“You don’t cook?” he asked.
“I’d starve if I didn’t have a handy dandy app on my phone to order take-out.”
Eddie clucked his tongue as he shook his head and moved behind the island. “Stick with me. I’ll never let you go hungry around here, mama.”
“Any chance you’re gonna make hash browns with the sandwiches?” Dixon asked.
“Only if you cut up some fruit to have with it too. Gotta get some fiber in you too.”
I glanced over at Caymen, already finding him watching me.
“Not what you expected, huh?”
“Not at all.”
“Alright. Coffee is brewing. Food is getting cooked. You gonna talk to us now?” Huck asked. “Or put the gun away, maybe?”
I’d forgotten I was holding it.
There was a shelf not far from where I was standing, and I reached up and placed it there.
“Alright. Let’s talk.”
CHAPTER NINE
Caymen
Did I care that half the damn club could watch the way I’d been eye-fucking Noa since we walked through to the kitchen? Nope. Not at all, as it turned out.
The first and obvious reason was that the woman was a knockout.
But more than that, everything I’d learned about her so far just added layers to her attractiveness.
Which was new.
I liked women. Liked being around them. Hearing them talk. Watching them interact with each other and us. But it was always a surface-level kind of thing. I wasn’t Velle. I didn’t want to learn the secret corners of their minds, their deepest secrets, their oldest emotional scars. I was just looking for a good time. And the kind of women who hung out at the club were often looking for the same.
So I’d never really gotten a chance to explore the layers of attraction I could apparently feel toward someone.
But every new thing I learned about Noa only managed to make her hotter.
Escaping through a car window, getting out of cuffs, getting meintothem, her experienced hold of a gun, her evasive driving, her confidence even when walking into a clubhouse full of outlaw bikers, even her fucking love of bird watching, of all things.
I even liked how shamelessly she admitted to not knowing how to cook.
So I didn’t care if everyone else saw how much I clearly wanted her.
That said, I wasn’t playing down the seriousness of the situation. It turned out I could think with my brain and my dick at the same time.
I mean, I’d been in that apartment when the bullets came crashing through the windows. Once I climbed off of her, I saw just how close one had come to slicing through me, but lodged in the footboard of her bed instead.
If I hadn’t shown up, if Dixon hadn’t been outside, if she’d been alone in there, that situation would have gone very differently.
I didn’t know where she was in her head about the whole situation—if she was trying to convince herself that if not for my interruption, she’d have been long gone by the time the drive-by happened, or if she was accepting the very real reality. But either way, she had to be freaked the fuck out that it got that close.
Everything about Noa suggested she carefully planned every aspect of her life and career. But something got by her. That couldn’t be sitting well in her mind.
So this shit was pretty fucking serious.
