I felt those lips and the whiskers of his beard whisperingagainst my skin and I smelled him and I had to clench my hands not to reach outand grab him like a child reaching to grasp hold of a candy bar that was notgood for them but they had to have.
It was our first kiss.
Well, kind-of kiss, it wasn’t gung ho.
Still, it was a kiss and even not gung ho, stupid, stupidRosalie, I wanted more.
And because he was wonderful, awesome Snapper, not pushingit outside the press that ended in a soft brush of lips and whiskers, he pulledaway and whispered, “Go home to your mom, Rosie.”
I nodded because that was a really good idea.
“Talk to you later,” he said.
“Right,” I replied and nearly cleared my throat but thedamage was done, it had come out husky.
He grinned, swept my jaw with his thumb the other way, thenstepped back.
I started to sprint to my car but stopped myself before Igot in that first rush because I didn’t want him to see me doing it.
Once I made it to the bottom of the steps, though, I shouldhave stopped myself from looking back because badass Snapper had come to thefore.He was standing at the top of the steps with his arms crossed on hischest and his eyes on my ass.
Me being with Beck, he’d been holding back.
Now that the floodgates had been opened, he wasn’t going todo that anymore.
I thought I had problems but I had a feeling I’d been tossedout of the frying pan only to land in the fire.
I should have sprinted.
I decided to skip trot like I was semi in a hurry but hopinghe thought it was because I wanted to get back to Mom before she worried.
There were two good parts to me doing that.One, it got meto my car faster and two, it didn’t hurt my ribs too much so I had indicationI’d be good to go soon with carting around trays full of food and beverage.
I’d hit my car, had the key in the ignition and was about toturn it on when my phone chimed with a text.
Thinking it was Mom, home to find me gone, and worried aboutme, I grabbed it.
It was a number I didn’t have programmed in, local, and Ididn’t have to wonder who it was because the text said,You’re so fuckingcute.
Snapper and I didn’t have each other’s real phone numbers.
Now, we did.
I felt instantly that life was right again after months,no…years of feeling it was all wrong.
Yes, I had problems.
Because I’d fallen in love with a biker who’d dumped me.
Then I fell in love with a biker who went outlaw and thenlaid the smackdown on me.
And now I was in love with a biker who knew where anotherclub did their wet work, was threatening war against that club, but was alreadyat war with a baddie that set his Club to breaking the biker code and workingwith cops in order to use another club to take that baddie out.
I might be out of one set of crosshairs (maybe).
But everybody remotely involved with Chaos was in the other.
And that scared the hell out of me.
