2. Colt #2
“I understand Raze better now than I did this morning.”
“So do I,” I say. “Which is why you’re not sitting across a table from him.”
Jayne turns fully toward me. I can see the argument coming and don’t intend to have it in front of half my club. Kane apparently agrees.
“Jayne, give us a few minutes.”
Her mouth tightens and not because she thinks she belongs in whatever comes next. She grew up around enough MC rules to know better. She looks at me once before walking outside and the door shuts behind her. Wilder speaks first.
“You’ve lost your fucking mind if you’re trusting her.”
I turn on him.
“Careful.”
“No. You be fucking careful.” He takes a step closer. “Chains wore our patch when he took Lucy out of that gate.”
“I know what he did.”
“Do you? Because his daughter walks in here and you’re acting like it means nothing.”
“She came here to warn us.”
Judge cuts in before I answer harder than I should. “And that matters. It isn’t the same thing as proof that every part of this is straight. But we have to listen.” I look at Kane. He’s watching me rather than Jayne through the window.
“You think she’s working with Chains?”
“I think you think she isn’t.”
“That’s not an answer, Prez.”
“It’s the one you need.”
I feel my temper climbing and then Griz speaks from behind me.
“I knew him better than anyone.”
I turn. He looks tired but not weak and not uncertain about which club he belongs to. He just looks fucking hurt.
“I knew Chains better than any man in this room. Thought I knew exactly what he’d do and what he wouldn’t. I was wrong.”
“She isn’t him.”
“I know that girl.” His eyes move briefly toward the window. “Known her most of her life.”
“Then you know she wouldn’t do this.”
His jaw shifts.
“I knew him too.”
There’s nothing to say to that, because he’s right.
I haven’t known the woman outside that door for twelve years.
I know what nineteen-year-old Jayne would have done.
I know what she sounded like when she laughed into my neck and what face she made when she was pissed at me.
I know she hated olives and thunderstorms and the smell of stale beer in the clubhouse the morning after a party.
I knew that girl. I need to make damn sure I’m seeing the woman now, not filling twelve missing years with the girl I remember. Kane waits until I look at him again. He knows where my head is at.
I hold his gaze. “She called me before she needed anything from us. She came here knowing exactly how you’d look at her because of Chains.
And she volunteered to sit across from a man who scares her because she thinks it might stop three of us riding into a kill zone.
” Wilder’s mouth hardens and I keep going.
“You don’t have to trust her because I do. But don’t ask me to pretend that my history with her means nothing.”
Kane nods once and that's good enough.
“We let her do one drink.”
My entire body goes rigid. “Fuck no.”
“Just one,” Kane repeats. “Public place, she drives. You can stay nearby. The second she gets anything useful, she walks.”
“And if he touches her?”
Kane looks at me. “That’s why you’re nearby.” Not good enough, but it’s the only answer I’m getting. By the time I pull up outside Jayne’s house later, I’ve imagined killing Raze at least twelve different ways. She opens the door before I knock.
“You approved it.”
“No. Kane approved it. I still don't like it one fucking bit.”
I step inside. “No second date. No going anywhere private. Your car stays with you. I’m close enough that if you want out, you leave.” Her expression shifts. “You're close?”
“Very.”
She shuts the door and for the first time since the diner, we’re alone.
Really alone. No Kane. No Wilder. No Chains hanging between every sentence.
Jayne looks at me and I look back. The air changes so fast it feels like somebody struck a match.
Her eyes drop to my mouth. Right there. I fucking knew I hadn’t imagined it at the diner. Time changed nothing.
“Colt.”
The way she says my name should be illegal after twelve years and I move before I decide to.
One hand goes to the side of her neck, but I stop with my mouth an inch from hers.
Not because I don’t want it, but because if I kiss her, I already know I’m not doing it gently.
Her breath catches against my lips. “Tell me not to.”
Her fingers close around the front of my cut, and instead of answering, she pulls me in.
The first hit of her mouth wipes out every year between then and now.
I kiss her hard. Too hard for something that should probably start careful.
Too hungry for two people who haven’t touched since they were barely adults. Jayne doesn’t care.
She opens for me with a sound that goes straight through my chest and lower. My hand tightens at the back of her neck while the other finds her waist and drags her against me. Fuck.
I remember her body, but mine remembers it better.
She isn’t the girl I remember. There’s more of her now.
Softer curves against my harder muscle. Her breasts press into my chest, and when I push her backward until her shoulders meet the wall beside the door, she takes my bottom lip between her teeth.
I groan into her mouth, and her hands slide under my cut and grip my sides through the cotton like she needs something solid.
I want them lower, and I want mine everywhere.
I kiss along her jaw, then come back to her mouth before I do something we aren’t ready to finish.
Jayne is breathing as hard as I am and her forehead rests against mine.
“That was a bad idea.”
“No, it fucking wasn’t.”
A small, breathless laugh escapes her and hits somewhere I haven't let anything touch in twelve years.
“We’re stopping because if I keep kissing you, you’re not going for a drink with anybody tonight.”
Her eyes darken. “That almost sounds like a threat.”
“It’s a promise.” I kiss her once more. Shorter this time, but still nowhere near gentle. Then I force myself to step back.
Raze is getting one fucking drink with Jayne because men's lives may be at stake. But if he puts his hands on her, I’m going to have a much bigger problem than twelve years of unfinished business.