Chapter Nine
Havoc woke to warmth. That alone was wrong enough to jolt him halfway out of sleep, instincts snapping awake like a tripwire. His body knew cold mornings, empty beds, the sharp edge of silence pressing in from every side. This was different.
A woman lay curled against him. For one panicked second, he didn’t recognize her. He tightened his hand reflexively, fingers flexing against bare skin, and the past lunged at him full force.
Libby. The name of his dead old lady hit him like a blow to the chest. He opened his eyes fully then, heart thudding hard as he stared at the unfamiliar ceiling, the faint light filtering through the clubhouse window.
Memory rushed in, unwelcome and vivid. The night before. Ivy, with that bold and defiant look in her eyes, her tempting mouth against his. The way she’d looked at him like she saw all of him.
Slowly, carefully, Havoc turned his head. Ivy slept on her side, facing him, dark lashes fanned against her cheeks, lips parted slightly as she breathed.
Ivy had one arm draped over his chest. She rested her fingers just above his heart like it belonged there. Her hair spilled across his shoulder, warm and faintly scented with soap and paint and something uniquely her.
She looked peaceful, and for some inconceivable reason, that terrified him. Havoc swallowed, throat tight, and stared at her like she might vanish if he blinked. He hadn’t woken up next to someone like this since Libby.
Guilt crept in, cold and sharp. Would Libby hate him for this? The thought made his stomach twist. He imagined her laugh, the way she used to steal his hoodies, the way she’d teased him for being grumpy before coffee.
Would she feel betrayed if she could see him now, tangled up with another woman, letting someone else into the space she’d once filled so completely?
His chest ached. The worst part was, Ivy wasn’t just a warm body. She wasn’t a distraction or a mistake he could shove into a dark corner and forget. She mattered. Somewhere between her stubborn independence and the way she’d looked at him without fear, something inside him had shifted.
Last night, the walls he’d spent years building had cracked, and Havoc was terrified of what might spill through.
He studied Ivy’s sleeping face, memorizing details he hadn’t meant to. The faint crease between her brows. A smudge of paint still clinging stubbornly to her knuckle. She looked real in a way that made his chest feel too tight, like he’d taken a breath and couldn’t quite let it out.
Ivy deserved better. That thought came hard and fast, settling heavy in his gut. She deserved someone whole. Someone who didn’t flinch at the idea of loving again. Someone who wasn’t haunted by a dead woman and the guilt of surviving her.
Could he really be the man she needed? The answer scared him enough that he started to pull away before she even stirred.
Still, she did wake. Ivy shifted, tightening her arm briefly against his chest. Her eyes fluttered open. Confusion crossed her face for a split second before recognition softened her expression.
“Morning,” she murmured, voice sleep-rough and warm.
Then she hit him with a dizzying smile. It hit him straight in the chest.
Havoc opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out. Words crowded his throat and tangled there, sharp and useless. His mind raced, panic prickling under his skin.
Say something normal. Say anything. Don’t let her see how fucked up you are.
Ivy frowned slightly, concern replacing the softness. She lifted her hand, fingers brushing his jaw, her thumb grazing the stubble on his cheek.
“Havoc?” she asked quietly. “What’s wrong?”
The touch nearly undid him.
Her fingers were warm, unguarded. She rested them against his jaw. Ivy hadn’t learned yet how dangerous that simple contact was for him. It sent a jolt straight through his chest.
For a heartbeat, he was nowhere near the clubhouse, nowhere near the present. He was seventeen again, invincible and stupid and in love, waking up to Libby’s laugh and the certainty that the world couldn’t touch them.
He should have told Ivy everything in that moment. About Libby, about the way grief wasn’t a single wound but a thousand small ones that reopened without warning.
The fear clawing through him now, sharp and feral, because last night hadn’t just been sex or comfort or a lapse in judgment. It had felt like standing on the edge of something vast. Beautiful, yes, but also lethal if he lost his footing.
Ivy had looked at him like she might stay, and that scared him more than any rival MC, more than any stretch of open road taken too fast.
He knew what loving someone cost. He knew how quickly it could be ripped away. Ivy deserved honesty. She deserved the truth of who he was and how broken parts of him still were.
However, fear spoke louder than decency. Instead of opening his mouth and letting the truth bleed out, he retreated. He pulled away from her touch like it burned, like distance could save them both. It was instinct, ugly and automatic.
