Chapter 13
Chapter
Thirteen
Stella locked the front door of the diner and stepped off the porch into the rain when headlights cut across the lot. She knew the truck. It was one of Steel Protection’s black Suburbans.
The truck stopped, the driver door opened, and Blaze got out into the rain. Stella paused in front of the diner, keys in one hand. The lot was empty except for the two of them.
“I have news. About the case.”
Her stomach went cold. She saw his face under the lot lights. Whatever he was about to tell her, it wasn’t good. But she wasn’t going to make him tell her in a parking lot in the rain.
“Come inside.”
She turned and unlocked the deadbolt, disarmed the alarm, and turned on low lights behind the counter.
She then started a pot of coffee. Blaze sat on a stool across the counter from her.
It was the first time in two years that a Savage Steel MC member had sat down in her restaurant.
He waited until she had the pot brewing.
“Siren built a pattern this morning.” He told her about the seven missing women. “Nell is the eighth.”
She didn’t speak. Her eyes burned, her throat was hot, but she didn’t cry. The crying she’d done in his apartment last night had used up everything she had. He told her about the wren video Nell posted three weeks ago that was geotagged to the trail behind her apartment.
“She was searching for self-defense techniques. How to tell if you’re being followed. Whether pepper spray was legal in Oregon. Whether you could call the police if you weren’t sure something was wrong.”
Nell had been scared for days, and she hadn’t come to Stella. She’d typed those questions into her phone alone in her apartment at night and hadn’t said a word to the woman who’d become her mentor and friend.
The rain was loud on the roof, and the coffee maker finished its cycle.
Stella grabbed mugs from a stack and poured two coffees.
She slid one across the counter to Blaze.
They sipped their coffee in silence. His hair was wet, and the light behind the counter caught the line of his jaw and the broken set of his nose.
“What now?”
“Siren’s continuing to research the pattern. Axel’s looking into the socials of all the other missing women, looking for connected accounts. Dom has me working my contacts from my fighting days. I’ve got a few leads, but nothing solid yet.”
She poured herself a refill from the pot. “How did you end up a fighter?” She wanted to know what had made him who he was.
He took a breath and paused before answering.
“My mother died when I was seven. She was a wolf shifter. My father wasn’t a shifter or even her fated mate.
She was the only family I had on the shifter side, and when she died the human courts gave me to him.
He hated that I was a wolf. He beat me for it from the time I was small.
By fifteen my wolf was strong enough that I beat him back.
I left one night with what I could carry.
I didn’t have anywhere to go and the only thing I knew how to do was fight. So, I fought.”
He lifted the mug and drank.
“I worked the U.S. underground for a while. Then across Asia. Ended up in Thailand. That’s where I met Dom. I’ve been with the MC ever since. He gave me a real mission and a purpose. Something to do that could help people.”
He set the mug down.
“And now you’re helping find Nell. That’s really admirable, Blaze.” She looked at her watch. “I should probably go.”
After she locked up again, they walked to her car together. The rain was coming down, drenching her jacket. His T-shirt was already going dark across the chest. His hair was wet and his face was wet, and his blue eyes were on her.
“Stella. About last night.”
“Blaze. I don’t want to talk about it.”
She grabbed the front of his T-shirt, pulled him down to her, and kissed him.
He moaned into her mouth. One hand fisted in her wet hair and the other cupped her jaw.
He kissed her back. Not the slow, deliberate kiss from last night.
It was hungry this time. His tongue was deep in her mouth, and he pressed her against her car door.
She could feel every hot inch of him pressed against her. Her hands came up and fisted in the wet cotton of his shirt and pulled him closer. He tasted like coffee and rain.
His hand at her jaw moved down her neck and her throat and gripped the side of her ribs. The other hand was still in her hair. She could feel his erection against her stomach. He pressed her harder against the car door.
They were both getting soaked.
She pulled back first. “I need to go.”
He didn’t move. She didn’t move.
She made herself let go of him. He stepped back enough for her to get the door open.
She got in the car. Closed the door. Started the engine.
Her hands were shaking on the wheel.
She put the car in gear and pulled out of the lot.
In the rearview, he was standing where she’d left him. In the rain. Under the lot lights. Watching her go.
He was still standing there when she turned the corner.