He studied Ivy’s sleeping face, memorizing details he hadn’t meant to.The faint crease between her brows.A smudge of paint still clinging stubbornly to her knuckle.She looked real in a way that made his chest feel too tight, like he’d taken a breath and couldn’t quite let it out.
Ivy deserved better.That thought came hard and fast, settling heavy in his gut.She deserved someone whole.Someone who didn’t flinch at the idea of loving again.Someone who wasn’t haunted by a dead woman and the guilt of surviving her.
Could he really be the man she needed?The answer scared him enough that he started to pull away before she even stirred.
Still, she did wake.Ivy shifted, tightening her arm briefly against his chest.Her eyes fluttered open.Confusion crossed her face for a split second before recognition softened her expression.
“Morning,” she murmured, voice sleep-rough and warm.
Then she hit him with a dizzying smile.It hit him straight in the chest.
Havoc opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out.Words crowded his throat and tangled there, sharp and useless.His mind raced, panic prickling under his skin.
Say something normal.Say anything.Don’t let her see how fucked up you are.
Ivy frowned slightly, concern replacing the softness.She lifted her hand, fingers brushing his jaw, her thumb grazing the stubble on his cheek.
“Havoc?”she asked quietly.“What’s wrong?”
The touch nearly undid him.
Her fingers were warm, unguarded.She rested them against his jaw.Ivy hadn’t learned yet how dangerous that simple contact was for him.It sent a jolt straight through his chest.
For a heartbeat, he was nowhere near the clubhouse, nowhere near the present.He was seventeen again, invincible and stupid and in love, waking up to Libby’s laugh and the certainty that the world couldn’t touch them.
He should have told Ivy everything in that moment.About Libby, about the way grief wasn’t a single wound but a thousand small ones that reopened without warning.
The fear clawing through him now, sharp and feral, because last night hadn’t just been sex or comfort or a lapse in judgment.It had felt like standing on the edge of something vast.Beautiful, yes, but also lethal if he lost his footing.
Ivy had looked at him like she might stay, and that scared him more than any rival MC, more than any stretch of open road taken too fast.
He knew what loving someone cost.He knew how quickly it could be ripped away.Ivy deserved honesty.She deserved the truth of who he was and how broken parts of him still were.
However, fear spoke louder than decency.Instead of opening his mouth and letting the truth bleed out, he retreated.He pulled away from her touch like it burned, like distance could save them both.It was instinct, ugly and automatic.
Self-preservation dressed up as restraint.The moment he created space between them, he felt the damage register.The hurt on her face was immediate.
“Oh,” she said softly.
Havoc cursed himself even as it happened.
“I didn’t mean...”he started, then faltered, words slipping away again.
Ivy drew her knees to her chest, shoulders folding inward just a bit.
“I thought last night...”Her voice trailed off.
“Last night what?”Havoc asked, sharper than he intended, frustration bleeding through.
She shook her head, eyes dropping.“Nothing.It doesn’t matter,” she muttered.
It mattered to him.God, it did but why wasn’t he saying anything?
“I’ll go,” she added quietly.
“Ivy, wait,” Havoc said, reaching for her without thinking.
She was already sliding out of bed.
