Good.
I wasn’t the kind of man who wanted a woman to run. I wanted one who stood her ground when I came for her. Wanted one who burned just as hot when I touched her as I did watchin’ her. And right then, she looked like she’d been waitin’ on me to make the first move.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE CLUBHOUSE WASloud.
Laughter, shouting, music turned up too high for anything subtle, it all tangled together into one chaotic, living storm that vibrated in my bones.
Lucy and Zeynep kept me anchored near the bar, introducing me around, making sure I survived my first night. Lucy thrived in the chaos, talking with half the room like she belonged to all of it. Zeynep was her opposite, grounded, quiet, the calm eye in a room full of teeth.
Me? I was somewhere in between, standing still, pretending the noise didn’t make my heart knock too hard against my ribs.
Freedom was loud. I wasn’t used to it yet.
Every breath felt borrowed, like any second now a hand would snap shut around my wrists, dragging me back under. But I stood my ground. Chin up. Shoulders squared. Fighting to hold my shape inside all the noise.
I wasn’t hiding. Not anymore.
Lucy leaned in and bumped my shoulder with hers. “You’ll get used to it. It’s gets loud and sometimes messy, but it’s like family.”
“Family,” I echoed with a crooked smile, and she grinned wide like I’d passed a test.
She said something else, something stupid and sweet, that dragged a real laugh out of me. Raw. Sudden. Unfamiliar. It felt strange. New. Like trying on a feeling I’d never been allowed to wear before.
And then I felt it.
Not a sound. Not a touch. Justpresence.
A pull in the air. A subtle shift in gravity.
That kind of stare you feel before you even turn your head.
Chain.
Tonight was the first time I’d seen him since I’d been half-conscious in his arms, soot-streaked and shaking with fear.
He stood across the room, and for a second the noise around us just… drowned out. Like my body decided I didn’t need sound when my eyes were already full of him.
His broad shoulders filled the space, the black tee covered by his vest stretched tight across his chest, every line of muscle obvious even from where I sat. His dark hair was a little messy—long enough to fall over his forehead, like he’d dragged a hand through it one too many times—but it only made him look rougher, harder, more like the man who’d carried me out of fire and never once looked back to see if anyone else was following.
And his eyes, I remembered them being piercing that night, fierce and relentless, but under the bar’s light they weresomething else entirely. Blue, vivid and burning, like they saw more than they should. Like they sawme,not the shadow I’d been trying to blend into. I felt the weight of that stare along my skin, prickling heat, spreading slow, low, everywhere.
My gaze dropped before I could stop it.
His forearms flexed as he shifted, veins standing out, muscles moving beneath tan skin like they remembered the shape of my body from that night. His hands were big, strong, calloused, hands made for work and for damage. Hands that had once wrapped around me with absolute control and zero hesitation.
Then I saw the way his jeans fit, dark denim riding low on his hips, worn in all the right places, hugging every cut line of his thighs, and heat flared under my ribs sharp enough I had to steady my breath. I wasn’t prepared for the way he looked in the bright light, with nothing burning around us, nothing to blur the edges.
He watched me the whole time.
Not curious. Not confused.
No—he watched me like a man measuring distance before he closed it. Like he was trying to decide if I was a line he shouldn’t cross… or one he wanted to step over slow, with both feet, and damn the consequences.
Like I might be the spark he hadn’t realized he’d been circling around, and he wasn’t sure whether touching me would light him up or burn him down.
He hadn’t looked at me like this the night he rescued me.
