Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Monk
The hospital parking lot was washed in that late-afternoon gold that made everything look softer than it was. A liar’s light. Nothing about that moment had been soft.
David was already in the passenger seat, his weathered face pinched tight against pain he was too proud to show. Stubborn old bastard. I respected that more than I probably should have.
“Appreciate the help, Monk,” David said, his voice gruff but genuine.
I nodded, my hands gripping the truck’s doorframe. “We’ll follow you back to the farm. Help get you inside the house.”
“That’s not necessary.” Lina’s voice cut through the air like a blade.
I turned slowly and met her eyes. She stood a few feet away with her keys clenched in one hand, her whole body locked down tight. Defensive. Braced. Like she already knew she was out of room to run.
Good.
“I have everything handled,” she said, her voice tight, controlled. “You don’t need to—”
I smiled.
It wasn’t a friendly smile. It was the kind that made grown men in bars reconsider how badly they wanted trouble.
The kind that promised consequences. “I know you do, Carolina,” I said, dragging out her full name and watching the way her breath caught when it landed.
“But I’m here now. And I ain’t going anywhere. ”
Her face went pale. Her throat worked as she swallowed hard.
I took a step toward her, closed the distance, and watched her eyes widen just enough to satisfy something mean in me.
Fear. Recognition. Maybe both. I didn’t care.
“Besides,” I said, my voice dropping lower, rougher, “this seems like the perfect time to catch up. It’s been a long—” I let the word hang there between us, heavy as a threat. “—very long time.”
The emphasis was deliberate. A warning. A promise. A debt finally come due.
We were going to talk. Whether she wanted to or not.
Lina’s lips parted, but nothing came out. She just stood there staring at me, her chest rising and falling in quick, shallow pulls.
Then, slowly, she nodded. “Okay.”
I held her gaze another beat, long enough to make sure she understood I wasn’t bluffing. Then I stepped back and gave her just enough room to pretend she still had choices.
She turned without another word and walked to the driver’s side of the truck, every movement stiff and overcontrolled. She climbed in, started the engine, and pulled out of the lot without looking back.
I watched the truck disappear down the road, my hands clenching into fists at my sides.
Seven years. Seven fucking years since she’d vanished clean out of my life, and now she was here. Close enough to touch. Close enough to bleed for.
And I wasn’t about to let her slip through my fingers again.
“Monk.”
Blackjack’s voice dragged me back. I turned and found him standing with Shadow a few feet away, both of them wearing those careful, unreadable expressions brothers used when they knew better than to push too hard. Still, I could see the questions in their eyes.
Who is she? Why did you chase her into the hospital? What the hell is going on?
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Not with my head full of ghosts and my pulse still kicking like a trapped thing.
“Head back to the clubhouse,” I said, my voice flat, leaving no room for argument. “I’ll check in later.”
Blackjack’s jaw tightened. “Monk.”
“Later,” I repeated, harder this time.
Shadow exchanged a glance with Blackjack, then nodded slowly. “Alright, brother. We’ll see you back at the clubhouse.”
I didn’t wait for them to leave. I turned, walked to my bike, and swung my leg over the seat. The engine roared to life beneath me, all vibration and iron and the one kind of truth I still trusted. Then I rode.
The road to the Wilcox Horse Farm cut straight through open Oklahoma country—flat land, wide skies, the kind of landscape that could make a man feel small and infinite at the same time.
I didn’t feel small. I felt like a live wire pulled too tight, one bad second away from blowing apart.
Seven years. Seven motherfucking years since she’d been gone.
I looked for her. Searched every goddamn corner of this town, every lead, every rumor.
I called in favors, leaned on contacts, did everything short of burning Lawton to the ground, and still came up empty.
Even her father didn’t know where she was.
She vanished like smoke, and I mourned her.
Mourned the life we might’ve had. Mourned the future I’d been stupid enough to picture before it got ripped out of my hands.
Eventually, I forced myself to believe she was dead.
She had to be dead, because the alternative—that she’d left, that she’d run, that she’d chosen to disappear—cut too deep to look at straight.
My hands tightened on the handlebars, knuckles blanching with the pressure.
I wanted answers. Needed them. And I was going to get them, whether she wanted to give them or not.
