And I had a feeling that no one knew too much about Gage.
Because he buried the ones who did.
“How the fuck do you think you know that?” he demanded.
I blinked. “Because you’re not a Gage. That’s not a real name.”
He stepped forward. “It’s my fuckin’ name. I look real to you?” he asked, his eyes never letting mine out of the shackles of his stare. And then he moved forward, kicking at my heels so my legs were splayed and he could press his iron body to my quivering one. So one very particular hard thing pressed against my stomach.
“I feel real to you?” he rasped, his lips almost against my mouth.
Every part of my body, every freaking cell cried out for him to kiss me. To do a lot more than kiss me. To soothe the ache between my legs that was more persistent and desperate than any of the pain in my body.
But he didn’t.
He yanked my hips forward, moving me around with enough speed to jostle my aching brain in my skull. I was set on the floor, my back no longer against the door.
And I was facing the door.
“I’m fuckin’ real, baby, and you’re gonna find yourself wishin’ I wasn’t,” Gage said, his entire body wired.
And then the door opened.
Slammed closed.
And I was left standing in the middle of the room, knees jelly, brain much the same.
Four
I didn’t see him for two days.
Forty-six hours, to be a little more exact.
And yes, I’d counted. Through the work I’d forced myself to do—at home, per Niles’s order—through the books I’d forced myself to read, the chores I’d made myself do, I’d thought of him.
Of the words he’d hurled at me. About us. About me being his. I mulled over the way he’d held his body, the way he’d structured his expression. As if it was painful to admit such things.
As if it was beyond his control.
But it wasn’t. He was the one who chose to tow my car. He was the one to stop in the first place. Then he was the one to drag me into that room, stare at me the way he did. Say those words.
He didn’t have to do any of it.
But neither did I.
I didn’t have to go to the compound; I could’ve sacrificed my pride and let Troy handle it. I didn’t have to get up in his face like I did—like I’d never done before—nor did I have to let him drag me into the clubhouse.
Because he would’ve let me go if I’d struggled. I somehow knew that. Just like I inexplicitly knew that he’d wanted me to struggle.
Because it was beyond his control.
Whatever it was yanking us together.
Again, it was the thing I’d scoffed at in every book and movie about romance. About two people being drawn to each other without logical explanation. Everything worked within logic, even love. It was pheromones, hormones, family ties, shared morals, shared interests.
For all the romance and ‘magic’ surrounding the sought-after emotion, it could be easily explained within the realms of logic.
But I was a fool to think logic could explain this.
Why my mind had been unwilling to let him go since he’d stormed out of that room. Why I’d gotten less than eight hours of sleep in two nights because the darkness was full of his shadow.
Of my own shadowed desires.
And it was why I lost the ability to breathe the second I opened my door forty-six hours after he’d stormed out of that room in the clubhouse.
Because he was standing there.
At my door.
Taking up every inch of it.
My eyes roamed up his body hungrily. Took in his faded jeans, his long black tee molded against the abs underneath it. The worn leather of his cut. The art covering the small amount of muscled skin on show. The beard hiding his jaw. The eyes that burned into my very core. The pure air around him pulsated with his presence.
And he was a total presence. Something that hit you physically. Painfully.
I let out a breath it seemed I’d been holding for forty-six hours.
I expected him to speak. Because a man who looked like that, a man who commanded the freaking air, who commanded the freaking oxygen I breathed, who threatened—no, promised to kill police officers, who turned up at a woman’s door at eight o’clock in the morning, they did it because they had something to say.
But he didn’t speak.
Not one word.
Neither did I.
I just stood there.
Like an idiot.
Staring at him.
To be fair, he was doing the same. Hence the reason I was having trouble staying upright, let alone forming words. Because his stare was like everything else about him: unyielding, destructive, unforgiving.
In these two days, I’d convinced myself that I’d imagined it. The power he had over me. What he’d roused in me. Because safe in my ordered apartment, in my ordered lifestyle, the memories could only have been a fabrication. When I took them out of the environment, out of Gage’s environment and into mine, where logic ruled, it was impossible for a man to have that effect over me.
Or maybe it wasn’t.
I reasoned that it might not be impossible for that particular man to have that effect over any living, breathing, hot-blooded woman. Or man, for that matter.
But it couldn’t be reasoned why a man like Gage—who was not a biker version of a Greek god, unless you were talking about Hades—would be looking at me like he was right freaking now.
With pure, unadulterated desire.
Me.
No man looked at me like that. Especially not a man like Gage.
As mentioned before, I wasn’t ugly. I was trim and fit because I ate well and exercised slightly over the recommended amount for a woman my age. I took care of my skin, so it was smooth, blemishless, and lineless. Pale to the point of alabaster because sun protection was key.
Skin cancer killed almost ten thousand people per year.
I moisturized.
I went to the salon every eight weeks, had my mousy brunette hair touched up with some subtle honey highlights, got the ends trimmed, and light layers added to frame my face. But not too much, because I liked my hair long. Even if I rarely wore it down.
