For one endless heartbeat, he didn't respond. His body frozen, his lips unmoving, and I thought—I'd misread everything, I'd ruined everything?—
Then he kissed me back.
His hands fisted in my cut, dragging me closer. His mouth opened under mine, hungry, desperate, matching my intensity with a ferocity that stole my breath. He kissed like a man drowning, like a man who'd been waiting for this without knowing he was waiting. The sound he made—a low, broken groan that vibrated against my lips—sent electricity down my spine.
We stumbled backward until his back hit the workbench, tools scattering, neither of us caring. Myhands found his hips, his waist, the warm skin beneath the hem of his shirt. His fingers tangled in my hair, pulling, and the slight pain only made me press harder against him.
Blood and smoke and want. The taste of him, the feel of him, the way his body fit against mine.
I wanted?—
I pulled back.
My breath was ragged. Tyler stared at me, his lips swollen, his eyes dark and dazed.
"Tank—"
I turned and walked out.
I didn't look back. I just walked, out of the garage and across the lot and into the clubhouse, where I locked myself in my room and pressed my back against the door.
My hands were shaking.
I could still taste him. Could still feel the phantom pressure of his mouth, his hands, his body pressed against mine.
I'd kissed a man.
I'd kissed Tyler.
And the only thing I felt, beneath the confusion and the panic, was the desperate urge to do it again.
I slid down the door until I was sitting on the floor, my head in my hands, the events of the night crashing over me in waves. Ghost bleeding out on the asphalt. The muzzle flash of Tyler's gun, saving my life. The cargo of stolen pharmaceuticals. The drive home through darkness, Tyler's bike a constant presence at my shoulder.
And then the kiss.
The kiss that had changed everything. That had taken whatever was building between us and set it on fire.
I'd been with women my whole life. Had never questioned it, never wondered if there was something else, something different. Women were soft curves and familiar territory, the expected path that I'd walked without thinking. I'd had girlfriends, hookups, the occasional thing that lasted longer than a few weeks. Normal. Easy.
This wasn't normal. This wasn't easy.
But God, it felt inevitable.
I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, trying to block out the memory of Tyler's face in the moment before I'd pulled away. The hope in his expression. The way his whole body had been leaning toward mine, wanting more.
And then the devastation when I'd walked out.
I'd left him there. In the garage, alone, his lips still swollen from my mouth. I'd left because I didn't know what else to do, because the intensity of what I'd felt had scared me more than the gunfire, more than the blood, more than the Wolf who'd almost put a bullet in my chest.
I wanted him.
Not in the abstract way I'd been trying to tell myself. Not as a passing thought, a momentary confusion. I wanted him the way I'd wanted air during the explosion, the way I'd wanted the next breath when the shockwave had stolen everything from my lungs.
Fundamental. Necessary. Terrifying.
I thought about the way he'd moved during the fight—fluid and precise, every action purposeful. The way he'd saved Ghost's life with quick hands and calm words. The way he'd looked at me across the wreckage of the van, blood on his collar and certainty in his eyes.
I thought about his body against mine in the aftermath of the explosion, the way he'd shaken in my arms, the way I'd held him without thinking about what it meant.