The farm came into view—sprawling pastures, white fences, the same old red barn that had been standing since before I was born.
I pulled up near it and killed the engine.
The sudden silence rang in my ears, broken only by the distant shuffle of horses and the wind moving through the grass.
I swung off the bike and stood there with my heart pounding, my whole body vibrating with tension. Then I heard it.
The sharp, violent slam of a screen door.
I turned, and there she was—coming at me like a storm breaking loose, her eyes lit with fury, her hands balled into fists at her sides.
She didn’t slow down. Didn’t hesitate. She marched straight up to me, her face flushed and her chest heaving, and slapped the fuck out of me.
The crack of her palm against my cheek echoed across the empty farmyard as my head snapped to the side, the sting sharp and immediate.
For a second, I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Then I turned back to face her, slow and deliberate, and met her gaze.
“What the hell happened seven years ago?” she demanded, her voice shaking with rage and something that sounded too much like grief. “I thought you died. I was there. I saw the bodies. I saw—”
Her voice cracked, and she stopped, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
I stared at her with my jaw locked and my hands flexing at my sides. She thought I was dead. She’d gone to the clubhouse. She’d seen the massacre and walked away believing I’d been left among the dead.
I didn’t let her finish. I caught her wrist and yanked her toward the barn.
“John!”
I didn’t answer. Didn’t slow down. I pulled her through the barn doors into the dim, dusty interior that smelled of hay and leather and horses, and then I grabbed her face with both hands and kissed her.
Hard. Desperate. Claiming. She made a sound.
A half gasp, half moan, and then her hands were in my hair, pulling, gripping, holding on like I was the only solid thing in the world.
I backed her up against the barn wall, my body pressing against hers, as my hands slid down to her hips. The rough wood scraped against her back through her shirt, and she arched into me, her breath coming in sharp gasps.
“John,” she gasped against my mouth.
“Shut up,” I growled, my voice rough, barely human. “Just shut the fuck up.”
I kissed her again, harder this time, my tongue sliding against hers, tasting her, devouring her.
She tasted like coffee and something sweet, something I had forgotten and remembered all at once.
My hands gripped her hips so hard I knew I would leave bruises, and I didn’t fucking care.
I wanted to mark her. Wanted her to feel me for days.
Seven years. Seven motherfucking years without this. Without her.
The thought made me insane.
My hands moved to the hem of her shirt as I yanked it up roughly, desperately, like I couldn’t get it off fast enough.
She lifted her arms without hesitation, letting me pull it over her head in one swift motion.
I tossed it aside, not caring where it landed.
It could’ve ended up in horse shit for all I cared, as my eyes raked over her hungrily, taking in every inch of exposed skin.
Her bra was simple, white lace, nothing fancy or elaborate, but it didn’t matter.
The sight of her standing there, vulnerable and wanting, made my pulse pound in my ears.
Her chest was heaving, her breasts rising and falling with each ragged breath she took, and I could see her nipples straining against the delicate fabric.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath, the word coming out rough and strained.
My hands went immediately to her jeans, fumbling clumsily with the button like some inexperienced teenager.
My fingers were shaking—actually fucking shaking—and I couldn’t get the goddamn thing open no matter how hard I tried.
The button felt impossibly small between my trembling fingers, my coordination completely shot to hell.
She pushed my hands away gently, a small smirk playing at the corners of her lips despite the heat in her eyes, and undid the button herself with practiced ease.
Then she shoved her jeans down her hips in one fluid movement, wiggling them past her thighs.
I helped her kick them off the rest of the way, along with her shoes, nearly tripping over myself in my eagerness.
And then she was standing there in just her bra and panties, her skin flushed and warm, her chest heaving with anticipation, her eyes dark and glazed with raw, undeniable need.
I couldn’t wait another second. I grabbed the waistband of her panties with both hands and ripped them down her legs in one rough motion, the delicate fabric tearing slightly in my grip, the sound of it barely registering in my lust-fogged brain.
“John.”
“Mine,” I growled, my hands sliding up her thighs, gripping her ass, lifting her as if she weighed nothing. My fingers dug into her soft flesh possessively. “You’re fucking mine. You’ve always been mine. From the moment I first saw you, you belonged to me.”