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My jaw tightens, but I nod.

That’s all either of us needs.

Raze heads out, leaving me alone at the table with my phone, two half-empty beers, and a hell of a lot more rattling around inside my head than I had when Church started.

I sit there another minute before shoving to my feet.

Staying in the clubhouse means brothers, questions, looks they try to hide whenever I reach for words that aren’t there. I’m fucking done with all three for a while. So, instead of going to find Echo, I head for the one place around here where nobody gives a shit if I talk.

The garage.

I lose myself in the bike waiting on the lift, stripping down the front end and working through a problem I actually know how to fix. Bolt, wrench, and fucking grease under my nails. Parts come off, parts go back on, and if something isn’t working, there’s usually a goddamn reason I can put my hands on.

Easier than Hellwardens.

Easier than stolen voices.

A hell of a lot easier than thinking about a silver-haired siren Raze just ordered me to work with.

I’m halfway through tightening the front brake assembly when that familiar awareness stirs beneath my ribs.

My hand stops on the wrench—I know who it is before I turn around.

Echo is curled on the crate she’s apparently claimed as hers, one boot hooked against the edge, silver hair spilling over her shoulder while she watches me work.

Fuck knows how long she’s been sitting there.

Judging by the look on her face, long enough.

Apparently, the garage isn’t mine anymore.

I don’t say anything. I literally can’t. I just cross the space between us and stand there until she sets down whatever she’s pretending to read.

“Rough one?” she asks.

I nod once.

Her hand comes up slowly and rests against my jaw, her thumb tracing the line of it like she’s registering something she intends to remember. My hellhound goes utterly still under my skin, the way it only ever does around her, like even the beast knows this one’s worth being gentle for.

“You don’t have to talk,” she says. “I’ve got enough words for both of us.”

I close the distance instead of answering. My hand slides into the silver hair at the back of Echo’s neck and her eyes widen for half a heartbeat before my mouth comes down on hers.

Her breath catches against my lips.

Fuck.

That tiny sound goes straight through me.

Echo’s fingers fist in the front of my shirt, pulling me closer, and whatever control I walked into this with takes a hard-fucking-hit. My other hand finds her waist, fingers spreading against her side as I draw her into me until there’s barely any space left between us.

Her frequency surges.

Mine answers.

The two collide somewhere beneath my ribs, that same relentless pull I felt the first time she looked at me, only now there’s nowhere for it to go. It rolls through my chest, catches on the hellfire sitting low inside me, and my hellhound shoves forward so hard my grip tightens around her.

Echo makes another soft sound into my mouth and kisses me back harder.