“Tex?” Nancy’s voice was hesitant now.
I stepped back like I’d been burned.
“Did I do something wrong?”
My boxers were still on, my dick pressing painfully against the seams of them, but it began to fade almost instantly. Nancy stood upright, her cheeks turning pink in a way that would have made me harder than rocks a week ago. Nothing sexier than a woman that blushed. But all it did now was make me feel uncomfortable.
“No,” I said quickly, dragging a hand through my hair. “No, it’s not you.”
She folded her arms across her chest, covering her breasts, confusion written all over her face. “Then?—”
“I just—” I exhaled sharply. “Not tonight. I can’t.” I pulled my jeans back on swiftly, grabbing my cut from the floor and sliding that back on without even bothering to grab my shirt. I just needed to get out of this room.
Her expression shifted to hurt and maybe a little embarrassment, but she nodded and began gathering her things up.
I didn’t wait, and I sure as shit didn’t bother to explain anymore. Instead, I turned and walked out of that room before I changed my mind and fucked her just to prove to myself that I wasn’t in love with Rowan Hale—a woman I had never even kissed.
The noise hit me like a punch to the gut the second I stepped back into the main room of the clubhouse. Music and laughter and chaos.
I barely registered it though, because I was too busy trying to breathe. Trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with me. Because something was.
Something big that I didn’t understand.
“That was quick,” Jordan said. “That’s not like you. You’re normally an all-night kind of man.” She placed a hand on my bare chest, running her long nails over my tattooed skin. “It’s why the girls love you.”
I shoved a hand through my hair again and looked up, and then froze.
Rowan was standing across the room, right by the bar, her mouth slightly open and her beautiful eyes locked on me.
“Fuck,” I said, and shoved Jordan off me.
Rowan’s eyes moved over my shoulder and I turned to see what she was looking at.
Nancy had just stepped out of the room, still adjusting her skirt.
Everything inside me went still and everything faded until it was just her—Rowan, standing there looking at me like she’d just seen something she couldn’t ever unsee. Something that mattered.
She swallowed, her gaze going back to mine, and the hurt in her expression was palpable.
I didn’t know why that hit harder than any bullet ever could.
It didn’t matter that the room was loud, with the music pounding, bottles clinking, laughter spilling over itself like nothing in the world mattered. It didn’t matter that Jordan was saying something behind me, or that Nancy was still half-dressed, now adjusting her breasts in her bra like she hadn’t just been a mistake that I couldn’t finish making.
Everything narrowed, right down to Rowan.
She stood just outside the hallway, frozen.
And fuck, I’d seen that look before.
Not fear or anger. It was something much worse.
It was hurt. Pain. And I had done that to her. I had hurt her.
Nancy brushed past me and then Rowan with a muttered excuse, her heels clicking fast across the floor as she disappeared into the crowd. Rowan didn’t move. Didn’t blink.
Instead she just continued to stare at me like she didn’t know who I was anymore. And maybe she was right because she didn’t know me. She didn’t know my history and I didn’t know hers.But there was something in me that wanted her to know me—all of me. That part of me already felt like she knew parts of me I had never allowed anyone else to see. And I liked that feeling. Being in that room with that other woman, it had hit me harder than any punch ever had.
My chest tightened so hard it felt like something cracked. “Rowan—” I began, and it was like the bubble burst.
