brielle’s whipping back around, cutting her off. “You’re beautiful the way you are. If I could pull off your clothes, I’d wear them, too. They’re perfectly you, and that’s all that matters.”
My throat constricts. With my hands on my lap, I look at the woman sitting in the seat beside me and try to digest what she’s just said. There’s a sharp jab in my chest that has me wanting to thank her, but I ignore it, not wanting to draw more attention to this.
Evie’s never dressed like everyone else, and certainly nothing like Brielle.
They couldn’t be more opposite. Where Brielle’s wearing pink sparkles and heels high enough to make most women’s ankles tremble, Evie opted for flat brown shoes and a crocheted sweater with chunky buttons to match.
She’s always been this way. There’s little rhyme or reason to her clothes because she wears whatever she feels like, no matter the occasion.
As far as I knew, that never bothered her.
Have I really missed such a big shift?
“That’s nice of you to say,” Evie says flippantly.
Brielle leans further over the middle console, too close to falling into the back seat. “Nice, sure. But it’s the truth.”
“She’s right,” I say, looking back while clearing my throat.
Evie’s eyes move to me now, tightening at the corners. “Now I know you’re just saying this to make me feel better about myself. You don’t know anything about fashion.”
There’s a loud half-laughing, half-snorting sound from beside me before Brielle speaks. “While that may be true, I don’t think he’s doing that. I’m not blowing smoke up your ass by saying this, Evie. I don’t lie to my friends.”
A beat of silence passes through the car.
“Well . . . alright then. I’ll believe you.”
Brielle reaches deeper into the back seat and squeezes Evie’s hand before flopping back into her seat.
She huffs and leans her head back against the seat before rolling it in my direction.
There’s something knowing in her expression that encourages me to lift the corner of my mouth into a slight smile.
It’s enough to portray my gratefulness for what she just did.
She gives me one back—bigger, of course—before I glance away and finally drive away from the bar.
“I didn’t need an escort.”
“Don’t fight about this,” I grunt, hovering a hand near her back, but not touching. Refusing to.
“I was pointing out the obvious, not fighting.”
“We need to talk.”
Brielle stalls for a beat, her heels no longer clacking on the pavement. Her green eyes are darker out here, hidden from the light. Not being able to see the gold flakes inside of them frustrates me for some reason.
“I’m not going to apologize for what I said to her in the car.
I know you might not think that I can relate to her because I come off super confident, but I do.
There was a time when I didn’t have any sort of identity, and then when I found the one I thought I wanted, I realized it was all wrong, and I wasn’t the only one who noticed—”
Her words die the moment I step into her and guide her backward. She blinks up at me with surprised eyes and waits until her back is making contact with a cement wall to reach for my side. Her touch burns as hot as it did the first time, only now, it has the chance to settle, spreading fast.
Trapped in the alley between her apartment building and the office beside it, we settle into the shadows.
It’s wrong to be here with her. To be so close and allowing her to touch me, even if it’s somewhere as innocent as my hip.
I shouldn’t be bringing my hand to the bare skin of her waist, nor should I be smoothing my palm over the soft hairs at the top of her head and cupping the back of it.
And she sure as fuck shouldn’t lean into me with those pouty lips rolling together.
“Thank you,” I say, not blind to the huskiness of my voice.
“For what?”
“Being a friend to her.”
She tips her chin up, her head tipping back a bit. “See? I’m not as little as you think I am.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Do I need to beg you, Roman? Will that be enough to have you finally giving in to me? To this?”
My eyes slip down her face, to the flush crawling up her dainty, pale throat. I ache to run a knuckle up that skin just to see if I can feel her pulse beneath it.
Is it racing as fast as mine?
“No. It wouldn’t matter if you did. Nothing can happen here.”
She presses her lips more firmly together before parting them. Her nails pinch the fabric of my shirt. “Why not? Because I can already tell we’d have fun. A lot of it.”
“You’re Wesley’s sister, Brielle. That’s a boundary I won’t cross.” Amongst other reasons that I’m too ashamed to tell you about.
“That’s a weak excuse. I can tell that you want me the way I want you. You’re making this seem one-sided, but I know it isn’t.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I bite out, exhaling roughly.
Her waist is so soft beneath my hand, and I know it’s only a taste of what’s hidden beneath the rest of her clothes.
“I’ve already made my choice. If you’re going to be in Evie’s life and around the clubhouse with your brother, this needs to be put aside. ”
“And by this, you mean the insane connection, right? The sexual chemistry that’s eating at you the way it’s eating at me, making me feel so fucking insane around you that I’m not thinking about those pesky excuses,” she murmurs, settling her hand flush to my chest, the weight of it branding me through my shirt.
“Yes,” I hiss, slipping my hand further around the back of her head until I can loop my fingers through her hair. For a moment, I let my conscience fade and focus solely on the want building low in my gut. “Yes, Brielle. But you already fucking knew that.”
“Just give in. Nobody has to know.”
Her perfume swarms me, encouraging me to move closer, to take what she’s offering me just this once. It would be so easy to reach down and lift her thigh around my waist. She’d cry my name into this dark alley when I pulled her panties aside and plunged my fingers deep into her soft pussy—
My muscles turn to lead when I remember that I’ve already watched her do that to herself.
I release her hair and breathe her in one last time. I’ve already dropped my hand from her waist when I lower my head and drag a brief, hard kiss across her forehead.
“Go inside,” I command, already retreating far enough that she can’t easily close the distance again.
Alone in the alleyway, I watch her slowly open her eyes and touch her forehead. I expect anger to twist her features, but instead, the ghost of a smile lights her face before she turns and walks away.
Disbelief claws at me as I stay rooted in place and watch her until she’s walking safely into her apartment building and out of my sight. And still, I linger long enough that when I finally find my way back to my car, I have to lie to Evie about what I was doing.
Regret clings to me the entire drive home.