Spinner noticed too. “You expectin’ somebody?”
Rune didn’t look up from his cards. “Nope.”
“Bullshit,” Bolt said. “You’ve been glancin’ at that door every ten seconds since I sat down.”
Rune gave him a flat look. “Maybe I’m just waiting for you to shut up.”
We laughed, because under the joking and talk, there was that quiet, familiar tension. The kind that shows up when a man wants somethin’ he knows he can’t have without hurtin’ it.
The hand played out quick, Rune won, Bolt cursed, Spinner accused him of cheatin’ just like always. Same old rhythm. Same old noise.
But I wasn’t in it.
My mind wasn’t on the cards or the beer or the brothers sittin’ around me.
It kept driftin’ back to the door she’d slipped through, shoulders straight, steps even, chin high like she wasn’t hurt at all by what she’d seen. Like that sweet butt’s hand on my chest hadn’t meant a goddamn thing. Like she hadn’t noticed at all.
But she had. I knew she had. I’d seen it flicker in her eyes before she covered it, quick, searing, gone as fast as breath.
And hell if that didn’t twist somethin’ in me.
Lark wasn’t soft. Wasn’t breakable. Wasn’t like any woman I’d ever had in my bed or in my hands. She was the kind of trouble that didn’t burn out, the kind that got in a man’s bloodstream. The kind that waited him out in silence. The kind a man didn’t see comin’ until she was already under his skin.
I took another drink, but it didn’t settle the feeling in my gut.
If I wasn’t careful, if I kept watchin’ her the way I was, if she kept lookin’ back at me like she already knew what I wanted — that woman was gonna own me.
And I couldn’t decide if I wanted to stop it.
Or let her.
CHAPTER NINE
I NEEDED AIR.
The clubhouse had its own pulse, laughter and shouting and music turned up just past reasonable, the clatter of bottles and the scrape of chairs, a storm of sound that felt like too much all at once. Too loud, too alive, too many unfamiliar freedoms pressing against my skin until I couldn’t tell if my heart was racing from excitement or panic.
The night outside was a shock of quiet by comparison.
I stepped off the porch, my shoes sinking into the soft earth. Crickets hummed in the grass. A breeze rolled through the trees, carrying the scent of pine and motor oil and something faintly sweet, like crushed leaves. Even in darkness, the property heldits own kind of wild beauty, open sky stretching wide, stars scattered thick across it, moonlight spilling over the row of bikes lined up like chrome guardians.
I hadn’t expected that.
For a place run by men who looked like they could break bones with their fingers, it was… peaceful. Peaceful enough that, for the first time since arriving, my lungs expanded all the way.
I followed the gravel path past the garages, rounding the back fence where the noise of the clubhouse faded until it was nothing but a distant vibration beneath the night. Out here, breathing didn’t feel like a chore; it felt like a choice. I had to remember adjusting wouldn’t happen overnight.
Footsteps sounded behind me.
Not rushed. Not sneaky. Just steady, deliberate, unhurried.
I turned, ready to tell whoever it was that I didn’t need company and then froze.
Chain.
He cut through the moonlight like he belonged to the shadows themselves, a dark silhouette against silver sky, hands shoved in his pockets, no cut on his back, no smoke between his fingers — just him, broad and certain, scanning the tree line like he was looking for something only he could see.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked, louder than I meant, a reflexive edge to hold the world at bay.
