Duke's Second Chance (Ash Valley Hellborn Kings MC #2)

1. Duke

DUKE

She’s back.

I see her before she sees me. That’s the only advantage I’ve had over Violet Monroe in three years.

I’m at the gas station pump across the street from Ash Valley Diner. I’m topping off the tank, and she’s in the booth by the window.

Same hair, longer now. She’s just as fucking hot as she was last time I saw her. And she’s doing that thing with her bottom lip. It’s caught between her teeth.

Fuck.

It’s been three years since she left, and my dick is already hard just looking at her.

My body doesn’t give a shit that this woman gutted me. It wants what it’s always wanted. Her under me. Her on top of me. Her any way I can get her.

There’s a kid in a highchair next to her. Small. Brown hair. A toddler. He’s mashing a fist into a pile of scrambled eggs and grinning at the mess.

I cap the tank and cross the road without checking for traffic.

Three years. No note. No call. No forwarding address.

One morning I rode to her apartment, and the place was cleaned out. The landlord said she paid through the month and dropped the key in the mailbox. Gone.

Like two years in my bed meant nothing.

She didn’t know I was going to ask her to be my Old Lady. I had a cut made for her and everything.

I kept it. Bottom drawer at the clubhouse. Never threw it out. I still think about her every fucking day.

Her car is in the lot. Same blue sedan. Arizona plates. I walk past it on the way to the door and see the car seat in the back.

The kid in the diner is hers.

She has a kid. She left me and had a kid with somebody else.

My hands ball at my sides.

I pull out my phone and text our club President.

Me: Gonna be late. Violet is back.

I pocket the phone and push through the door.

The bell rings. Violet’s head snaps up.

Blue eyes. Fuck, those blue eyes. The ones I used to stare into while I was buried inside her. The ones that crinkled at the corners when I said the dry, blunt shit that made her laugh.

She’s thinner. Sharper collarbones. Harder angles in her face. Circles under her eyes that weren’t there before. She hasn’t been sleeping. Hasn’t been eating right. I know this because I spent two years memorizing every inch of this woman’s body, and my brain won’t let me unlearn it.

She ruined me for every other woman I’ve touched since.

And I’ve tried.

I’ve tried to fuck her out of my system with sweetbutts and townies and anyone who’d let me pretend for an hour. None of it worked. I only wanted her.

I slide into the booth across from her. The vinyl creaks.

“Duke.” She sets her fork down. Her hand is shaking.

I don’t answer. I put my forearms on the table and lace my fingers together.

I don’t say anything. She’s the one who fucked up. She can go first.

The kid hums to himself and stacks creamers into a wobbly tower on the highchair tray. Violet catches one before it rolls off the edge.

“You look good,” she says, and her eyes drop.

“Who is he?”

Her lips part. “What?”

“The guy.” I keep my hands laced. Keep my body planted. My dick is hard, and I’m furious, and the two don’t cancel each other out the way they should. “You have a kid that’s maybe two years old.” I do the math out loud. “You left three years ago. You moved on fast. Who is he?”

The color drains from her face. Her hand moves to the edge of the table, like she needs to hold on to it.

She shakes her head.

My teeth clench. “Who. Is. He?”

She takes a breath. Straightens her spine. “There’s no guy.”

“Bullshit.”

“There’s no guy, Duke.” She holds my eyes when she says it.

No guy. Either she’s lying, or the guy left her.

Or she left him. She’s good at that.

“Why are you here, Violet?”

She pulls herself together. “My friend had a baby. I’m visiting.”

The kid reaches for me.

Fat little fingers stretching across the gap between the highchair and the booth, grabbing at the air near my arm. Egg smeared on his chin. Big blue eyes locked on me.

The kid grins up at me with a mouthful of tiny white teeth and says, “Hi.”

Even knowing this is some other man’s kid, I’m not a monster. Besides, he’s half Violet.

I pat the top of his head. Soft brown hair, fine as silk. “Hi, kiddo.”

Violet goes rigid. Not afraid. Not angry. Just watching the interaction.

I pull my hand back. She blinks, grabs a napkin, and wipes egg off the kid’s chin like she needs something to do with her hands.

The waitress appears. Young, nervous, reading this table from ten feet away and walking up anyway.

“Can I get you anything, hon?” Pen hovering over her pad.

“Black coffee.”

She leaves. Violet traces the rim of her water glass with one finger, not looking at me.

“You were going to come into town, like you just forgot I live here.” I lean forward. “Drive into Ash Valley, visit your friend, drive out. And you weren’t going to tell me.”

Her jaw tightens. “I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”

“You didn’t think.” My hands are laced together again. “You didn’t think when you left, either.”

Her shoulders flinch. Her blue eyes meet mine, and there it is. She’s hurting, too. But she’s the one who caused it.

The waitress brings my coffee. I drink it.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice is barely holding.

Those are the words I’ve wanted since the day she left. They’re not enough. Not even close.

“Yeah.” I set the mug down. “Me too.”

I stand. Drop a five on the table. My body takes up the whole end of the booth, and she has to tip her head back to look at me, and the angle puts her mouth right where it used to be when I’d lean down and kiss her at this same table.

Same mouth I want to taste so bad my whole body tightens.

I don’t kiss her.

“How long are you in town?”

“Four days.” She picks up the kid’s cup and wipes the tray with a napkin. Hands moving on autopilot. Keeping busy so she doesn’t have to keep looking at me.

“Crimson Warriors are pushing into our territory. Don’t stay too long.” I hold her eyes. “Watch yourself, Violet.”

I turn and walk out. The bell rings. Arizona sun hits my face like a wall, and I stand on the sidewalk for a few seconds with my eyes closed because if I look back through that window, I’ll go back inside. If I go back inside, I’ll say every single thing I’ve been keeping buried deep.

I’ll tell her I haven’t slept a full night since she left. I’ll tell her I kept the cut I wanted to give her, because throwing it away meant she was really gone. I’ll tell her I’m hard right now, standing on a fucking sidewalk, because she’s the only woman who ever made me feel this way.

My phone buzzes.

Saber: Church. 20 minutes.

I cross the street to the gas station and swing onto my bike. Engine catches. The rumble drowns out the noise in my head, and I ride toward the clubhouse at the speed limit because everything inside me is already doing a hundred and twenty.

Four days. That’s enough time to get answers. Whether I’ll like them is a different problem.