Chapter 29
ASH
I hadn’t seen much of Noelle after she stormed off yesterday.
I couldn’t blame her for not coming back last night, and we’d all gotten texts that she was okay but needed time to calm down.
Rafe took it hard.
Hell, we all did.
He’d been an asshole, and he knew it.
I tapped the wrench on the edge of the metal table where I’d been bent over a muffler all morning.
The hollow ping echoed my empty heart.
Damn, I was getting soft.
Noelle made me soft.
She stripped my veneer of cool detachment and turned me into someone who gave a fuck.
Bad thing?
Nah.
Not so much.
But the other guys would probably give me hell for it if they found out.
Except Rafe and Bishop.
They wouldn’t admit it, but I’d noticed the changes in them too.
Rafe apologized, for fuck’s sake.
He never did that.
Not once in the entire time I’d known him.
Standing, I tossed the wrench in the toolbox and stalked into the clubhouse.
And froze.
Noelle stood next to the Christmas tree, her head bent toward one of the ornaments.
She hugged one arm across her middle, but the other reached for the red twine and popsicle stick reindeer I’d stuck on the tree a few days ago.
“I made that in Kindergarten.” I crossed the room to stand beside her.
She didn’t startle like I expected but nodded like she’d known I was there all along. “It’s adorable.”
Her green sweater dress hugged her curves and brought up a whole dream sequence of memories and temptations.
The sad look on her face stopped me from asking her to join me upstairs.
That look couldn’t be fixed with sex.
She needed an emotional release, not a physical one.
Though I could make her forget about her troubles if given enough time.
I tapped the reindeer ornament, making it sway back and forth on the branch. “How are you?”
She shrugged and sighed. Never a good sign.
“Want to talk about it? Yesterday was a shit day. I could use a chat.” I played all my cards at once.
Noelle had a tendency to internalize her problems.
If I made it seem like I was the one with an issue, she might break down and talk to me.
The forlorn look in her eyes put a nauseating pit in my stomach.
Did she still feel bad about what happened yesterday?
“Sure.” She shrugged again, but the tightness eased from her shoulders.
I held out my hand and took hers. “Come on.”
I led her to my workshop and nudged her toward the stool where I’d been sitting minutes ago. “I need to work on these bikes. We can talk while I work.”
“I don’t know anything about bikes.”
She settled on the stool and tugged her dress down over her thighs.
It slid right back up again, and she gave up with a huff.
I pushed a tray of parts in front of her.
“I’ll teach you.” I walked her through how to change the oil in my bike–information she would never need but helped ease us into the conversation we really needed to have. “Sorry about Rafe yesterday.”
Her tongue poked out between her teeth as she concentrated on tightening the bolt the way I’d shown her.
“It’s Rafe.”
“That’s no excuse.”
I leaned around her, bracing my weight on the edge of the table and inching into her space.
She didn’t move away, but she also didn’t look at me.
Instead, she fiddled with the bits and pieces in the tray.
“I understand that what I did was wrong by his standards, but I honestly didn’t know.”
She blew out a long breath. “But I’m over it. I’m choosing to move past it and concentrate on Christmas.”
“Rafe is not going to ruin Christmas.” I tried to make it sound like a promise.
Rafe was a lot of things.
I’d called him a grinch more times than I could remember.
But he knew what Christmas meant to Noelle.
He wouldn’t dare mess that up.
And I hated to admit it, but what we had planned for Christmas was more important than any argument.
“What happens around here on Christmas Eve?” Noelle pushed the bolts into piles, sorting them by size and dropping them into the tray with a series of clinks.
The question surprised me, though it shouldn’t have.
We hadn’t mentioned our festivities to her. “Not a lot, honestly. Rafe isn’t the kind to celebrate. He might change his mind this year, but if he does, he’ll celebrate the day of, not before.”
Another series of clinks dropped more bolts into the container.
She cupped her chin in her hand and peered up at me through thick lashes. “You don’t do anything on Christmas Eve? I thought you and Bishop might celebrate in some way, even without Rafe.”
“Nah.” I stayed close enough to smell her cinnamon lotion she preferred but kept my hands to myself.
How much could I reveal without blowing it? “As much as I’d love to spend it with you, we have club business.”
“On Christmas Eve?” She said it in a plaintive way that reminded me of disappointment and yearning.
I knew the feeling and finally reached out to stroke her cheek. “It’s important.”
I winked to ease the blow of disappointment. “Top-secret stuff.”
“Oh?” Curiosity sparked, as I’d known it would. A smile appeared, then fell into a frown. “What kind of stuff?”
“Top-secret.” I tweaked her nose, then kissed her forehead. “As in, Rafe would end me if I talked about it. I only mentioned it because I wanted you to know we’d be gone all day and into the night. You should come see us Christmas morning.”