Self-preservation dressed up as restraint. The moment he created space between them, he felt the damage register. The hurt on her face was immediate.
“Oh,” she said softly.
Havoc cursed himself even as it happened.
“I didn’t mean...” he started, then faltered, words slipping away again.
Ivy drew her knees to her chest, shoulders folding inward just a bit.
“I thought last night...” Her voice trailed off.
“Last night what?” Havoc asked, sharper than he intended, frustration bleeding through.
She shook her head, eyes dropping. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter,” she muttered.
It mattered to him. God, it did but why wasn’t he saying anything?
“I’ll go,” she added quietly.
“Ivy, wait,” Havoc said, reaching for her without thinking.
She was already sliding out of bed.
“I have work to do,” she said, her tone carefully neutral as she grabbed her clothes from the chair.
She didn’t look at him as she dressed, movements brisk and efficient, walls snapping back into place. Havoc sat there, fists clenched in the sheets, watching her retreat.
Every instinct screamed at him to get up, to stop her, to explain himself like a man instead of a coward. Guilt rooted him to the mattress. By the time he dragged himself into the shower, Ivy was gone.
The water was too hot, beating down on his shoulders like penance. He braced his hands against the tile and bowed his head, jaw tight, breathing hard. He saw her face again, the way hope had flickered and then died when he pulled away.
“Idiot,” he muttered to himself.
By the time he dressed and headed downstairs, the clubhouse was stirring to life. Voices echoed, coffee brewed, engines rumbled in the distance. Life went on, whether he was ready for it or not.
He spotted Roach near the bar and made a beeline for him.
“I need you to watch Ivy today,” Havoc said without preamble.
Roach looked up, surprise flickering across his face. He studied Havoc for a long moment, eyes sharp. “King give you a new job?”
Havoc scowled. “None of your business.”
Roach snorted softly. “Funny. Usually when you pawn off your babysitting duties, it means something’s up,” the other biker pointed out.
Havoc’s jaw tightened. “Just watch her.”
Roach leaned back, arms crossing. “You know, she’s a good girl. Smart. Tough. Don’t look like the type to play games,” he said.
Havoc didn’t respond, he ground his teeth together.
Roach hardened his gaze. “If you’re not willing to take her seriously, you shouldn’t mess with her,” Roach had the gall to say.
That did it. Havoc’s temper snapped like a frayed wire. He stepped forward and swung before he could stop himself. His fist connected with Roach’s jaw with a solid crack, sending him staggering back into a table.
The room went dead silent. Havoc stood there, chest heaving, knuckles throbbing. He didn’t look back as Roach cursed and hauled himself upright, shock and anger written across his face.
“I need a ride,” Havoc muttered, already turning away. “Some air.”
He shoved out of the clubhouse, the cool morning hitting him full force. The bike waited, faithful and familiar, and he swung onto it like it was the only thing that still made sense.
As the engine roared to life beneath him, one truth rang loud and merciless in his head.
He was running, and sooner or later, it was going to cost him Ivy.
****
Ivy attacked the wall like it had personally wronged her. She dragged the brush too hard. Her lines were too heavy and worst of all, the colors felt wrong in a way she couldn’t immediately articulate but felt in her bones.
She stepped back, squinting, head tilted, and felt the truth land with a dull, unpleasant certainty. Ivy hated it. The section of the mural she’d been working on all morning felt off. Unbalanced and angry.
The bike’s frame was too sharp, the motion too aggressive, like it was trying to outrun something instead of simply being alive. Ivy stared at it, her jaw tight, and let out a slow breath through her nose.
She never painted like this. Painting, for her, had always been about listening. To the place, the people, the quiet pulse beneath everything. Even grit had a rhythm to it.
Even violence, when it showed up in her work, carried intention and honesty. This wasn’t that. This was frustration bleeding through her hands.
She dropped the brush into the water bucket with more force than necessary and scrubbed her palms over her face. Of course it didn’t feel right. Nothing had since that morning.
Since waking up tangled in Havoc’s sheets and realizing, in the most humiliating way possible, that whatever she’d thought they were stepping toward had only existed in her head.
She swallowed, throat tight. The memory came back uninvited. The way he’d gone still when she touched him. The way he’d pulled away like her fingers were a mistake.
The silence that followed, heavy and cruel. She’d felt it then, the shift, the moment where hope curdled into something small and sharp in her chest.
I thought last night...