Chapter Three
Havoc took the corner too fast. He knew it the second he leaned into the turn, engine snarling beneath him, the road tightening sharper than memory said it would. The world narrowed to vibration and sound, to the familiar dance of throttle and brake, weight and balance.
The bike responded like it always did, loyal and vicious, tires biting into asphalt. Then someone stepped into the street.
Havoc swore and hauled the bike upright, brakes screaming as rubber burned and the back tire fishtailed. The front wheel missed her by inches. Inches close enough that he caught the sharp intake of her breath, saw her eyes go wide, felt the ghost of her heat as he skidded to a stop.
The engine died. Silence crashed in, loud and unforgiving.
She stood there, frozen in the middle of the road, paint-splattered jeans and boots planted like she belonged exactly where she was.
A canvas bag hung off one shoulder, charcoal streaked her fingers, and a rolled sketch poked out from under her arm.
She didn’t scream or jump back. Most people did one or the other. Instead, she just stood there with her head tipped slightly to the side, eyes sharp and assessing, like she was weighing her options. To tear into him or laugh it off. Maybe both.
The choice seemed to irritate him more than panic ever would.
Havoc swung his leg off the bike and impatiently ripped his helmet free. Adrenaline still burned hot under his skin, buzzing in his veins, making everything feel too loud and too close.
The near miss replayed in his head in ugly, stuttering frames. The flash of her body in the road. The scream of brakes. How easily it all could have gone wrong.
“What the hell are you doing?” he snapped. “You trying to get yourself killed?”
She straightened her spine like he’d just flicked a switch.
“Excuse you?” she shot back. Her voice didn’t waver. She merely sounded irritated. “You’re the one flying through town like it’s a damn racetrack.”
His jaw tightened. “This is my road,” he growled, jerking a thumb behind him toward the stretch of asphalt he’d ridden a thousand times. “You don’t step out without looking.”
Even as the words left his mouth, a sliver of awareness slid in. He sounded like an ass and he knew it. However, pride and adrenaline made a stubborn combination, and he wasn’t about to back down now.
She crossed her arms slowly, deliberately, like she had all the time in the world. She dragged her gaze over him, taking in all of him, and he felt strangely exposed. Just who was this woman? Never before had Havoc seen her.
“Funny,” she said coolly. “I was already standing here when you came tearing around the corner like you owned the place.”
Something in her tone hooked him deep and sudden.
Most people, especially women, went small around him. They apologized even when they weren’t at fault. They averted their eyes. Some even tried to smooth things over fast. This woman didn’t do any of that. She stood there like a steel post sunk into the ground, hard and unyielding.
It intrigued him. Heck, it pissed him off and pulled at him in a way he hadn’t felt in a long damn time.
Havoc took a step closer before he realized he was doing it. She didn’t retreat or flinch, didn’t even shift her weight. She just lifted her chin and met his stare head on, eyes steady, unblinking.
Up close, he noticed things he hadn’t from the bike. Paint smudges on her cheek, like she’d forgotten to wipe her face. A faint scrape on one knuckle, already healing. Her eyes were the color of storm clouds holding light, bright and restless beneath the gray.
There was warmth to her, something alive and grounded that hit him low in the gut, sharp and unexpected. The reaction made Havoc grind his teeth. It pissed him off for reasons he didn’t want to examine. He really didn’t understand his strange reaction to someone he just met.
“You could’ve died,” he said, jaw tight, the words coming out rougher than he meant them to.
“And you could’ve slowed down,” she shot back without missing a beat. “Guess we both made choices.”
That earned her a humorless huff from him. “You got a death wish, sweetheart?” Havoc couldn’t help but ask.
Her mouth curved, slow and dangerous, the kind of smile that promised trouble. “No. I’ve just learned not to flinch when men get loud,” she said evenly. Then her eyes hardened just a fraction. “And don’t call me sweetheart.”
That stopped him cold.
The words hit somewhere under his ribs, not soft enough to be guilt, not sharp enough to be anger. Recognition, maybe, like she’d named something he knew too well.
He exhaled through his nose and dragged a hand through his hair, frustration bleeding off in a long breath.
“You new here?” Havoc asked. He was now curious about her and that was something. Havoc hadn’t been interested in anything for a long time.
“Is it that obvious?” she said, one brow lifting.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Locals don’t stand in the street when they hear a bike coming.”
“I wasn’t standing in the street,” she countered calmly. “I was stepping back to look at a wall.”
“A wall,” he repeated flatly, skeptical.
She turned and pointed behind her. The mural hit him harder than her attitude ever could have.
The auto shop wall was alive with lines and motion, charcoal and paint already coaxed into something raw and powerful. A half-formed motorcycle stretched across brick, angled like it was mid ride, all tension and intent. It wasn’t finished, but it didn’t need to be to make its point.
Havoc didn’t know the first thing about art but even he could tell that thing breathed. The rider looked like he might peel himself off the wall and roar straight into the road. Havoc stared, caught off guard.
It was good and honest in a way most art wasn’t.
“That yours?” he asked, his voice quieter now, some of the edge shaved off.
She nodded. “Still working on it.”
Something loosened inside him, just a notch. Enough to notice that the knot in his chest wasn’t as tight.
“My name’s Ivy,” she said then, offering it like a challenge, not an invitation.
“Havoc,” he replied automatically, the name leaving his mouth before he could think better of it.
Her gaze settled on his cut, at the patch there. Instead of flinching or stepping back, it seemed her interest sharpened. He could see it in the way her eyes lingered, the way her mouth tilted slightly.
Oh yeah. That did it.
“Figures,” she said.
“Supposed to be scared now,” he muttered.
She snorted, the sound quick and unguarded. “Of a guy who almost wiped out trying not to hit me? Hardly.”
Heat sparked in his gut, sharp and unwanted. He didn’t know whether he wanted to laugh or snarl, which only irritated him more.
“You always mouth off like that?” he asked.
“Only when someone deserves it,” Ivy said, unrepentant.
He stepped closer again, close enough to feel the heat rolling off her body, close enough to catch the faint scent of paint and something clean underneath.
Soap, maybe. Something simple. Human. His irritation tangled with something darker and heavier, a pull he hadn’t felt since before the world had gone gray and hollow.
It had been far too long since a woman had made him feel anything but tired. She didn’t back down.
“Next time,” he said lowly, voice dropping, “watch where you’re standing.”
“Next time,” she replied just as quietly, eyes locked on his, “watch where you’re riding.”
They stared at each other, the moment stretched tight as wire. Havoc felt the old familiar itch in his hands, the one that came before trouble, but this wasn’t that. This wasn’t violence or rage or the need to break something.
This was something else. A pull he didn’t have words for and didn’t want. Finally, he stepped back. It seemed safer, although it was ridiculous he was wary of such a pretty little thing like her.
“Be careful,” he said gruffly, swinging back onto the bike.
Ivy tilted her head, that dangerous little smile still playing on her lips. “You too.”
He fired the engine, the roar tearing through the space between them. As he rolled away, he caught her in the mirror, standing exactly where he’d left her, watching him go. Her expression was unreadable. Her eyes were bright.
The encounter shouldn’t have mattered, except it did.
The road stretched ahead, asphalt unspooling beneath his wheels, but his thoughts stayed behind, tangled in paint streaks and storm-colored eyes. Havoc rode harder than necessary, pushing speed and edge, trying to shake the feeling crawling under his skin.
He didn’t. For the first time in years, someone had looked him in the eye and refused to move.