3. Tiffany
TIFFANY
Six-thirty PM at the clinic, and everyone had already gone home except me. Dr. Tad left at five with reminders to lock the medication properly. Grace Henry headed out right after, mentioning something about dinner with her sister.
Just me, inventory sheets, and Blade leaning against the wall near the entrance like a guardian statue.
"Almost done," I called out, securing the last of the controlled substances in the safe.
My fingers moved through the familiar routine—document, lock, double-check—but tonight each click of the lock felt heavier.
Knowing someone wanted me to steal these exact medications made the simple task feel like betrayal.
"Take your time." Blade's voice carried across the empty clinic, rough and reassuring. "No rush."
Except there was. The sooner we left, the sooner we'd be back at his apartment where the air grew thick with everything we weren't saying. Where I'd spend another night in his bed while he took the couch, both of us pretending the arrangement didn't affect us.
My phone rang, the sound sharp in the quiet clinic. Unknown number.
My hand froze halfway to my pocket. Another unknown number. Just like all the others over the past two weeks. But this time Blade stood ten feet away instead of me being alone in my apartment.
"Answer it," he said, already moving closer. "Put it on speaker."
I did, my thumb trembling slightly as I hit the button.
"Working late, nurse?" The voice came through distorted, mechanical. "All alone in that big clinic. All those drugs just sitting there."
"She's not alone." Blade's voice cut through like a blade—no pun intended. The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees from his tone alone.
Silence on the other end, then: "Doesn't matter. She knows what we want. She's got twenty-four hours to start delivering, or things get messy. We know where she sleeps now. Nice apartment you got there, biker."
The line went dead.
"They know about your place," I whispered, the phone shaking in my grip.
"Let them come." The casual violence in his tone should have frightened me. Instead, warmth spread through my chest. This man would destroy anyone who tried to hurt me, and the primitive part of my brain found that incredibly attractive.
Movement outside the window caught his attention. His entire body went from relaxed to combat-ready in a heartbeat, muscles coiling under his thermal shirt.
"Stay here."
"Blade—"
But he'd already moved, swift and silent for such a large man. Through the window, I watched a sedan idling across the street, engine running. The driver seemed to be taking photos of the clinic entrance.
Blade didn't hesitate. He crossed the street in long strides, and before the driver could react, his fist went through the driver's side window.
The crack of breaking glass made me jump even from inside. The car lurched forward, tires squealing, but not before Blade got another hit in. Blood scattered across the pavement as the sedan peeled away, Blade standing in the middle of the street like an avenging angel.
He walked back to the clinic with the same measured pace, but I saw him cradling his right hand. Blood dripped steadily from his knuckles, leaving a trail on the sidewalk.
"You're hurt." I met him at the door, nurse instincts overriding everything else.
"I'm fine."
"You're bleeding all over my clean floor." I grabbed his wrist, tugging him toward the procedure room. "Come on."
"It's nothing—"
"It's not nothing. You punched through glass. You probably have fragments embedded." I pushed him onto the examination table with more force than necessary. "Stay."
His mouth quirked at the command, but he stayed put while I gathered supplies. The adrenaline from watching him defend the clinic—defend me—made my hands steady and sure.
"This is going to sting," I warned, taking his damaged hand in both of mine.
The first touch of skin to skin sent awareness shooting through me. His hand dwarfed mine, scarred and powerful, capable of violence but gentle when he'd steadied me yesterday. Now that same hand bled because he'd protected me without hesitation.
I worked methodically, cleaning the wounds with saline, using tweezers to extract tiny glass fragments. He never flinched, never pulled away, just watched me work with an intensity that made my skin flush.
"You've done this before," he observed as I checked for more embedded glass.
"Treating injured men who punch things they shouldn't? Once or twice." I kept my tone light, but touching him like this—clinical yet intimate—affected me more than it should. "Though usually it's the Hendricks brothers after another bar fight, not someone defending my honor."
"Wasn't about honor. It was about threat assessment and elimination."
I glanced up at him. "Is that what you call it? Because from where I stood, it looked like pure rage that someone was watching me."
His jaw clenched. "They don't get to hunt you. Don't get to make you afraid."
"I'm not afraid when you're around." The admission slipped out as I applied antiseptic. His sharp intake of breath had nothing to do with the sting.
I focused on wrapping his knuckles, needing the task to steady myself. But being this close meant I noticed everything—the way his breathing changed when my fingers brushed his wrist, the heat radiating from his body, the other scars marking his hands and forearms.
"These aren't from today." I traced a white line across his forearm before I could stop myself.
"Shrapnel. Afghanistan. 2018."
"And this?" My finger found another scar, circular and puckered near his elbow.
"Bullet. Seattle. 2021."
Each scar had a story of violence, survival, pain. I found myself cataloging them like a map of his history written in damaged tissue. "How many times have you been hurt protecting people?"
"Stopped counting."
"That's not reassuring."
"Not supposed to be. This is what I do, who I am." He caught my hand as I reached for another scar, his grip gentle but firm. "I'm not a good man, Tiffany. I'm a weapon pointed at problems until they stop being problems."
"I don't believe that." I turned my hand in his grip until our fingers intertwined. "Weapons don't protect scared nurses they way you do. They don't give up their beds for someone else's comfort. They don't have the kind of control you do."