She spent most of her time here, but I knew better than to insist she stay without us around.
There were too many things she might get into.
Like Rafe’s office.
He kept most sensitive material off site, but there was enough in there to send Noelle running far, far away.
Noelle pouted.
It was a delicious look on her since it reminded me of how well she sucked my cock, but it didn’t sway my decision.
She must have seen it on my face because her expression shifted into something less sultry. “I feel like you’re always leaving me out of the big stuff.”
“We barely know you.” I said it slowly, but with enough emphasis to prove my point. “Do you know how long I was in the club before Rafe even let me touch a bike?”
“How long?”
“Three years.” I held up three fingers. “But he’s let you participate in the Christmas drive, he’s brought you into our bed, and he’s brought a fucking Christmas tree into the clubhouse for the first time since ever.”
She had to understand what all that meant. “Rafe doesn’t trust easily, and I’m not going to ruin the trust he has in me by spilling his secrets.”
That was absolutely off the table.
Noelle played with a curl that had fallen over her shoulder, twirling it around her finger and letting it bounce back.
She wasn’t even trying to be sexy, but I found it hot as fuck.
The earlier nausea returned, but for a different reason.
Things I’d noticed about Noelle from the beginning, concerns I’d had about her possible lies, crashed through me with enough force to stutter my heartbeat.
Why had she chosen to go into a bar not under Rafe’s protection?
I halfway believed her story, except the bar was way out of our territory.
What was she doing all the way out there, when her excuse was that she’d been trying to get character witnesses to help our image?
Past conversations peppered me with doubt.
She was curious.
A decent trait for a reporter.
An even better one for a cop.
My hands fisted, and I blew out a hot breath to temper my rising anger.
I had no proof.
Nothing but the sensation niggling in my gut that Noelle was more than she appeared to be.
Couple that with the fact that she kept badgering me about Christmas Eve—our BIG night—and every suspicion I’d ever had leaped back to the surface.
“Ash?” Noelle stood and put her hands on my shoulders. “Are you okay?”
“Sure.” I mimicked her earlier shrug. “Just thought of something I didn’t like.”
“Want to talk about it?” That right there showed me why I was falling for her.
The question was genuine and searching, but not in an invasive way.
Concern creased her forehead in tiny lines, and her grip on my shoulders tightened. “I’m sorry for being churlish the last few days.”
She shook her head, wafting her hair in my face without meaning to. “It’s just… I love Christmas. This is the first year I’ve really had anyone to share it with.”
The rest remained unsaid.
We were ruining it by keeping her out of the loop.
I was ruining it by keeping secrets.
Some secrets went deeper than affection or even love.
Some secrets were worth dying for, and this was one of them.
Noelle might be a cop sent to take us down.
The thought bordered on ludicrous, but my instincts had never steered me wrong.
“I’m sorry you can’t be part of our Christmas Eve, but we’ll be back Christmas morning.” I slid my hands to her hips and brought her flush against me. “We’ll be all yours for as long as you want after that.”
She might be a cop, and she might try to take us down, but for the first time in my life, I didn’t care about that.
I cared about keeping Rafe and the others safe.
If I truly thought Noelle was a threat to our club, I’d say something.
Based on how she looked at me and how she acted around us, her feelings were real.
Did she have the balls to throw all those feelings away and try to take us down?
On what grounds?
We might not be one hundred percent clean, but no one had evidence of wrongdoing.
I knew that for a fucking fact.
Rafe wouldn’t stand for it.
Noelle tucked her head beneath my chin and wrapped her arms around my waist.
“I guess that’s good enough.”
See?
She accepted the rules.
She might not like them, but she abided by them. That counted for a lot in our position.
Damn it.
I should tell Rafe about my suspicions.
I should, but I wasn’t going to.
Like Noelle, I had no facts, and I wasn’t the type who made accusations based on feelings.
I’d keep her secret—whatever it was—as long as she was willing to keep ours when she found out.
I had no doubt Rafe would bring her fully into the know eventually.
If she stuck around long enough.
Noelle rubbed her head back and forth over my chest. “Your heart’s racing, Ash.”
“Because I’m thinking about you.” True.
She didn’t need to know the thoughts were not sexual.
All that mattered was that she leaned a little harder into my chest and tightened her grip on my waist.
“Thanks for this. I needed it.”
Me too.
I kissed the top of her head and dropped my cheek so it rested on the spot I’d kissed.
My heart threatened to break.
I might be making the biggest mistake of my life.
What choice did I have?
I’d found someone to love.
Someone who wasn’t scared off by my wild ways or the fact that I enjoyed sharing with my best friends.
I couldn’t just give that up on a whim.
Noelle would have to prove herself untrustworthy.
And if she did, it might just break me into too many pieces to ever be whole again.