And Christ, that did something to me. Made me want to push. Made me want to see how far I could go before she cracked. Before she admitted she felt this thing between us, this pull that had been building for six months of her pretending she didn’t notice the way I looked at her.
“You’re a hard woman, Trudy.”
“Don’t you forget it.” She turned to walk away, then stopped. Looking back at me over her shoulder, she said, “You’re the kind of man who’s used to getting his way. Used to women who roll over and let you make all the decisions.”
“That a problem?”
“Not for me. I don’t need a man to make decisions for me. So if that’s what you’re looking for, maybe you should go back to that big city.”
She walked back behind the counter, and I watched her go. Watched the set of her shoulders, the sway of her hips, the way she moved as if she were daring me to follow.
Daring me to try.
I looked down at the journal again. At Christina’s careful handwriting. At all the secrets she’d kept; all the choices she’d let me make without ever pushing back.
Trudy was right. I was used to getting my way. Used to women who complied.
And sitting here, watching her refuse to give me a goddamn thing, I realized something that scared the shit out of me:
I didn’t want compliance anymore.
I wanted her.
Wanted that fire. That defiance. Wanted someone who’d make me work for every inch of ground I gained. I wanted her tofight me even as she gave in. Wanted to hear her moan my name while she clawed my back and told me to fuck her harder.
But I also wanted her surrender. I wanted her to choose me. Not because I demanded it, but because she couldn’t help herself. Because the need was too fucking strong to deny it. Because she wanted me as badly as I wanted her.
And until that happened, until she stopped fighting this thing between us, I’d keep coming back. Keep sitting at this table and watching her pretend she didn’t feel it too. Keep pushing until she cracked.
Because I’d already lost one woman I loved because I was too fucking scared to live. Already missed twenty years of my daughter’s life because of the choices I’d made.
I wasn’t losing another one
Not without a fight.
CHAPTER THREE
Popeye
The Silver Shadows’ clubhouse in Diamond Creek was nothing like the Soulless Sinners’ place back in New York. It was smaller. Fewer secrets. Less betrayal. There had been plenty of bloodshed in the past seven months, but now that the war was over, life could get back to normal.
As normal as it could be for a motorcycle club.
I stood in the doorway, watching. An outsider. The only man in this building who didn’t wear the Silver Shadows’ patch. The only man who had no right to be there, except for the blood connection to the woman behind the bar.
Grace.
My daughter.
Just about eight months pregnant and still moving like she owned the place. Because she did, in a way. She was the president’s old lady. That made her untouchable. Made her royalty in this world.
She laughed at something one of the brothers said, and the sound hit me square in the chest. Christina’s laugh. I’d know it anywhere, even after all these years. That same musical quality, that warmth that could light up a room.
Fuck, it hurts. Hearing her mother in her voice. Seeing her mother in the tilt of her head, the way she touches that brother’s arm when she laughs.
But the way Grace held herself... that was all her own. Christina had never stood like that, shoulders back, chin up, owning every inch of space she occupied. Christina had made herself small. Tried to disappear into the background, into Caroline’s shadow.
Grace commanded attention without even trying.
