He wanted to close it. To prevent me from looking at the body more.
Silently, I shifted across the floor.
“Five minutes, okay?”
He waited for me to nod, then moved out of the bathroom and closed the door.
I listened to his footsteps, then the soft click of the bedroom door.
The house was eerily quiet. Enough that I could hear York’s timbre and the soft voice of a woman as they moved through the house a moment later.
Alone, I tried to focus on my breath instead of all the aches and pains.
It wasn’t long, though, before all thoughts shifted to Raff.
Who I’d screamed for.
Who hadn’t come running.
Because he wasn’t at the house.
York said he had to call him.
So where was he?
Had he gone home with one of those women?
I wasn’t prepared for the way my stomach twisted. My hand flew there as I curled against the sudden pain, a whimper escaping me.
Why did it matter? I’d seen Raff with dozens of women over the years at The Boy. I knew he went back to the clubhouse with them, went to bed with them. So what? Why would it feel different now?
Only, I knew why.
And it wasn’t even the kiss.
It was everything I’d been feeling since I first found him in my motel room back in Shady Valley. Since I cried into his chest and felt the first relief I had in weeks. It was the conspiratorial smiles as we had little road trip adventures; it was how he remembered even the smallest details about me; it was the way I couldn’t seem to focus on anything at all without him forcing his way into my mind.
I liked him.
For better or worse.
And now he could be out there… making someone else smile, laugh, feel special.
My stomach twisted again, but I tried to ignore it as I listened to York’s voice downstairs.
Then, what felt like a lifetime later, several other male voices.
Velle and Dixon, maybe? Back from their adventures.
I had no idea.
All I knew was that there were several sets of footsteps making their way up the stairs, down the hall, and into the bedroom.
“It’s York,” York called before slowly opening the door and flicking on the light.
He winced as he looked at me.
If this big, scary biker guy thought I looked bad enough to wince, I didn’t even want to see myself.
