Chapter Ten
Mel
Islammed the car door shut behind me with as much force as I could muster, rattling the window of Gabe’s BMW. I wished it would break and shatter. I wanted to see him angry, to see him hurt. Though I knew petty things like breaking his stuff wouldn’t so much as make him twitch. He had so much money I could burn down his whole fancy condo, and it wouldn’t be any skin off his back.
What made him pissed was when I did shit like this.Put myself in danger.
Sure, it was childish. He really did care about me. Ever since I’d almost died when we were kids, he’d been so protective. He loved me. That I believed. But something else was going on here that was keeping that wall between us erect. Whatever it was, he was scared of something. Or someone.
He was trying to protect me. But fromwhat?
It wasn’t just morally questionable wolf shifters and a strip club owned by a delusional billionaire. Could Gabe really be in a cult? We spent so much of our time together, but I’d never gotten even the slightest hint that he was keeping something from me.
Whatever it was, it wasbig.
Uhg. I needed some sane company and a stiff drink, stat.
Whirling around, I stumbled for a moment over my high heels. Great. Just great. Why did I have to be cursed with the dexterity of a giant baby with two left feet?
I glared at the handful of bikers clustered around the entrance as they laughed at me, watching me with a look in their eyes that made my skin crawl.
They were thick, muscular men dressed in leather and denim. This was the first time I’d seen them with my own two eyes. I’d imagined them as older men, in leather chaps with Harley Davidson motorcycles overly customized to comical proportions. But these dogs were nothing of the sort. Most of them were young, tattooed, rugged, and clearlymean.
Acutely aware of Gabriel’s car still parked on the curb, I straightened myself and carefully strode past them.
“You smell like absolute heaven, baby,” one of them said through a dark laugh. His friends cackled at that like he’d made some kind of joke.
“You scent that, boys?” he gloated. “A pussy so fuckin’ sweet that not even those celestial shits can keep out of that cunt.”
“Course they can’t. I bet it’s absolute Paradise between those juicy thighs.”
Their crassness hit me with all the force of an unexpected slap. I was completely stunned, their words so violating that for a second, I thought about turning around and getting back in the car with Gabe so he could take me home.
But I held my ground. He couldn’t always be around to shield me from the world. I needed to handle my own shit.
Drawing in a deep breath, I strode forward to move past them, taking care not to make eye contact. I kept my gazgaze fastened to the industrial steel entrance door of Siren’s, one that looked alien against the old brick façade of the church.
But before I could reach it, one of them grabbed my ass.
“Where do you think you’re going, without so much as a hello? That’s rude of you, Sunshine? Don’t you think?”
I jerked away and opened my mouth to tell the fucker off. Maybe grab the pepper spray in my backpack. But Gabriel was out of his car the instant the man’s hand had touched me. He slammed the door behind him, murder in his eyes.
Holy mother of God, did he look pissed. And dropdead gorgeous. His blond hair, which had gotten wet but dried in the car, was once again instantly dampened from the still falling rain, giving him a tousled mess reminiscent of a just-got-fucked look. His slabs of sinewy muscle flexed beneath the taut, dark, slick fabric of his clothes. His lethal gaze found my attacker through the rain, a look so withering and violent I thought the guy holding me might burst into flames.
He was ready to crack heads again. More than that, he looked ready to kill.
So I was relieved when the door to Siren’s flung open and out strode two men. One was tall and muscular, wearing a black muscle shirt that struggled to cover its owner’s tatted biceps. He had eyes as blue as the sea, with brunette hair buzzed short on the sides. It seemed tattoos covered almost every inch of him, all the way up to his neck, stopping as his broad jawline.
Beside him was a more slender man, who was nearly just as tall as his beefy companion. Which had to be at least six feet.
The moment they’d stepped outside, everyone stilled, and their attention was on the smaller of the two men.
The second my gaze shifted to him, my entire body went numb. It was as if some part of me recognized this person, even though I was sure I’d never seen him in my life.
Because there was no way I would have forgotten a face like that.
He was so handsome it almost hurt to look at him. His hair was black as midnight, his skin as pale as the moon. He wore a dark gray suit that hugged him like a sinful dream. He had high cheekbones and a Romanesque nose that was oh so slightly crooked, which made him all the more handsome for some reason. Dark stubble covered his cheeks and chin, and his lips wore a tenacious smirk befitting the devil himself. It was the kind of smile that oozed the kind of confidence only a stupidly rich man with God-given charisma could wear. His eyes were the color of amber, and they shone like molten gold through the torrent of rain.
