4. Saint
SAINT
Rook trusted me more than any man alive.
He said so the morning after I fucked his sister against her wall.
“Gravewater bait is all over that van,” he said, standing at the head of the scarred table in church. “Saint’s the only man I trust to keep Avery breathing while we find out who planted it.”
I didn’t look at her. That would have felt too much like a confession.
Avery sat beside me with her laptop open, bruised cheek fading from purple to blue.
I kept one hand on the back of her chair.
The position let me put my body between her and the office door in one move.
It also let my knuckles brush the soft hair at her nape.
She knew exactly what she was doing when she leaned back.
Mace spread photographs across the table. The abandoned van had been wiped of any good evidence, but whoever staged it had wanted us to find the Gravewater MC colors painted beneath the rear bumper and a support patch shoved under the driver’s seat.
“Too fucking obvious,” Riot said.
“That’s the point,” I replied. “We hit Gravewater before asking why their president missed a neutral ground meeting. Somebody wants war.”
Rook paced to the narrow window overlooking the yard. “Havoc found the van ten miles from Avery’s place. Pike and the second man switched vehicles near the river.”
Avery clicked through the images.
“Stop.”
Mace turned the screen closer toward her.
She enlarged a grainy photograph. The man had a shaved head, narrow eyes and a pale scar splitting one eyebrow.
“That’s Pike.”
My hand tightened around the chair.
“Sure?” Rook asked.
“He bled on my wall. Trust me, I got a good look.”
Her tone was dry, but I saw the way she curled her left hand beneath the table. I covered it discreetly with mine.
“Full name?” I asked.
“Pike’s what he uses,” Mace said. “No patch. Does collection work, abductions, anything that pays.”
“And the red tattoo?” Avery asked.
“Second man’s likely called Slate. Still waiting on confirmation.”
Rook nodded toward her laptop. “You got everything you need?”
“I need my files and the tablet at my house.”
“We’ll deal with that later,” I said before they could start.
Rook’s gaze dropped to where my fingers rested against her neck.
I moved them to the chair before anything registered.
“Saint stays with you,” he told Avery. “Not Mace. Not Riot. Him.”
Guilt crawled under my skin.
Avery turned her hand beneath the table and laced our fingers together where her brother couldn’t see.
“I understand,” she said.
I did too.
Rook had handed me the key to the thing I wanted most because he believed I would never open the door.
The meeting ended without a vote. That was how Rook ran the club when family was bleeding. He listened, decided, and expected the room to move without question.
Mace went to question a fence who knew Pike. Riot took two brothers to the river. Rook headed for the garage with Havoc. I escorted Avery back to the main room, sat beside her while she answered client emails, then followed her when she went to make coffee.
I didn’t get one fucking inch from her all day. She worked at the end of the long table while I cleaned a weapon and pretended the images on her screen didn’t interest me. She was working on a biker romance book cover. “Why is the woman’s head cut off?” I asked.
“Because the title goes there.”
“Looks like the bike hit her.”
“The composition is temporary.”
“Bike’s wrong too.”
Avery turned the laptop toward me. “Seriously, it’s just a motorcycle-shaped collection of pixels.”
“Pipes are on the wrong side.”
“Nobody but you will notice.”
“Every biker will notice.”
“Trust me, most of my readers aren’t bikers.”
“They deserve accuracy.”
She opened a reference folder and pushed the computer across the table. “Fine. Pick one.”
I scrolled through stock photographs, rejecting men who wore pristine leather and sat on polished machines like they were waiting for an insurance ad. “None of them ride,” I said.
She sighed. “Saint, they’re models.”
“I know. I’m offended on behalf of the bikes.”
Her laugh drew attention from the bar. I looked up until the brothers looked away.
“You’re doing it again,” she said.
“What?”
“Threatening people for hearing me laugh or even looking at me.”
“They can hear it, they just can’t look at you.”
“How generous of you.”
I selected an image of a battered black motorcycle without a rider. “Use this. Lose the man.”
“It’s a romance cover.”
“Put the woman on it.”
“Readers want the fantasy hero.”
“Give him decent boots, then.”
She leaned close to examine the screen. Her shoulder settled beneath mine. The moment should have felt ordinary. It didn’t. I had imagined fucking Avery in every room of the compound, but I had never let myself imagine sitting beside her while she worked.
That domestic hunger frightened me more than lust.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“You went quiet.”
“I’m always quiet.”
“Not like that.”
I pointed at the screen. “Those boots are shit.”
She studied me for another second, then let me hide every emotion I was feeling.
For now at least.
After dark, I brought food to her room and took the chair near the door. She ate cross-legged on the bed, studying me over a carton of noodles.