That day I had only just managed to carefully cover the fading bruise underneath my eye with an amount of concealer I’d never used, nor really needed. And since I hadn’t used so much in the past, I’d taken longer to do my makeup than I allotted in my morning routine. Usually it was a dab of concealer, a swipe of blush—which I didn’t even rightly need because my face flushed on its own. Filled in my eyebrows, which I didn’t strictly need either, since they were full and dark and the perfect shape—not coming from me, but from the many beauticians I’d seen to get them shaped. A simple blending of eyeshadows, light because anything else made me look like a skunk. I’d perfected my ‘usual’ thanks to YouTube makeup tutorials. I itched to go wild and glam like the women—and men—in the tutorials did, yearning to let myself jump out of my carefully structured box.
But I never did.
So that day was no exception, even with more concealer than normal. I had mascara and a pale pink lip gloss but nothing else.
It was the ultimate ‘no makeup’ look.
But since it had taken longer, I hadn’t yanked my hair up into the tight bun it was usually in for work. It was still tumbling in soft waves around my exposed shoulders.
I had yet to put a cardigan over the sleeveless blouse I’d tucked into my pale pink pencil skirt. It was modest, dipped only slightly at my chest, but not enough to show any of my cleavage, and was only a slightly darker shade of pink than my pencil skirt—which fit me well, but ended below my knees.
I was barefoot, my sensibly heeled pumps waiting for me in their spot in my closet, high enough to be flattering on my slim and short figure, but not enough to be uncomfortable.
It was my usual. And it was safe. Bordering on boring. I wasn’t the girl
next door. I was the girl who lived way down the road from her. The one men might pause their glance on, but not fricking feast their gaze on me like Gage.
My knees trembled at the way his eyes moved up, down, up again. He focused on my hair for the longest time, his hands shaking at his sides as if he was holding himself back from touching my tousled strands.
And then his gaze moved down again. Stuttered on my chest area, as if there was something to see there. As if I wasn’t wearing a sensible cotton bra and he could see my nipples underneath the thin silk of my blouse.
Then his eyes moved farther down.
All the way to my brightly painted toes.
It was my one treat on my Sunday pedicure. Everything else in my wardrobe was muted, and the colors on my fingers were either a soft beige or a blush pink. But I always went crazy with my toes. Glitters. Neons. That week it was Barbie pink with little silver crystals on my big toes.
I was equally glad and embarrassed at my strict habit of going to get a pedicure every week. Glad because Gage was staring at my feet with a concentrated intensity. And though I didn’t particularly like people looking at my feet—who did?—they were nice feet. Because of my weekly pedicures.
But I was embarrassed because a muscled, murderous, hotter-than-sin outlaw biker was currently staring at my hot pink, bedazzled toes.
And then he was staring at my mouth.
With a different kind of intensity.
One that had my inner thighs throbbing.
But still, he didn’t speak.
“How do you know where I live?” I squeaked.
Yes, squeaked.
Like a mouse suddenly discovering it had vocal cords.
Mental forehead slap.
He folded his arms. “It’s Amber. I’m me. Not fuckin’ hard,” he clipped, his voice full of anger, as if it was my fault that I was talking to him, as if he wasn’t the one knocking on my door, forcing this conversation.
I blinked. Slowly. His voice was hard. Flat. But it was also raspy. Rough. Chiseled from smoking too many cigarettes throughout the years. That shouldn’t have pleased me. Cigarettes killed almost half a million Americans every year, and the deaths weren’t pretty.
The thought of Gage succumbing to a death like that had me tasting bile.
So no, I didn’t like that he smoked.
But I liked the way it had deepened his manly rasp. The way it clung to his pores and mingled perfectly with his natural scent to create a cologne Armani would likely kill for.
But still.
“You shouldn’t smoke,” I said, surprising myself. Because I should’ve asked him what he was doing on my doorstep at eight in the morning. Or started the very well-rehearsed and efficient speech I’d drafted in case I encountered him again and he was still under the impression that we were something.
But I didn’t do those things.
I said what I said because no matter what I loved about his smoky scent and voice, I did not love any single thing about something that increased his risk of dying early.
And from what I knew about the Sons of Templar MC, that risk was already pretty freaking high.
Gage’s expression cleared completely, eyes wide in total surprise for a split second. Then he recovered. Of course he recovered.
“How the fuck do you know I smoke?” he demanded.
“I’m me, not freaking hard,” I shot back, not resisting my urge to smile.
Something in his jaw ticked, the corner of his granite mouth turning up. “Fuck,” he said, the curse somehow like ambrosia in the air coming from him.
I blinked again. “What?”
He stepped forward, slightly in my door but not in my space. That didn’t mean my body didn’t respond to his complete nearness.
It did.
Dramatically.
“The word you’re lookin’ for, baby, when you’re cute as fuck and tryin’ to mimic me but fallin’ short when you can’t even mutter the word ‘fuck’ from your sweet-as-shit lips,” he said, eyes on the lips he’d just called ‘sweet as shit.’
