“So that’s it? She’s just wanting to walk on the wild side and just happened to come by our bar looking for trouble because it was the best way she could think to piss off her father?”
“Yeah. Probably. I escorted her out. Made sure she understood that it wasn’t appropriate for her to be there for any reason, not the least of which there was a bunch of horny men in there who were watching her with her tits and ass on full display. I made sure she got into a cab and got her ass home so we wouldn’t have further trouble with her father. We don’t need another reason to have him pissed off at us. Especially not while we’re expanding our operations.”
“Right. We don’t need any attention. If he goes to the cops about his daughter, he’ll find out a few work on our payroll. We don’t need that to come to light. The people in this town trust us. Don’t need a reason for that to change.”
Edge gives me a hard look, but he backs off from the doorway, giving me room to pass through. Which is no smallmercy because I need either a whiskey or a mug of coffee in the worst way. And a shower. Maybe that will put me to rights.
I pace off to my room, the shower suddenly seeming like a real good idea, and I don’t want to have any further conversation about Leah Harris with Edge. There isn’t anything to talk about. Nothing he needs to know where she’s concerned, because nothing is gonna happen.
What is gonna happen is that I am gonna hit that shower. I’m going to beat off. I’m going to come until my balls are empty, thinking about Leah’s tight, sweet pussy, thinking about taking that virginity she offered up to me, thinking about tasting her taut nipples, her honeyed cunt, her beautiful ripe ass, and that is going to be that. I will purge her from my mind, my body, my spirit. I’m not gonna do anything to bring wrath down on my club, and getting anywhere near Donovan Harris’ daughter would do just that.
Three long fucking years I’ve thought about her. Told myself it didn’t mean anything. That I just wanted to make sure the sweet girl who was about to throw herself from the town’s water tower was doing okay. I’ve lied to myself, lusted after her, thought of her when I’ve fucked other women, done it without feeling, wishing they were her. I’ve dreamed of her, ached for her.
But my hand is the closest I’m gonna fucking get.
She’s off limits. For a thousand reasons.
Chapter Four
Leah
Sneaking out in the middle of the night isn’t a great idea if you’re me. My dad is all about his image, and it would kill him for someone to find out that his daughter is creeping around like a stalker.
Ever since my brother’s death, he wanted less than nothing to do with me, but that isn’t surprising, for a hell of a lot of reasons. He ignored me before, but now he openly despises me. He can’t even stand to be in the same room as me. My mom does nothing to defend me. She doesn’t notice me either. She’s little more than a ghost—yet another one I have to live with.
When I find myself straddling my bicycle in front of a cute little ramshackle bungalow on the edge of town, just a night after Steel basically told me to fuck off, and thatwewere something that was never going to happen, I am not exactly surprised.
I went for a ride to clear my head. I’m not afraid of the dark the way some people are. In fact, I welcome it. I love the cooler night air rushing up to meet my face. I love the wind in my hair, tangling it as it flows free like a cloud behind me. The night cloaks me, offers me its protection. It is the one place I don’t have to be someone I’m not. I’m free from the memories that weigh me down at home where literally everywhere I go I’m reminded that I once had a brother there.
Even though it’s three years since he died, my mom still hasn’t even cleaned out his room. She refuses to let anyone touch it. Like he’s just going to stroll back through that door one day, and the last three years were all a bad dream.
It’s not healthy. Like everything else at home, my dad just ignores it. I say nothing because I don’t want to hurt my mom more than I have already. I know she doesn’t blame me like my father does. But seeing her lifeless eyes and the way she’s shrunk into herself, tears me apart.
Christmas. I hate the fucking season. Even though it’s three weeks away, it weighs me down with leaden dread. Before it was just a bunch of going through the motions. Shit with my grandparents, my mom’s parents—since both of my father’s are dead. Fake. Gifts that we didn’t really need or want because we were spoiled enough already. I just never saw the point of it, but now, after Liam’s death, it’s harder on me than ever. Each holiday is another one without him.
So… yeah... It started out on a bike ride to get away from the constraints of the house and everything that has become my life… and ended up here. At Steel’s house. I’ve never let myself come here before. But tonight, it was too much of a temptation. I need him. I’ve always needed him.
I’m sure a grief counsellor would have a word for what this is. Transference or something. But it’s more than that. Even though on the water tower we only spoke for a few minutes, it changed the course of my life.
As if my presence calls to him, the front door opens and slams shut. Light spills out for a brief second from somewhere deep in the house. It’s a normal looking little building. Small. Quaint. Old. I’m no architect, but it seems to embody the typical Florida architecture. It’s the kind of white house with wrought iron detailing on the porch that surrounds it, that you would see in the movies. It’s up on blocks because there’s no basement, just a huge, treed-in swamp off in the distance behind it.
I hold my breath when Steel’s dark form materializes. The slice of moonlight illuminating the night sky glows silver on his already harsh features, sharpening his cheekbones. His lips are turned down in a thin line, and it doesn’t take the anger in his powerful stride to let me know that I’m in deep shit for showing up at his house. I don’t even know how he knew I was here. I’d been sitting on my bike outside for no more than a few minutes before he came crashing out the front door, his dark hair flying around his shoulders like the halo of an avenging angel.
As usual, he has a black leather vest on and jeans, as well as his regular shit-kicker boots. He stalks up to stand right in front of me, stops less than a foot away. I grip the handlebars of my bike like the lost little girl he thinks I am. I swallow to wet my dry mouth. Suddenly, I can’t breathe.
He’s beautiful, and I raise my chin in a gesture of silent challenge, which is, of course, like looking a rabid dog right in the eyes.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” Steel snaps.
He doesn’t yell at me, though, and I realize that he is keeping his voice down. I’m not sure whether it’s because he doesn’t want to disturb the neighbors, or maybe he’s trying not to intimidate me.
It’s two in the morning, and I’m standing here like a creeper fifteen feet from his front step twenty-six hours after he warned me to stay the hell away from him.
Clearly, I have no sense.
“I…er… I was out for a bike ride,” I stammer, the height of lameness.
Steel’s eyes narrow and I can tell he isn’t buying my bullshit. My hands grow clammy on the handlebars in my death grip.