"Control?" His laugh held no humor. "You think I have control? Every minute you're near me tests it. Do you know what it takes to watch you all day and not touch? To have you in my bed, wearing my shirt, and stay on that fucking couch?"
Heat flooded through me at his words. "Then why do you?"
"Because you deserve better than a forty-year-old soldier with more scars than sense. Because you're twenty-four with your whole life ahead of you. Because I've got blood on my hands that won't wash off, and you save lives with yours."
I stepped between his knees where he sat on the table, forcing him to look at me. This close, I had to tilt my head back to meet his gaze. "What if I don't want better? What if I want you?"
"You don't know what you're asking."
"Stop telling me what I know." I pressed closer, my hands on his thighs for balance. The muscle under my palms tensed, solid and warm through his jeans. "I know you think the age gap matters. It doesn't. I know you think you're too damaged. You're not. I know you want me as much as I want you."
His hands came to my waist, spanning it easily, holding me still. "This is a bad idea."
"The worst," I agreed, but my hands slid higher on his thighs.
"Once we cross this line, there's no going back."
"I don't want to go back." I rose on my toes, bringing our faces closer. "I want to go forward. With you."
The clinic's overhead light buzzed in the silence. Outside, Pike Creek continued its evening routine—someone heading into Buck's down the street, Elmer locking up the hardware store. Normal life happening while mine balanced on a knife's edge.
"Tell me about your service," I said, changing tactics but not stepping away. "Not the classified stuff. Just... you."
His hands remained on my waist, thumbs brushing the strip of skin where my scrub top had ridden up. "What do you want to know?"
"Why special forces?"
"I was good at it. Violence, strategy, eliminating threats. The Army gave me purpose, structure. Legal outlet for the darkness."
"And when you got out?"
"The darkness didn't go away just because the uniform did." His thumbs continued their maddening path along my skin. "Viper found me in a bar in Billings, beating the shit out of three guys who'd cornered a waitress. Offered me a different kind of brotherhood. The MC gave me purpose again."
"Protecting people."
"Protecting what matters."
"Am I what matters now?"
His hands tightened on my waist. "You've mattered since you walked out of that back room two days ago, terrified but trying to be brave. Maybe before that. Phoenix said he'd seen you around town, mentioned the pretty new nurse at the clinic. I should have stayed away."
"But you didn't."
"No. Viper called, said Dr. Tad needed help, and I came running like I couldn't help myself." He pulled me incrementally closer. "And now you're wearing my shirt to bed and making me breakfast and I can't imagine going back to my apartment without you in it."
"Then don't." I traced the edge of his jaw, feeling stubble catch against my fingertips. "Stop pushing me away. Stop deciding what's best for me. Just... stop fighting this."
"You don't understand what you're risking. Being with me means being part of the MC world. It means judgment from the town, danger from my enemies, a life that's never fully safe."
"I'm already in danger. Already being judged. At least with you, I'm not alone."
He studied my face like he was memorizing it. "You're younger than me.”
"Old enough to know what I want."
"And what's that?"
"You." I pressed against him, feeling his breath catch. "In your bed instead of on your couch. Your hands on me instead of maintaining distance. Your mouth—"
He kissed me.
The first contact sent lightning through my entire system. His lips were firm, demanding, taking control like I'd known he would. One hand tangled in my hair while the other pulled me tight against him, eliminating any space between us.
I opened for him immediately, tasting coffee and something uniquely him. He kissed like he fought—with absolute commitment, devastating precision. My hands found his shoulders, holding on as he consumed me.
When he pulled back, we were both breathing hard.
"Fuck," he muttered against my lips.
"Is that a promise?"
He groaned, dropping his forehead to mine. "You're going to be the death of me."
"I'm going to be the life of you," I corrected. "If you let me."
Before he could respond, headlights swept across the clinic windows. We both tensed, but it was just someone parking at Buck's next door.
"We should go," he said, but didn't release me.
"We should." I didn't step away either.
"Tiffany—"
"I know. Not here. Not now." I finally stepped back, already missing his warmth. "But soon?"
He slid off the exam table, his bandaged hand catching mine. "You sure about this? About me?"
"I've been sure since you walked through that door. The question is whether you're going to stop fighting it."
He tugged me close again, his mouth brushing my ear. "When I stop fighting it, when I finally take what I want, you're not going to know what hit you."
The promise in his voice made me shiver. "I'm counting on it."
We locked up the clinic in charged silence. Every casual touch—his hand on my lower back guiding me to his bike, helping me with the helmet, the necessary closeness of the ride—felt amplified. My body hummed with anticipation, with the knowledge that we'd finally crossed a line.
Back at his apartment, everything felt different. The space between us crackled with acknowledged want. When I headed for his bedroom, he caught my wrist.
"Take the bed," he said, but his voice held less conviction than previous nights.
"Come with me."
"Tiffany—"
"Just to sleep." I stepped closer, looking up at him. "Please. I know you'll still say we need to wait, to think, to be sure. But let me have this. Let me fall asleep knowing you're there."
His control visibly fractured. "Just to sleep."
"Unless you change your mind," I said with a smile that made him groan.
"You're trouble."
"You like trouble."
"I like you." The admission seemed to surprise him. "More than like. That's the problem."
"That's not a problem. That's a solution."
I tugged him toward his bedroom, and this time he followed. Tomorrow would bring more threats, more danger, more complications. But tonight, I'd finally broken through his walls.
And I wasn't letting him rebuild them.