Blaze hangs up. The whole time I was talking I had one eye on the stairs. Taylor might think she knows something about who I am, but what she does see barely scratches the surface. I’m not a good man and she deserves better.
I should walk out the door, take care of the fucker who hurt her and never see her again. But I’ve always been a selfish bastard. She’s a good fuck.
Damn, it’s not even that. There is something about her that draws me in, that makes me want…something. I want to protect her.
“Everything okay?” Taylor asks, she is standing midway down the stairs, holding the railing with her good hand.
Seeing the bruises on her face again hardens my resolve. I don’t care how we do it, that kid isn’t going to see another fucking sunrise.
“I have to go. I have a lot to do,” I take a deep breath, and she comes all the way down the stairs but doesn’t approach me, she watches me watching her.
“Thank you,” she says, breaking the prolonged, somewhat awkward silence growing between us. “For coming around, and staying. I feel a lot better for the full night’s sleep.”
“Is that all you feel better for?” I arch a brow and her cheeks flush. “Come here.”
For a moment it doesn’t seem like she is going to move, then she takes the few steps across the room till she is standing in front of me. I stroke the backs of my fingers over the bruising, careful not to touch the delicate skin but enough for her to know I haven’t forgotten what I said.
She needs to know who I am. If she can’t handle that, then this is going nowhere. I feel bad for re-splitting her lip, but tasting her blood did something to me too. Fucking hell. I take out my phone and open the contacts then hand it to her.
“What?” she asks.
“Put your number in there and I’ll text you so you have mine. If you need anything, you call. It might not be me who comes, but I will send someone.”
“Noah, that’s… you don’t need to do that.”
“Don’t argue with me, Cherry,” I push the phone at her.
For a second, it looks like she is going to argue and I’d welcome it right now, cos I like it when she’s feisty. She blows out a sigh and taps her number into the phone. It says a lot about what the attack has done to her. I fucking hate leaving her alone, but I have no choice.
I walk to the door and she comes to see me out. “What if someone else can’t give me what I need?”
My head whips around to her. The thought of one of my men being near her like that.
“You know, if I need someone to make me the perfect cup of tea.”
“Cute,” I narrow my eyes at her, and she tries to hide her smile. “You need someone to fuck you, I’m the only one coming round.” Her breath hitches at that. “You’re having nightmares,” I add, getting more serious. “Same thing.”
Her head ducks but I grab her chin and lift her face up. I don’t need to say more, she understands. I need to leave before I do something stupid. And I need to get my mind into a whole different gear.
Outside I go straight to the planters on the windowsill and dig around until I find the spare key. Taylor watches me put it in my pocket. I’m about to turn away when she starts to laugh.
“What?”
“Dad had the door changed a few years ago. I didn’t even remember that key was there.”
“That isn’t funny.”
“It’s a little funny,” she tries to stop herself laughing. “And I’m not sure we’re at the key swapping stage anyway,” she gives me a sassy look then goes inside and closes the door.
The locks snap into place which goes someway to appease me.
And fuck me, I’m smiling as I walk down the path to my bike.
Going against what I really want to do, which is keep Taylor out of things, I will tell Blaze about her. I want a security system set up at her place, and Rebel has to know because he’s my VP. If anything happens to me, it’s his job to pick things up. Keeping secrets from your VP is bad news.
At the clubhouse I’m not happy when Rebel tells me we need to deal with the Cannon problem before the idiot wannabe bikers terrorizing the city.
“How did we not hear about this?” I ask him walking to the back room where the weapons are all locked away.
