Every head turned as a tall man stepped inside, snow dusting his shoulders. “Road’s clear,” he said to Gorgon. Kimi released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Cole was gone—for now. But that didn’t mean he’d stay gone.
Gorgon started walking toward the bar as people shifted aside without even thinking about it. Kimi noticed that he didn’t demand space. The room simply gave it to him. He stopped beside her stool, and she studied him. Up close, he was even more intimidating than he had been outside. He had broad shoulders and dark eyes that seemed to see far too much.
“You warm enough?” he asked.
Kimi nodded. “Yes.”
His gaze dropped to the glass in her hands. “Drink it,” he ordered, and for some reason, she obeyed before she could second-guess the instinct to do so. The whiskey burned like fire down her throat, making her cough slightly. Someone chuckled behind her as Kimi wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“First time?” the man teased.
“Not even close,” Kimi muttered. A faint ripple of amusement moved through the room. “What happens now?” she asked quietly. The question hung in the air as everyone seemed to be waiting for the answer.
Gorgon didn’t hesitate. “You stay here.”
Kimi frowned. “For how long?”
“Until the problem that followed you stops breathing,” he growled. The bluntness made her stomach drop.
“And if I don’t want that?” she asked carefully. His gaze held hers.
“Doesn’t matter what you want tonight.” Anger filled her chest. Of course, it didn’t matter what she wanted. Men like him decided things for her—men like Cole. Kimi was getting tired of men deciding everything about her life.
“And tomorrow?” she asked.
For the first time since meeting him, Gorgon paused. Then he said something that surprised everyone in the room. “Tomorrow we’ll see.”
He turned to the bartender. “Set up the spare room upstairs.”
Kimi blinked at him again. He was giving her a room to stay in. Kimi expected a couch or even a chair, but not an entire room.
The bartender grabbed a key and tossed it into the air before catching it. “Sure thing, boss.” Then she leaned closer to Kimi, voice dropping to a whisper. “Just so you know,” she said with a grin, “no woman lasts five minutes under that man’s stare without confessing something.” She winked at Kimi and glanced sideways at Gorgon. Kimi did the same and noticed that his expression hadn’t changed. But his eyes were sharp, watching her—always watching.
Kimi turned back to the bartender. “What makes you think I have something to confess?”
The woman’s grin widened. “Honey,” she said, “around here, everybody’s got secrets.”
Kimi felt Gorgon’s gaze settle on her again, like he was already trying to uncover her secrets. And the terrifying part? A small voice inside her whispered that maybe, just maybe, he already had.
Gorgon
The snow had started coming down again by the time the clubhouse quieted. It was a slow, relentless drift that coated the yard in white and silenced the world outside the floodlights. Gorgon stood in the upstairs hallway, leaning his shoulder against the wall opposite the room he’d told Trudi to prepare for Kimi. Warm light spilled out from under the door. He could hear faint sounds—movements coming from the tiny room that told him everything he needed to know about Kimi’s state of mind. She had been nervously pacing the room, and just when he was about to knock on her door, the lights went out, and everything seemed to go still.
He’d seen this kind of stillness before. It was the kind that wasn’t peaceful but had more to do with complete exhaustion. The kind that came after running from something that almost caught up to you. Gorgon had felt that kind of exhaustion before, and if he remembered correctly, he didn’t like it.
Buck came up the stairs behind him, his boots heavy, and his voice pitched low. The guy seriously didn’t know how to whisper. “The trail has gone cold. Nothing is moving for miles. Whoever that asshole was, he’s long gone now.”
Gorgon nodded. “He’ll be back.” That was the only thing he had been certain of since Kimi walked onto Kings of Anarchy property. Guys like that didn’t like to lose, and tonight, he lost. What he lost was still a mystery, and Gorgon knew that the answers all lay with the woman who was sleeping just behind the door down the hallway.
Buck leaned against the railing, crossing his arms. “You think she’s worth the heat that she’s bringing down on our club?”
“It doesn’t matter what she’s worth. Trouble has already followed her here, and I’m betting that it’s not done with her.” Gorgon said. “Besides, if the asshole chasing her down comes back for her, she’ll need our protection.” The fear in Kimi’s eyes nearly did him in when Cole showed up to confront her. There was no way that he was going to allow him anywhere near her again. Whether he liked it or not, he had promised Kimi his protection, and he planned on standing behind his word.
Buck’s gaze flicked toward the closed door and then back to Gorgon. “Is she your problem or ours?”
Gorgon tilted his head slightly, his eyes still on the door. “Does it matter? If I say we protect her, then we protect her.”
Buck smirked, but Gorgon didn’t find any of this shit to be funny. “You always did like collecting strays.” Gorgon shot him a look that he knew could make most men run the other direction, but Buck stood his ground. Gorgon didn’t know if that made his second-in-command brave or just stupid. Buck raised his hands in surrender and headed downstairs without another word, ruling out the theory of his being stupid. The wood creaked under his retreat, and when it finally went quiet, Gorgon was alone with his thoughts again.
