We emerge from the tree line into a clearing. I blink, trying to focus. A structure looms ahead—a massive garage with a loft built above it, separated from the main clubhouse I know lies deeper in the woods.
He doesn't stop at a vehicle. He walks straight toward the building.
"Wait," I mumble. "The clinic is... town is that way."
"Not taking you to town," he rumbles. He kicks the door open with a heavy boot, stepping into the warmth of the lower level. It smells of grease and metal. He bypasses the rows of tools and heads straight for a set of wooden stairs.
"You can't..." I try to argue, but exhaustion pins me down. "My leg needs setting."
"I can set a bone," he says, starting up the stairs. His grip on me hasn't faltered once. He isn't even breathing hard. "And I'm not leaving you in a waiting room for four hours with a bunch of strangers asking questions about why you were off-trail on Gunnar land."
He reaches the top of the stairs and shoulders open a door.
The loft is warm. A wood stove crackles in the corner. The space is masculine and sparse—exposed beams, a heavy wooden table, and a massive bed in the corner covered in dark quilts.
He carries me to the bed and lays me down. The mattress is firm, smelling of him—cedar and clean laundry.
He steps back, and the loss of his body heat hits like a slap to the skin. I tremble on the sheets.
Tristan is already moving. He shrugs off his leather cut, tossing it onto a chair. Underneath, the gray thermal shirt clings to a torso forged from iron. He rolls up his sleeves, revealing forearms corded with muscle and covered in black ink—runes, wolves, geometric patterns that seem to shift as he moves.
He grabs a pair of shears from a medical kit on the wall. He comes back to the bed, looming over me.
"Jeans have to go," he says. His voice is rougher now.
I try to sit up, but the room spins. "Tristan, please. You can't just keep me here. People will worry."
"Let them," he growls. He positions the shears at the hem of my jeans, near the ankle. "You're hurt. You're cold. You're not going anywhere until I say you're ready."
He meets my eyes again, and the air crackles. Thick, heavy, electric.
"You're safe here, Alex," he says, his voice dropping an octave, becoming a caress that rakes over my nerves. "I found you. I'm keeping you."
The shears bite through the denim, the sound of the fabric screaming as it’s shredded open. He doesn’t just peel the denim back; he strips the ruined cloth away from both legs with a violent, efficient jerk, exposing the pale, trembling curve of my calves and the soft, heavy flesh of my thighs.
My breath hitches. My lace panties are already soaked, the scent of my own musk-sweet arousal heavy in the air as my body reacts to his sheer, overwhelming size. Tristan’s eyes darken, his pupils blowing out until his gaze is a black void of hunger. He doesn't just look; he claims. His calloused, grease-stained fingers slide high up my inner thigh, the rough friction of his skin against my sensitive heat making my clit throb with a sharp, needy ache.
"You're shaking, Alex," he growls, his voice a low, rough vibration that settles right between my legs. He leans over me,the massive weight of his thick cock straining against his jeans, pressing close enough for me to feel the hard, blunt length of him—a silent promise of the deep, thorough stretching he’s going to give me once this leg is set. "Good. You should be shaking. You should know exactly who owns every inch of this skin now."
His eyes devours the expanse of my bare body with a raw, territorial hunger that makes my blood run hotter than the white-hot pain in my bone.
When his calloused, mountain-rough hands slide onto my bare calf to stabilize the break, the heat is electric, branding me right there on his sheets.
My breath hitches. My leg is broken, my career is probably on hold, and I am trapped in the lair of a dangerous biker who thinks he owns the mountain.
But as his large, warm hands encompass my calf again, stabilizing me, grounding me, my fear evaporates. I melt into the mattress.
"Do it," I whisper, giving in to the gravity of him.
He sets his jaw, his eyes dark with a promise of pain and the pleasure of being cared for.
"Hold on to me," he says.
And I know, with terrifying certainty, that I’m never going to let go.
2
TRISTAN
