He shot her a look.Brief but fierce.“Yeah.I did.”
Tessa’s breath caught, because that wasn’t the voice of a man performing a duty.
That wasn’t obligation, politeness or orders from King.It was something fierce, instinctive, primal.A man like Brick didn’t posture, didn’t bluff.He didn’t need to.
The quiet intensity in his tone told her this was a man who would burn down an entire MC, scorch the earth behind him, and walk through the ashes before he let anyone lay a finger on her.She’d never met anyone quite like Brick before.Not even close.
She’d dated a few men, enough to know the pattern by heart.They charmed, they impressed, they promised.In the end, they all disappointed her, betrayed her, or drifted away when things got real.
None had ever looked at danger and silently dared it to try her.None had ever felt like a force.
That made something inside her chest flutter, frightening in its intensity.A tug she wasn’t prepared for.An ache she didn’t know how to name.
She wasn’t ready to examine it or admit what it meant.
She stared at the hard line of his jaw, the silent storm brewing behind his quiet eyes and her pulse stumbled.This man was going to be trouble.The kind she wasn’t sure she wanted to run from.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
They returned to the Devil’s Crown MC clubhouse to retrieve her car.He offered to ride back with her.The journey back to her house was quiet, but not the strained kind Tessa sometimes endured with people who didn’t know what to do with silence.She kept sneaking glances at him and decided to speak.
“You’re really good at that,” she ventured, trying for lightness.“The whole looming wall of doom thing.”
Brick blinked once.“Looming wall of what?”
She bit back a laugh.“Doom.You know.”She mimed a big, hulking stance with her shoulders.“Big, scary, silent.Like you’re about to eat someone’s soul.”
Another blink.Then, so soft she almost missed it, the corner of his mouth twitched.Was that a smile?Tessa’s heart did a stupid skip.
“I’m not trying to doom anyone,” Brick muttered, eyes fixed ahead.“Just keeping things from going sideways.”
“Still,” she said, settling back in her seat, “you’re very effective.”
Brick tightened his hands on the wheel.“You were getting crowded.Didn’t like it.”
Brick pulled onto her street a minute later, slowing in front of her small, tidy rental house.Warm porch light.A potted fern she always meant to replace.Nothing special or noteworthy.
Brick, however, looked at it for a moment like he was assessing a perimeter, scanning for risks she’d never considered.
The biker club world she’d stepped into today felt like a different planet, and Brick felt like the only safe thing in it.
When the truck rolled to a stop, she unclicked her seatbelt, hesitation fluttering through her.She wasn’t bold by nature, not forward.Something about Brick, though, pulled things out of her she normally kept buried.
“Brick?”she said softly.
He turned toward her, and even in the dim light, his presence felt overwhelming.Big, solid, comfort wrapped in armor.
“Would you...”Her voice faltered, stupidly.She cleared her throat.“Would you want to come in?For coffee?Or tea?Or whatever you drink when you’re off-duty.”
Brick didn’t move.His gaze dipping to her lips for a fraction of a second so quick she could’ve imagined it.
Then he shook his head.Tessa’s stomach dropped.
God, she should’ve known better.Too fast, too much, too her.She always misread signals.She always embarrassed herself.Of course he wouldn’t want to come in.He barely talked to her.Why would he—
“It’s not that,” Brick said suddenly, voice low.
She paused, hand halfway to her bag.
