Chapter 11
Wake was going to lose his mind.
Three days. Three days of watching Marley move through the compound like she owned it—because she did, because somehow in the span of a week she'd become essential to this place in ways that had nothing to do with him.
Three days of catching her scent when she walked past. Three days of watching her hands work the taps and thinking about what else those hands could do.
Three days of not touching her.
He was in the workshop, pretending to work on a carburetor that didn't need fixing, when she walked past the open door. She was heading toward the dock with a towel over her shoulder, probably going to rinse off after spending the morning helping Bree set up for another cookout.
Her hair was down. He'd never seen it down before—always pulled back in that messy ponytail, practical and out of the way. But today it fell past her shoulders in dark waves, still damp from a shower, and Wake's hands tightened on the wrench until his knuckles went white.
"You're staring."
Limestone's voice came from behind him. Wake didn't turn around.
"I'm working."
"You've been working on that carburetor for two hours. It was fine when you started." Limestone dropped onto a stool and crossed his arms, that quarry-foreman stare drilling into Wake's back. "You gonna do something about her or just torture yourself?"
"She's under protection."
"She's been under protection for a week. At some point, that excuse stops working."
Wake set down the wrench and finally turned. "What do you want me to say? That I can't think straight when she's in the room? That I've been taking cold showers twice a day because every time she pours me a drink her fingers brush mine and I nearly put her on the bar?"
Limestone's mouth twitched. "That's a start."
"I'm a prospect. She's—"
"A grown woman who looks at you like she's waiting for you to make a move." Limestone stood, clapping Wake on the shoulder hard enough to jar his teeth. "Stop being noble. It doesn't suit you."
He left Wake alone in the workshop with a carburetor he didn't need to fix and thoughts he couldn't control.
The afternoon didn't help.
Wake found reasons to be wherever Marley was. He told himself it was protection—keeping an eye on her, making sure no Razorbacks had found the compound—but he knew the truth. He was orbiting her like a planet around a sun, unable to pull away, burning up in her gravity.
She was at the pavilion helping set up tables when he walked past with a toolbox he didn't need.
She was at the dock talking to Current about fishing when he went to check on a boat motor that was running fine.
She was at the bar—his spot at the bar, waiting for him—when he finally gave up pretending and sat down for a drink he didn't want.
"You look tense," she said, sliding a beer across the wood.
"Long day."
"Doing what? I saw you walk past the pavilion six times." Her eyes glinted with something that might have been amusement. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were following me."
Wake took a long drink and didn't answer.
"That's what I thought." Marley leaned her elbows on the bar, close enough that he could smell her—that whiskey-and-floral scent that had been haunting him for days. "You know, for a man who killed someone in front of me, you're being very polite."
"Polite."
"Careful. Restrained." She tilted her head, studying him. "Like you're holding something back."
You have no idea.
"You're under my protection," he said, the words coming out rougher than he intended. "That means I don't—"
"Don't what?" She leaned closer, and Wake stopped breathing. "Don't look at me like you've been looking at me all day? Don't find excuses to walk past wherever I am? Don't sit at this bar every night and watch me like I'm the only thing worth watching?"
His hand shot out before he could stop it. Fingers closing around her wrist, thumb pressing into the pulse point where her heartbeat hammered against his skin.
"Careful," he said quietly. "You're playing with something you might not be able to handle."
"Maybe I want to find out."
The air between them went electric. Wake could feel her pulse racing under his thumb, could see the flush climbing her cheeks, could smell the heat rising off her skin.
One tug. That's all it would take. One tug and she'd be over the bar and in his lap and he'd finally know what that mouth tasted like.
"Marley."
"Wake."
"If I start this—" His voice cracked. He cleared his throat and tried again. "If I start this, I'm not going to stop. I'm not going to be careful or gentle or any of the things a good man would be. You understand?"
Her eyes darkened. "Who said I wanted a good man?"
His grip tightened on her wrist. "You need to walk away. Right now. Before I do something we can't take back."
"What if I don't want to take it back?"
She was killing him. Slowly, deliberately, with every word and every look and every brush of her skin against his. He'd been hard since she leaned across the bar, and if she looked down she'd see exactly what she was doing to him.
"Tonight," he said, the word dragged out of somewhere deep. "Come to my cabin tonight."
"And if I come?"
"Then you're mine." He released her wrist and sat back, putting distance between them before he lost what was left of his control. "You walk through that door, you're saying yes to everything. The club. The danger. Me. All of it."
Marley straightened slowly, her wrist still bearing the red marks of his grip. She looked down at them, then back up at his face.
"I'll think about it," she said.
But her eyes said she'd already decided.
The rest of the day was torture.
Wake threw himself into work—real work this time, a boat motor that actually needed attention—but his mind wouldn't stay on the task.
He kept seeing her face when he'd grabbed her wrist. Kept hearing her voice saying maybe I want to find out.
Kept feeling her pulse hammering against his thumb like a second heartbeat.
Dinner came and went. He ate without tasting, surrounded by brothers who talked about runs and routes and club business that should have mattered but didn't. All he could see was Marley across the pavilion, laughing at something Darcy said, her hair catching the firelight.
She didn't look at him. Not once. And somehow that was worse than if she had.
By ten o'clock, he'd given up pretending. He went back to his cabin and sat on the edge of his bed in the dark, listening to the compound settle into quiet. Waiting.