I struggled to keep my wits about me. He was making it hard as crap. “I don’t need to curse to make my point,” I said, hating that my voice betrayed exactly what he was doing to me. I sucked in a deep breath. “You shouldn’t smoke. It’s bad for you.”
He leaned back, face hardening once more. “Do a lot of things that are bad for me,” he replied. “Smokin’ is just one thing on the list. Very near the fuckin’ bottom. What’s on the top is me standing right where I am now.”
I screwed up my nose. “You standing on my doorstep is worse than you sucking on a death stick that boasts tar and carbon monoxide in its ingredient deck?” I clarified.
There was the mouth twitch again. “Yeah, baby. In my world, there’s something much fuckin’ worse than suckin’ on poison.” His eyes were on my lips. “And that’s tastin’ something sweet.”
His words struck me. Bodily. Struck me mute. But even his threats, his comments about violence and murder, hadn’t made me mute. It was the way he talked about me being sweet. Like it was a bad thing, but a good thing too. Because his words, the low rasp of his voice, his gaze—they all told me that he was interested in me.
Me.
Luckily I didn’t have to scramble a response, as he folded his arms across his chest. He was wearing a long henley because there was still a crisp chill to the air considering it was early October; even in California, the weather was turning slightly.
And he’d likely ridden on his bike.
“You gonna keep starin’ at me, or you gonna get your shit together?” he asked, his voice hard but somehow amused at the same time.
My eyes jerked upward from where they’d been inspecting his pecs, wondering if they were as hard as they looked. And then wondering what they looked like without the shirt, if his entire body was coated in tattoos like his visible skin seemed to portray.
“My shit together?” I repeated, thinking that pretty much my whole life since that day almost a decade before was centered, almost violently focused on having ‘my shit together.’ I had excelled at that for nine years.
Apart from the past week.
Well, the past four days, to be exact.
Since this man came into my life.
My life since then did not have its shit together.
Or more accurately, I did not have my shit together.
How did he expect me to get it together with him standing right there? I wouldn’t be able to get back to my carefully ordered life unless he was far, far away. And even then, the ghost of his presence was forceful enough to blow me off-kilter for the past two days.
“Yeah, babe.” He looked pointedly at my toes. “Unless you’re plannin’ on going to work barefoot. And I’m guessin’ you don’t plan on that.” His eyes went to my exposed arms. “And you’re gonna need to cover up. It’s chilly. Colder on the bike.”
I was about to tell him exactly what I thought of his command to ‘cover up’ considering I was an independent woman, and I was barely showing anything but my arms. But the words that followed stopped me. And I forced myself to ignore the comment about it being chilly and the underlying sentiment that he didn’t want me to be chilly.
“On the bike?” I parroted, painfully aware of the fact that I wasn’t really speaking, more like echoing his words without the smoky, firm and very masculine tone.
He nodded once, jerking his head backward, and it was then that I looked behind him—such a thing only possible if I went up on my toes.
His bike was indeed on the curb behind him, which shouldn’t have been a surprise because there was no parking on the curb in front of the gallery.
But what was a surprise was the helmet resting on the seat.
“You got a helmet.”
He shook his head. “Nah, babe, you’ve got a helmet.”
I stared at him. “I got a helmet.”
Lauren! Stop repeating words he’s already said and say something original so he
doesn’t go back to thinking you’re brain damaged after the crash.
“I don’t need a helmet. I don’t have a motorcycle.”
Great one. Just great. Stating the absolute obvious.
“But I do,” Gage said, the corner of his mouth twitching as if he could hear my internal monologue. “And I meant what I said two days ago. Your ass is on the back of my bike from now on.” His eyes flickered over me, as if searching for something. They settled on the spot on my face where I’d covered my fading bruises.
“You still sore, Will?” he asked, leaning forward, brushing his thumb over the area with the gentleness of a feather. Something I would’ve thought impossible, such a soft touch from a man who was not just full of hard edges, but was a hard edge.
“I really need to stop thinking everything is impossible. Because there’s no impossible with you.”
His hand paused and his eyes turned liquid.
I froze.
I’d said that out loud.
Holy freaking heck, I’d said that out loud.
Maybe I really did need to get my head checked.
“I mean no, I’m not sore,” I said. “Well, a little, but that’s normal in the days following the trauma a body goes through after a car accident. I was actually probably lucky the airbag didn’t deploy, because my healing likely would’ve been much slower,” I babbled, trying to cover up the words I’d previously spoken with sheer volume of nonsense. “At my low speed and lack of impact against anything solid, the airbag would’ve done more harm than good. It can cause temporary blindness, or permanent in some cases. Broken bones in the chest area, damage to the soft tissue. Broken bones in the face, the nose most common. And then there’re the more serious neck and back and brain injuries.”
Are you sure you don’t have one?
I said all of that without taking a breath, which would’ve been nearly impossible regardless with the concrete that was Gage’s gaze. Plus, his fingers were still brushing my face, the touch gentle, or it had been. Now it was heavier than his stare.
There was a long, painful silence after my words, mostly filled with me sucking in an audible breath. Bad idea since I inhaled even more of his scent.