Gorgon
Sleep didn’t come easily, even with her pressed into his side. It wasn’t because he wasn’t tired—he was bone-deep exhausted. But he knew that peace always carried a price, and he’d just taken more of it than he ever deserved.
The room was dark except for the flicker of the hallway bulb slipping under the doorframe. Kimi was breathing slowly, that steady rhythm you get from real sleep—or the kind you fall into after losing a battle. Her leg was still hooked over his, her hair spilling across his chest like ink.
He should have moved. He should’ve gotten up, gone back to his own room, and pretended none of it had happened. But he didn’t because leaving her felt like a punishment. He craved her now—more than he thought he could want any woman, and leaving her wasn’t even an option for him. Instead, he just lay there, tracing the cracks in the ceiling with his eyes, letting the quiet of her breath smooth something rough inside him.
The storm outside had turned violent somewhere around three in the morning. Wind clawed at the walls, as the snow hissed against the windows. It sounded too much like the world he was built to fight—hard and merciless. Inside, though, it waswarm, and with Kimi wrapped around him, the warmth was dangerous.
Gorgon turned his head just enough to watch her face. He was good at reading people, better than most. Fear, hunger, lies—all of it. But what he saw in her now didn’t fit any pattern. She looked peaceful, but too still—like someone who didn’t believe the peace would last either. He understood that better than he wanted to.
She shifted slightly in her sleep and murmured something against his chest. A sexy little sound, not a word. He almost answered, but he didn’t want to wake her. Instead, he forced himself to stare at the window again. The snow hadn’t let up. Somewhere beyond those trees, the man named Cole was probably waiting, festering in that kind of rage that strips logic clean off the bone. Gorgon knew that type of rage inside and out. It didn’t go away. It just fixed on something that looked like salvation and tried to destroy it.
And now Cole wanted the same woman who’d fallen asleep in Gorgon’s arms. Kimi was his now, and everyone would understand that she belonged to him come daylight. Keeping her meant trouble for everyone in his club, though, and he didn’t take his responsibility to his brothers lightly.
By the time dawn smeared gray across the sky, Kimi had rolled away from him, curled around the pillow she’d stolen from him halfway through the night. He eased off the mattress quietly so he wouldn’t wake her. The room looked different in the daylight. It somehow felt softer—like a place that could belong to someone who believed in new beginnings. He didn’t, though—not anymore.
He pulled on his clothes and stood for a long moment at the window, watching the snow lighten to sheets of fog. His reflection stared back at him. His eyes were hard, and hewas unshaven. He looked like a man who always stood at the threshold but never crossed it.
Voices drifted up faintly from below, and Gorgon knew that his peaceful reprieve was over. He could hear Buck giving orders and Trudi teasing somebody into making coffee. The normal rhythm of the club. Even the chaos seemed to have a pulse around the clubhouse. He half-expected Kimi to stir, ask him where he was going, but she didn’t. He looked back at her and decided to leave before he could change his mind.
Downstairs, the smell of bacon and diesel cut through the air. Buck looked up from the stove and cocked an eyebrow at him. His vice president liked to cook when he needed a break from the club. He claimed that the chaos in the kitchen was easier to deal with, but judging from the look on Trudi’s face, he was wrong about that.
“You’re alive,” Buck said. “It’s a fucking miracle.”
“Barely,” Gorgon replied.
Buck flipped something in the pan with a casual wrist. “So, you and your houseguest are getting along now?”
Gorgon stared at him. “Find something useful to do, Buck.”
“Already am,” he said. “I’m making breakfast.”
Trudi laughed from behind the bar. “Translation—he’s waiting for gossip and driving me fucking nuts.” Gorgon ignored both of them and poured himself a cup of coffee.
He knew that Buck wasn’t finished, but he couldn’t help his groan when his friend started talking again. “You look better, though. Did you actually sleep?”
He grunted, “No.”
Trudi’s grin sharpened. “I think our Prez was busy doing other things,” she teased. He took the mug and left the room before either of them could say another word because he wasn’t in a teasing mood at the moment.
He sat down at his desk and sipped his coffee, enjoying the solitude. Outside, the wind had eased, leaving behind thick silence. The yard was blanketed in white. A few members were clearing the paths with shovels, and he could hear them revving up the snowmobiles. It was the only way that they’d be able to get into town with the snow that fell overnight.
Gorgon drank the rest of his coffee and let the mug hit his desktop with a thud. He was antsy and knew that he needed to check things out at the shop before he took a shower. He walked to the edge of the main gate, his boots compressing the snow to gray ice. The forest beyond was a wall of stillness, too quiet to trust. He thought about Kimi. About her hand against his chest, the way she’d looked at him after that final kiss—half defiance, half surrender, and some quiet understanding that they’d both stepped into something neither of them knew how to navigate.
He wasn’t supposed to let that happen. Not with anyone, and especially not with someone who brought a target to his door. But standing there, watching the snow fall in lazy spirals, Gorgon realized something he didn’t want to admit. He’d spent half his life surviving by never letting anyone get under his skin. And now she was there, so deep inside his bones that walking away didn’t feel like an option anymore.
Trudi’s voice crackled through the walkie on his belt. “Prez, you’d better come see this.”
His hand went instinctively to his gun. “What is it?” he asked.
“Not sure,” she said. “But Buck’s got eyes on something past the south fence. Black SUV. It’s sitting idle with no plates.” He was already moving before she finished talking. The last of the warmth from the night before dissolved in an instant. The softness in him that Kimi had touched went cold, replaced by the steady, silent calculation that ran in his blood. He was back in his element now—back in control.
He barked quick orders to the perimeter crew, motioned for Hulk to take the east ridge, and Buck to hold the shop entrance. As he grabbed his rifle from the porch bench, he glanced up at Kimi’s window. The curtains were open, and he noticed faint movement behind them. He was sure that she’d seen the commotion and was standing there now, eyes probably wide with questions he couldn’t afford to answer yet.
He grabbed his walkie and radioed Trudi. “Yeah, Prez?” she asked over the comms.
“Keep her in there,” he ordered. He knew that she’d understand his command because he was sure that Kimi would be down at any minute to find out what was going on. He couldn’t chance her running out into danger. She wasn’t going to like that he had ordered Trudi to keep her inside the clubhouse, but he didn’t care. He’d always choose her safety first.
