CHAPTER 3
Kaya
I push through the kitchen door harder than necessary, causing it to bounce off the doorstop and fly back at me. Thank God there was a doorstop or it would have slammed into the wall. I push the door again as it hits my hand on the return bounce. Everyone in the kitchen turns to me.
I smile awkwardly. “Hey all.”
Everyone greets us, some more enthusiastically than others.
Jana never seems happy to see anyone with breasts enter a room, while Lexi, Hannah, and Nora all smile wide.
The kitchen smells amazing. Lexi and Hannah are slicing a ham and placing the slices into a foil tray.
Over at the stove, Jana is mashing potatoes with an electric mixer, while Simone is mixing something else in a huge pot.
“Anything for us to do?” Sophia asks.
I know helping is polite, but it’s the last thing I want to do while I’m seething.
The only thing I want to do is walk back into the common room and punch Maverick in his gorgeous bearded face.
Ok, maybe I shouldn’t have told him to back off before he even said a word to me, but then he called me a bitch.
He called me a bitch in front of half the damn clubhouse.
I stare at the grey cafeteria style table in front of me while I replay what just happened in my mind.
A lump begins to form in my throat as guilt washes over me.
Those are his brothers out there and I basically cut his balls off right in front of them.
I drop my head and my stomach sinks. Shit.
All he did was get up to greet me and I attacked him like a viper.
I can’t help it. Every time I see him my insides get tangled up and my brain short circuits.
Even with whatever is going on with the potential fetus, I can’t be with him.
I won’t. I have never once in my life committed myself to a man and I’m not about to start now, no matter how good he is in bed or what might be in my belly.
Fingers snap in front of my face and I jump.
Sophia and Hannah are both eyeing me with knowing grins on their faces, both standing in front of me.
I glance to the table where Hannah was a second ago and realize I have no idea how long I was stuck in my head, because she literally moved across the damn room.
“Yeah?” I say stupidly.
“Feeling guilty?” Sophia asks.
I scrunch my brows like I’m going to argue, but then relax. “Yeah.” I draw out the word in exaggeration.
“What did you do?” Hannah asks with a raised brow.
“She practically clawed Maverick’s eyes out as soon as we walked in the freaking door.” Sophia chuckles.
I huff and fall into a chair. Sophia sits down next to me and Hannah drops into the chair on my other side. I hate that they are waiting for me to make some kind of grand confession, because I don’t have one.
I know what Sophia is thinking. The girl was born to be a wife and mother.
She was always going to find her guy, get hitched and have lots of babies.
Gretchen and I always knew that about her.
Gretchen was the same way with Ty. They were literally engaged and had started making wedding plans.
Me? No. Sophia has told me for years that when I met ‘the one’ I would know it and change my mind.
It hasn’t happened, but that doesn’t stop her from giving me knowing glances and encouraging smiles whenever Maverick is around. Yep. She’s doing it now.
“He got up from the bar and was gonna walk over to me. I shut him down. I’ve been shutting him down. I don’t know what else to do to make him understand.”
“That you’re crazy?” Hannah asks.
My head snaps to her. “He’s the crazy one!”
Sophia places a hand on mine. “Kai, you’ve been giving the guy mixed signals for months.
You sleep with him, push him away, and then pull him back in.
You’ve kissed him when he left on club business and you jumped into his arms after our place was shot up.
Oh, and did you forget that you stayed in his room the entire time we were on lockdown? ”
“But yet you keep pushing him away.” Hannah adds.
I shrug. “When I slept with him, I never expected him to make it his job to ward off any other man within a five-mile radius. That wasn’t the deal.
And to be perfectly honest, I didn’t even think he would still be here.
He said he was just visiting. A visit is like a week, maybe two, not three freaking months. ”
Hannah taps her fingers on the table. “He’s a nomad. He could stay for three days or three years, though I think if he stayed that long, Ace would have him fully patch into Dogwood Creek. He’d probably have to drop his nomad rocker.”
I glance to Sophia. “She’s talking biker again.”
Sophia smacks my hand like a mom reprimanding her child when they reach for the stove. “Don’t try to change the subject.”
I pull my hand away, scowling at her. Her light brown eyes sparkle. Brat.
“If you really are done with him, I’d love to give him a go.
” Jana, one of the club bunnies, says, before she gives me a wink and walks out of the kitchen.
My stomach turns and jaw tightens. A fiery burn of jealousy tears through me and I instantly want to rip the bandana that’s holding up her hair off her head and wrap it around her skinny neck.
Sophia and Hannah chuckle. I glance over to Lexi who rolls her eyes, and I come to the realization that they may in fact be right. I am fucking crazy.
