14. Nyah
NYAH
Dear Diary,
I went searching for Lynx and accidentally committed a crime. How many years do you get for being a Peeping Tom?
Ifell asleep, wrapped in the quiet strength of Lynx’s arms, and wondered how I had ever seen this man as just a friend. To be fair, maybe if I’d known he could go down on a woman the way he had on me, I might have seen him as something more before this point.
I didn’t know how the hell to reconcile the way I felt about him or Luca or Dax, but I tried not to think about it. So far, none of them had made demands on me. Well, at least not about choosing just one of them.
Luca had made some demands, but they were the kind that set my body on fire and had me trembling from head to toe with need.
But when I woke the next morning, in gentle sunlight, not one of them was in my bed.
“Lynx?” I called, thinking maybe he was in the adjoining bathroom.
But there was no water running, and he didn’t call back.
I frowned and sat up, pulling the sheet with me to cover up my nakedness. I suddenly felt vulnerable and exposed, and the room that had felt so warm when I’d thought Lynx was in it, now suddenly felt cold.
I got up and tested the water in the shower, finding it worked much better than the one in the room I’d shared with Dax.
I washed my hair with Lynx’s two-in-one shampoo, then instantly regretted it when my hair was a matted mess that would need a bottle of decent conditioner to fix.
But at least I could brush my teeth, and by the time I left the bathroom, though my hair was a bit of a damp disaster, the rest of me felt clean.
Until I had to do the walk of shame to my room to get fresh clothes.
Amber sat at the bar with a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee. She simply winked at me, knowing smile firmly in place.
I stifled a laugh and shook my head at her. “Have you seen Lynx?”
She swallowed a mouthful of her coffee. “Not today. Figured he was with you, what with all the hot sex you two were having last night.”
I glanced around the room, making sure there wasn’t anyone else in earshot before whispering, “We didn’t even have sex. But the man has…talents.”
Amber snorted on a laugh that was wholly unattractive for how pretty she was. “I bet he does. If you end up choosing Dax or Luca, don’t worry, I can always take care of Lynx for you.”
A red-hot jealousy rose inside me so swiftly I didn’t have time to mask my face.
Amber did a double take. “Shit! Or not! Don’t punch me, I was just joking! He’s all yours, babe. Trust me, he hasn’t even peeked at another woman since he got here anyway.”
I fought to get myself under control. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be weird. He’s my friend…”
Except that term no longer felt right.
And Amber seemed to know exactly what I was thinking. “Can’t be your friend once he’s made you come, honey. He’s either something more. Or you just ruined your friendship.”
That thought left me cold, because I suspected she was right.
Shit.
I needed to find him. We talked, Lynx and I. That’s what we were good at. We’d work this out. Just because he’d seen me naked…because he’d literally had his tongue inside me…didn’t need to change anything.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Of course it fucking did.
I needed air.
Forgoing clean clothes if I was just going to get hot walking around the compound anyway, I told Amber I was going to go look for Lynx. She nodded, already more interested in her breakfast and doomscrolling on her phone now she had the morning’s gossip to pass around the club.
I found my sneakers in the pile of shoes by the door and let myself out into the cool morning air.
I checked the big shed where the guys worked on bikes and where Grayson’s group met, but there was nobody down there at this time of day.
I doubted he would have gone to Hawk’s place when they had little kids he wouldn’t have wanted to wake up.
I stopped and listened for any signs of him crashing through the woods around the clubhouse, but birds all chirped peacefully in the quiet morning, so unless he was deep within the compound’s boundaries, I suspected he wasn’t out here.
Heat flushed my body when I remembered the way he and Luca had watched each other last night, both of them working my body together, until I was a pulsing mess of need beneath them.
It occurred to me the most likely place Lynx was, if he wasn’t with me, was in Luca’s bed.
And I was right outside the bedroom windows.
I mentally counted off the rooms down the hallway, and then the windows along the side of the building until I got to the one I was sure was Luca’s.
And then peered in the window, like some sort of perverted stalker.
But I had to know if they’d gone from making me come to making each other come.
I peeked through the cobweb-strewn glass and into Luca’s room.
He was sprawled out on the bed, one-hundred-percent gloriously naked. His eyes were closed, and so I stood there for too long, staring at how perfect his body was, right down to the thick cock, hard, because wasn’t every man hard at this time of the morning?
He opened his eyes and looked right at me.
I let out a squeak and ducked, waddling away as fast as I could doubled over beneath the bottom of the window. Embarrassment flamed through my cheeks, and I prayed he hadn’t actually seen me.
But of course he fucking had. He stood at the doors of the clubhouse in gray sweats and nothing else by the time I scurried around there.
All he did was raise one eyebrow at me.
I held up a hand in a stop motion. “No. We are not discussing this. That did not happen.”
He sniggered. “It definitely happened, princess. You were peeping through my window, knowing full well I sleep naked.”
My mouth dropped open. “I did not know that. How the hell was I supposed to know you have an aversion to pajamas?” My gaze slid down his chest to the trail of dark hair beneath his bellybutton that disappeared into the elastic of his sweats. I tried not to drool.
He stepped closer and smirked at me. “Just admit it. You wanted more of what I started last night.”
“I was completely satisfied by Lynx last night, thank you very much,” I told him haughtily, sounding as ridiculous as I felt.
