His head bobs a couple of times, but he stops when I take a few steps closer.
“How long where you on your own?” My voice is intentionally quiet, he doesn’t want anyone to hear this even if we are alone.
“Don’t feel sorry for me, sweetheart,” his grin is melancholic.
“I don’t feel sorry for you,” I refute the assumption. “You’ve made a lot of yourself Eli. I mean, look at you, look at what you’ve achieved, the things you’ve done.”
“Joined an outlaw MC and rebuild old cars?”
“Don’t downplay it. I’ll be the first person to moan about the MC but I’ll also fiercely defend it. Just like you would. And, if they made you feel less alone…”
“I thought you didn’t want to know anything aboutme.”
“This is different. You’ve always been honest with me, and everyone around you, but there is something you always held back. I witnessed what going back there did to you. You felt like it was something good, that relief in your shoulders when they accepted you. Then it changed, when you came back that feeling was gone.”
“How’d you see through me so well, for someone who says she doesn’t do deep and meaningful?”
Somehow we’ve moved closer together. My heart is thumping for a mixture of reasons. I’m scared, I’m intrigued, I’m worried about him and his words ring with the lie I’ve pushed. One I’ve sold myself so many times, I can’t see past it, or won’t.
“You’ve always seen through me, haven’t you?”
“You have to come to decisions on your own, Cassie.” He reaches up a hand and strokes his thumb under my eye and across my cheekbone as he studies me.
It’s hard not to close my eyes and tilt my head into his touch. His hands are warm from his leathers and he smells so good. There is something comforting about Eli and my resistance to him is starting to collapse around me.
“And maybe one day, I’ll tell you what happened to me. But not now.” He gives me a rueful smile and steps back. He clears his throat and pulls his gloves back on. “Liz didn’t tell me anything, but she did take my number and said she might call.”
It’s jarring how quickly he changed the subject and broke the moment. I guess I deserve it. He’s tried more than once to get through my walls. Now I’m on the receiving end, it doesn’t feel so great.
“That’s good, right?” I go with it.
“With the caveat I may never hear anything from them.”
“Of course she said that.”
“It was always a long shot. Maybe Mace has had better luck.”
He shows no sign of being affected mentioning his name. I do, it’s hard not to.
His lip twitches, knowing where my mind went. I should ask him about what the hell that whole situation was but I don’t want to put in his head that there was something wrong with it, or that I didn’t enjoy it. He wouldn’t have continued if he didn’t feel the same.
“Get your ass on the bike, Cassie. We’ll go see him. It’ll be fun to roll up without warning him we’re coming.”
“Eli,” I frown.
“Come on,” he reaches out a hand. “Night’s drawing in.”
Who the hell knows what he means by that but as I climb on the bike, a thrill runs through me that he’s voluntarily heading to Mace’s clubhouse. I don’t know what happened between us here but it wasn’t the same as before.
A crack has opened in my chest and a tiny piece of what he has been trying to offer has snuck through.
Chapter Twenty
Dominic (Mace)
“He’s dead.”
My head snaps up from the papers I’m looking at spread out on the table. Talon has come in and is leaning against the doorframe.