“Jana knows better than to approach him. She’s lucky she’s even still here after what happened before,” Lexi assures.
I open my mouth, but before I can manage to say ‘I don’t care.’ Sophia points at me. “Don’t even say you don’t care, like we didn’t just watch your reaction to what she said.”
Instead, I stick my tongue out at her, because obviously that’s the mature thing to do.
She’s right though, but that still doesn’t mean that I want him, just that I don’t want her, or anyone else for that matter, to have him.
Just the thought of him picking her up the way he does me, makes my skin crawl. Yep, definitely crazy.
“I need to go apologize,” I say as I stand from the table. I feel bad for lashing out at him. On top of that, I want to make sure Jana isn’t anywhere near him. I’m assuming she went to change for dinner since she literally had mashed potatoes on her t-shirt, but I need to make sure.
“Dinner will be in about ten minutes,” Lexi calls to my back.
I push open the door and slowly poke my head around it.
Maverick is sitting at the bar making Leo, Rebel, and Deuce appear small around him.
The man is delicious. Six foot four, long brown hair, and a beard that hangs below the collar of his shirt.
He’s hard everywhere. Muscled and hairy.
I take him in. His large hand is wrapped around his beer bottle and his head is bowed.
There are conversations going on around him, but he’s not involved. And no Jana.
I slink the rest of the way out of the kitchen and let the door close gently behind me.
He seems sad, and I really hope it’s not because of me.
Cautiously, I walk over to him and lean my back on the bar facing him.
He raises his eyes to me and gives me a slow blink.
No words. Being this close to him causes my entire body to light up.
I suddenly feel the need to stretch out my muscles.
I want to flex my fingers and toes and somehow make the tingling stop that is rapidly spreading through me.
Our eyes stay connected, but neither of us speak.
His boots shift and he spins the stool he’s sitting on just enough so he’s facing me.
My breath hitches. It’s like he’s moving in slow motion, but in a tunnel because nothing else going on around me registers.
His arm goes around my waist and he pulls me between his legs.
“You done being a bitch?” He says in his gruff southern drawl.
I glare at him.
His eyes narrow.
“Sorry I bit your head off,” I say softly, as I try to lean away from him.
He holds me tighter, his fingers digging in to my sides.
His blue eyes hold my gaze. The heat they normally hold is absent, being replaced instead with hurt.
I’m not sure what to do with that. Maverick isn’t a man I thought capable of that emotion.
I know it sounds dumb, but he’s like an enigma.
He’s strong, almost caveman-like. He’s a growler, possessive, a masculine alpha, who is a beast between the sheets, but for some reason, I never saw him as a man with real emotions. And now I feel like an asshole.
The realization that he may actually have feelings for me hits me in the chest like a two-ton hammer.
My stomach clenches as he continues staring at me.
I relax and lean into him, my icy heart melting the slightest bit.
His arm moves across the top of my shoulders and he draws me into him.
My cheek lays against the cold leather of his cut, his smell invading my nose.
The combination of laundry detergent, musk, and leather causes goosebumps to crawl up my arms. The hair of his beard tickles my forehead and I close my eyes.
Shit. I hate that I feel safe in his arms.
My fight or flight kicks in the second I feel vulnerability, so I raise my face, attempting to put some distance between us.
“Don’t,” he whispers. And for the first time in my life, I listen. I bury my face back into his chest and breathe him in again.
“Dinner!” Lexi bellows from the kitchen door.
Everyone starts moving that way except Maverick and I, not that I’m not trying. He holds me against him while the common room clears out, leaving us in silence. His chest moves up and down against my cheek, his heart thumping beneath my ear.
“We should go,” I mutter.
“Fine.” He places a soft kiss on the top of my head, which is very out of character for the burly caveman.
I pull back slowly and grab the side of the bar to guide me away from him. I feel woozy and don’t want to lose my balance. I’m not sure if my uneasiness is from what might be in my belly or the swirling in my head from seeing a softer side of Maverick.
Before I even have a chance to think too much about it, his hand drapes over my shoulder. We only take about three steps when a crackle comes through the security system.
“There’s a woman out here asking for Maverick,” the voice, that I think is Doug, says.
Maverick stiffens beside me. I look up at him and he frowns. He heads to the wall panel outside the kitchen door and presses a black button.
“Who is it?” He snaps.
“Says her name is Jessica.”
I fold my arms across my chest, more for protection than in anger. Protection from what? I'm not sure. I watch Maverick’s face lose color and I suddenly want to lose my lunch. Who the hell is Jessica?