He winked at me. “Lies. You wanted him to fuck you, and he didn’t. Why do you suppose that is?”
There was a truth in his words, and I didn’t have the answer.
He took another step in. “I wouldn’t have been as gentlemanly if it had been your thighs wrapped around my neck. I would have taken exactly what I wanted.”
I shoved him back. “Because you’re an asshole and Lynx isn’t.”
“If I’m such an asshole and Lynx is such a good guy, why is it that you’re staring at my cock as the sun rises?”
“I was searching for Lynx, if you must know. It had absolutely nothing to do with looking at your cock.”
“And you thought he’d be with me? Didn’t you sleep in his bed?”
I bit my lip. “He wasn’t there when I woke up. And I can’t find him anywhere else.”
I didn’t need to see the expression on Luca’s face to know he thought that was as weird as I did. I turned and stomped off toward the gates. “I’m going to see if whoever is on the gate knows where he went.”
Luca threw on a pair of Crocs that possibly weren’t even his, because I somehow doubted he was the sort of man who owned a pair, and they seemed to be at least a size too small. But he caught up quickly.
“Wait. I’m coming with you.”
“Why?”
“Because despite the rumor that I’m an asshole, I actually like Lynx. So if he’s disappeared overnight, I would like to know about it.” He paused for a moment then added, “And because I don’t think you should be strolling around a compound full of bikers alone.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not scared of the Slayers. I was in a lot more danger at your father’s house than I am here.”
He nodded. “Fair point.”
We walked up to the gate in silence after that, and when imposing metal barriers came into view, I stopped in front of the prospect who’d been on duty overnight.
He was sound asleep in a folding chair, his head lolled back in a way that made me think he’d likely have a very stiff neck for the rest of the day.
Luca nudged him with the toe of his borrowed Crocs. “Hey. Sleepy. Wake up.”
The younger guy, who I think they called Herb, possibly because of the vague scent of marijuana that clung to his clothes, even though he was out in the open, startled awake. “Shit. What happened?”
Luca frowned at him. “You took a nap while you were supposed to be working. Seen Lynx?”
The prospect rubbed his eyes and tried to blink away his confusion. “Like, today?”
“Like last night,” I explained. “Did you see him leave the compound?”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah. Shit, he did. Left late on his bike. Didn’t say where he was going. And I didn’t ask.”
Luca frowned and pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I’m calling him.”
I nodded, grateful because I still didn’t have a phone of my own. I would take Amber up on her offer of lending me her old one later today. This not having a phone thing was getting ridiculous.
Luca pressed the phone to his ear, and it was so quiet I could hear every trill of the ringtone.
I took a few steps toward the gates and wrapped my fingers around the wrought iron, peering into the distance of the road that led to the Slayers’ entrance, like Lynx might appear in a cloud of bike exhaust.
Luca hung up the phone. “He’s not answering.”
I squinted at something up ahead, and dread pooled in the pit of my stomach. “Open the gates.”
Herb gave me a disapproving frown. “You don’t want to go wandering around out there. Easy to get lost in the woods if you don’t know ’em.”
But I wasn’t going off on a leisurely hike. “Herb! Open the fucking gates!”
He blinked at my sudden, sharp tone, then practically fell over his own feet trying to get to the gate controls.
Even Luca did a double take. “Any reason you’re suddenly making bikers cry?”
I couldn’t worry about Herb’s possibly hurt feelings. The gate creaked open at the most sluggish pace imaginable, and all I could do was point at what I could see in the distance. The lump on the road. “What does that look like to you?”
Luca squinted in the direction I pointed.
His body tensed, and he spun. “Herb! Get the fucking gate open now!”
The moment the gap was wide enough, Luca and I both pushed through the opening. My heart pounded as I ran. It had to be the adrenaline pumping through my system that had me able to keep up with Luca’s longer strides.
Or maybe he ran with me because he was scared of what we were going to see and didn’t want me to see it alone.
We got closer and closer, and with every step, I slowed, just a little bit, because each one brought the realization that I wasn’t wrong. I hadn’t been seeing things.
There was a dead body on the road leading to the Slayers’ gates.
“Oh God,” I whispered, slowing as we drew nearer. “Is it him?”
All I could see was the blood. The tattered clothes. My vision swam, my head trying to protect me from processing the trauma. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see any more.
“No,” Luca said quietly. “It’s not Lynx. It’s a woman.”
My eyes flew open in relief. And then I instantly felt bad for my reaction. I didn’t want anyone to have died. I took another two steps forward, Luca at my side, until we both stood over the body.
My stomach sank. She was face down; dark hair strewn around the dirt. Her shirt ripped open.
And lynx marks carved into her back.
I covered my mouth with my hand. “Oh, Lynx. What the hell have you done?”
Luca squatted in the dirt beside the body, sympathy on his face. He found a spot on the woman’s shoulder that wasn’t bloodied and pushed her over, onto her back.
He recoiled so fast his ass hit the ground, and he scrambled back away from the dead, unseeing eyes of the woman.
It took me a second longer to recognize her.
But when I did, a long, slow scream ripped from my throat.
She was the woman I’d baked with in the Guerra’s kitchen. She’d been the only source of affection Luca had grown up with.
Dax’s mom, Virginia, lay dead at our feet, murdered by the man whose bed I’d just woken up in.