“You’re being a fucking idiot, Rowan,” I snapped, embarrassed because everyone was watching now. I could feel everyone’s eyes on us, watching this beautiful woman strip me bare for all the world to see.
“I’m being a fucking idiot? How dare you! You’re just a fucking asshole biker!”
“I’m a fucking asshole?”
“Yes!” she glared at me and I had never seen so much disappointment directed at me before. Not by my parents, not by my brothers. It made me feel sick. It made my chest hurt in ways I hadn’t known possible.
“Rowan…” I tried but she rolled her eyes at me and I all but yelled in her face, “stop being such a bitch and listen to me.”
She froze, her eyes going wide and her mouth opening in shock.
I had to back down and step off. I stumbled for my words, realizing all too late what a fucking idiot I was being. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”
Her eyes narrowed, pinning me in place with her hurt and her judgment. “Fuck you.”
“Look, this is going too far, please just listen to me. I didn’t mean that—you’re not a bitch, I’m sorry.”
Her body was tense as she glared at me and I steamrolled on for fear I might not get another chance.
“Before, when I said we had no future, I just meant I’m no good for you. I ruin things—everything. It didn’t mean I didn’t want you. Of course I want you. Any man would be insane not to want you.”
And for a second—just a second—I saw it. The way her eyes dropped to my mouth. The way her breathing hitched. Forgiveness was there if I could just reach her.
I took a step closer, close enough to feel the heat off her skin, close enough that if I leaned in just a little I could…but she stepped back like I’d burned her.
And then she laughed. “No, you want whatever hole you can fill, Tex, and I’m not that kind of woman, and that pains you doesn’t it.”
That pissed me off more than anything else tonight, because I’d literally just turned away a woman. For her.
“You’re actin’ like I owe you somethin’, darlin’,” I said, my voice low and frustrated.
“Darlin’?” she scoffed, “who even are you right now?”
“Listen, I don’t gotta answer to you for what I do or don’t do. I owe you nothing.”
Her chin lifted and she rolled her eyes. “I think you mean who you do or don’t do.”
“For fucks sake,” I huffed out a frustrated breath. “That’s not who I am.”
But it was, wasn’t it. That’s who I had been and who I’d been happy to be. Until now. Until her.
“Well congratulations, Tex,” she shot back, her voice shaking now despite how hard she tried to steady it. “You’re exactly who I thought you were.”
“Then why the hell do you care?” I barked.
“I don’t!”
“Good!” I all but roared, anger coursing through my body. Anger at myself. Anger at her shitty timing. Anger at her for not listening to me and being able to see what I was trying to say.
Her lips parted, but whatever she was about to say never came because a voice suddenly ripped through the clubhouse.
“GET DOWN!”
Time slowed.
I heard it then and I turned in time to see men storming into the clubhouse, the metal of their guns glinting in the low light.
My body moved before my brain caught up.
“Rowan!” I lunged for her just as the first shot rang out.
