Chapter 4
Cat
“This way,” Kierston ordered, ushering us toward the front door that had been locked as soon as the last customer had been kicked out.
With a series of quick movements, the no-nonsense bartender unfastened the varied safeguards and led us out to the front lot where Anna’s beaten down Honda was parked.
Just as I was opening the passenger side door, Kierston touched my arm to gain my attention. “Do yourself a favor and stay away from the MC life, kid. Someone like you will get eaten alive by guys like that. You got me?”
She wasn’t wrong. I knew better than to hang out with rough and tumble bikers.
But tonight had awakened something inside me, and I couldn’t deny it.
Apparently, I liked a little bit of danger in my men.
Maybe more than a little. And Ace’s power, and extreme protectiveness when I’d been faced with danger, had done nothing to dissuade me from that; It had turned me on tenfold.
Scolding myself, I reminded my lady bits that I was only in danger because of that man.
Clearly, he had some trouble with the other MC, and Anna and I had nearly stepped directly into it.
I might have enjoyed taking a walk on the wild side this one time, but it wasn’t something I was going to want to be involved in long term.
“Cat, get in,” Anna nervously prompted, as I stood there, lost in thought.
“Thanks. You’re right,” I finally answered Kierston. “You won’t see me again.”
The pretty bartender nodded her approval and watched as I got into the car and we peeled off.
“That was crazy!” Anna blurted into the silence, speeding away down the dirt road that led away from Chubs.
Even though her words claimed we’d just escaped something terrifying, her excited countenance told a different story. Her cheeks were flushed a bright pink and her sparkling blue eyes let me know she’d loved every tumultuous second of what we’d just been through.
“Yeah, crazy,” I echoed, wondering if I was ever going to see Ace again or if he’d forget me the moment I was out of his sight.
Something about that made my heart painfully constrict, though I couldn’t say why. I’d only just met the man. I couldn’t already be attached to him. Could I?
Snap out of it, Cat, I internally chided!
You were nearly just assaulted by a whole biker gang and all you can think about is some handsome stranger who promised you a ride on the back of his bike.
Hell, all I’d probably been to Ace was a potential screw.
It’s not like we were soulmates or anything. Lust mates, maybe.
But try as I might, I couldn’t forget the way he’d made me feel and our eerie connection. A longing, sharp and overwhelming, stole over me then.
Was I going crazy or had this man slipped something in my drink to make me pine so aggressively for him?
If not, what could explain his lingering scent in my nostrils and the way it burrowed itself into the deepest corners of my consciousness?
It was so bizarre. So wrong. Yet, it felt more right than anything I’d ever experienced in all of my short, boring life.
“We should do this again next week,” Anna quipped, a puckish smile spreading across her ruby-red lips.
I arched a blond brow at her and sighed. “Really, Anna?”
She lifted a delicate shoulder and grinned. “What? Too soon?”
I began to laugh. It started low in my belly and worked itself all the way up my chest. I laughed harder than I should have, but it certainly was an amazing way to burn off the tension and the bottled-up adrenaline that had been trapped painfully inside of me.
Anna joined me in my giggle-fest. Once we’d gotten it somewhat under control, she flicked on the radio. Opening our windows wide, she let the night air pour over us alongside the music from a sound system that likely cost more than the car itself.
As we drove, I swore I could hear wolves howling in the distance. It unexpectedly cut through me, acting like an electric shock to my system.
Shivering, I wrapped my arms around my sides. Concentrating on Anna’s sweet tone, I tried to silence the voice in my head that wanted to answer them back, and even more strangely, urged me to join them.