“The incident at Christmas,” she said.
I knew exactly which one. “What about it?”
“You said every moment was real.”
“It was.”
“Tell me.”
“Eat.”
“I can do both.”
I leaned back and crossed my boots at the ankle. “You wore that green dress.”
“I remember.”
“Every man in the room remembered.”
“You stood behind me at the bar.”
“Some drunk asshole kept brushing against you.”
“So you put your hand on my waist.”
“To move you.”
“The crowd cleared.”
“Yeah.”
Her fork paused halfway to her mouth. “You left your hand there.”
I had. My palm had spanned her bare skin where the dress dipped at the back. She’d leaned into me by less than an inch, and I’d felt it for months.
“I wanted to know how you fit.”
The fork lowered.
“How did I?”
“Like trouble.”
She smiled. “You flirted with me.”
“I lost control for a whole six seconds.”
“Then disappeared.”
“Drove out to the north warehouse and beat the heavy bag until my knuckles split.”
Her smile faded. “Because you touched my waist?”
“Because I wanted to take you into the storeroom, pull that dress to your hips and find out if you were wet.”
Heat entered her expression.
“I was.”
I stood.
“Where are you going?”
“Hall.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m supposed to protect you, not spend every night inside you.”
She set the carton aside and rose. “Who says you can’t do both?”
“I do.”
“Is that another decision you’re making for me?”
I stopped at the door.
“Cheap shot.”
“Accurate shot.”
I turned. “You want accurate? I haven’t forgotten where you were last night. I can still feel you clenching around my cock while your brother walked down that hall.”
Her breath caught.
“I’m trying to keep you safe while men are hunting you. That means I need my head clear.”
“Was it unclear when you fought them?”
“No.”
“During the meeting?”
“No.”
“Then maybe stop using duty as a prettier word for fear.”
She walked past me into the corridor.
I caught her waist and pulled her back before she’d taken two steps. Her ass settled against the hard ridge in my jeans.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“You were leaving. I thought I’d save you the trouble.”
“You don’t walk the compound alone.”
“Then I suppose you’re stuck with me.”
Her voice carried a smile.
I bent and put my mouth near her ear. “Keep pushing.”
“Is that a promise?”
Rook’s voice sounded from the turn in the corridor. “Saint?”
I moved faster than I had when Pike reached for a weapon. Avery slipped into her room. I planted myself outside the door as Rook came into view.
His eyes moved from me to the closed door.
“She asleep?”
“Getting there.”
He nodded. “We found Pike’s watcher near the east road. Lost him before we got a plate.”
The heat vanished from my blood.
“How close?”
“Close enough to know the compound.”
The door opened behind me.
Avery had heard.
Rook looked at her, then at me. “Nobody outside the gates unless I approve it.”
“She stays with me,” I said.
He gripped my shoulder.
“That’s why I can fucking breathe. I know she’s safe.”
He walked away.
Avery and I stood in the corridor with the weight of his trust between us.
I wanted her again.
I loved her.
Neither truth made the other easier to carry.
I kept watch from inside her room that night.
Pike knowing the access road changed the calculation. The chair sat beside the window, angled so I could see both yard and door. Avery lay beneath the covers with her laptop balanced on her knees.
“You’re staring,” she said.
“At the fence.”
“The fence is behind you.”
I turned my chair.
She laughed.
“What are you working on?”
“A cover for a serial killer romance.”
“That a thing?”
“Everything is a thing if the man is fictional and attractive enough.”
“He kills women?”
“Bad men.”
“Then he’s not a serial killer. He’s just picky.”
She stared at me, then typed something.
“What?”
“Stealing that as a tagline.”
“Put my words on some soft-looking asshole with styled hair and I’ll sue.”
“With which legal income?”
“Watch it.”
Her smile faded into something quieter. “This is what I missed.”
“Working?”
“You talking to me like I’m not a problem to manage.”
The observation landed cleanly.
“You’re not a problem.”
“Tell your face. It has threatened six people since breakfast.”
“Seven.”
“Who was the seventh?”
“Delivery driver looked through the gate too long.”
She lowered the laptop. “You’re impossible.”
“Overused line.”
“Okay, annoyingly self-aware if you prefer.”
Silence settled while she worked and I watched the yard. It wasn’t comfortable because nothing about the threat was comfortable. It was shared. Her keyboard tapped. My radio murmured. Each sound told the other person exactly where we were.
At two, the laptop slid sideways as she fell asleep. I set it on the dresser and pulled the blanket over her shoulder.
Her fingers caught mine.
“Stay,” she murmured.
I sat on the edge of the bed until her grip loosened.
Then I returned to the chair, carrying the shape of that one word in my chest.