And now I’m back here, hoping that twenty-three hundred miles between them and me is enough to keep me alive, breathing, and safe. But I didn’t truly think this through. It’s been a decade since I’ve been here in North Carolina, and the memories of the past are at the forefront of my mind, memories that I’ve suppressed and thought I’d forgotten.
I didn’t forget.
Not that I really thought I did, but a girl can hope.
A girl can hope to forget the man who broke her heart. The man who tore it out and squished it into the ground with the heel of his sexy biker boot. I don’t think I could ever forget him, though.
Piggy. Axton Colter. Whatever he’s going by these days, he’s not someone you forget. Not the way his lips feel, not the way they taste. You don’t forget his fingers on your skin or the way he moves inside you.
Not a single solitary moment of it.
“You ready for your next set?” a voice calls out from behind me.
I don’t have everyone’s voices or names memorized yet. I’ve only been here a few weeks, so I have to turn around to look at who is standing in the doorway. It’s Anna, the woman who manages us girls.
“I’m ready,” I state, even though I’m not sure I actually am.
Anna’s got a clipboard in her hand, and I watch as she writes something down on it as I approach. She doesn’t move out of the doorway. Instead, her hand reaches out, and I feel her fingers curl around my bicep.
“The place is full of police tonight. They’re working undercover, don’t do anything even slightly illegal.”
I stare at her for a long moment, wondering what the hell she’s even saying. I never do anything illegal. I don’t do drugs, and I don’t do favors of any kind, paid or otherwise. I’m not someone who is going to party.
Dipping my chin in a single nod, I shift past her. I’m not going to explain myself or try to defend anything. Her warnings aren’t for me, so I don’t need to pay any attention to them. She steps to the side, allowing me to pass, and thankfully doesn’t say anything else.
It’s time for me to get back to work. I have money to make and bills to pay.
CHAPTER ONE
PIGGY
ONE MONTH LATER
I can’t makemyself go back inside the club. I don’t want to see her, but I can’t stay away from her. So every night I’m not on duty, I’m here, watching. It’s a wonder the bouncers haven’t caught on to me being a weirdo lurker. They do suck balls at their jobs, so it shouldn’t surprise me.
When the club closes, the bouncers head to their cars, leaving the women to fend for themselves. At least the owner stays behind as they lock up. Although I’m not sure how much good he would do in an ambush situation.
The women filter to their cars, some of them in twos, all chatting with one another, except for one dark redhead, who isn’t speaking to anyone. She’s walking straight to her white Mercedes coupe.
She folds into her car, then the engine starts, and the lights turn on. I think about just watching her drive away, but something begs me to follow. She pulls out of the parking lot, and that’s when I shift toDriveand follow her.
I didn’t bring my bike, knowing she might recognize me if I did. Plus, you can’t really follow someone incognito when you’re on a loud-as-fuck bike. So, I’m a little less obvious in my black lifted Ford F-150, but only slightly.
Her car moves down the streets of Raleigh. It’s not deserted, but there isn’t much traffic, a rare sight for Raleigh at any time of day or night. Keeping a safe following distance, I watch her car until she pulls into the parking garage of a very nice apartment complex.
I can’t imagine what the rent would be here a month. It’s fancy, about a million steps up from her childhood home and the little shitbox we lived in together. I could have afforded better, and I should have, for her.
My life was the club and only the club. I lived down there more than I did at the apartment. It was a place to hold my uniforms for the police department and to put down on my paperwork as my primary residence, nothing else.
But it wasn’t good enough for Millie. I knew it then, yet I did nothing to change it. Another way that showed my immaturity. If I stacked up all the ways in which I was immature, they would topple over.
Which is bullshit.
I shouldn’t have been.
I was old enough to know better. Old enough to be a man, but I wasn’t. I was playing at being a man while I was behaving like a boy. Looking back, I can see what a fucking fool I was. I can’t fix it. I can’t change it, but I can see her from a distance and know that she is safe.
And happy.
