Chapter Nineteen
Last night’s dinner with Peter had shaken me to my core.
I knew I needed to do something, to fight back, so I made a call that I never thought I’d ever have to do, something that might hurt the people I care about but that would, in the end, protect them.
I’d made a decision—I needed to pull the attention away from the club, get all the information I could before going to them and pleading my case.
First, I needed to have all my bases covered, nothing could go wrong.
It had been a long day. I’d worked at the shop, I’d gone to appointments, and my brain was fried. Now here I was, I’d been standing inside my bedroom for at least twenty minutes, staring around aimlessly, wondering what the hell I’d come in here for in the first place.
“Pull yourself together, woman,” I growled under my breath as I abandoned my mission and moved down the hallway and into the living room.
“I dunno…” The voice startled me, and I whipped my head toward the doorway, my hair flying around me as I tried to focus on the man who I’d been pining over for months, who was suddenly standing in my house. “I kinda like it when you fall apart, but only when it’s in my hands.”
I hauled in a heavy breath as I took him in. His cap was pulled backward on his head, he had his arms folded across his chest, making my mouth water as he leaned against the wall just inside my front door. A tight black T-shirt hugged his body, and with his club cut on over the top, he was the epitome of every bad ass you shouldn’t fuck with.
He took a step into the room and I shuffled on my feet. “What are you doing here?”
He raised his eyebrows. “I gotta have a reason to come by now?”
After months of sneaking around and getting to know each other, mind, body and soul, going cold turkey and not seeing him for weeks had been one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. There was just something between us that neither of us could deny. We enjoyed each other’s company. He made me smile and laugh on days where I struggled to get out of bed. And the way he was with Harlyn, God if it didn’t melt my heart and also my panties at the same time.
I squared my shoulders, standing my ground. “Well, since last time you were here you called me a selfish bitch and a horrible mother, I figured you might at least knock on the front door if you decided to come back.” The animosity in my tone didn’t go unnoticed, but it took a lot to throw a man like Wrench off his game.
“I said that did I?” he said, his face sinking with regret before walking over and placing himself so close to me that I couldn’t help but inhale his scent. It wasn’t what you expected from a biker—motor oil and leather were the usual. Wrench always smelled like expensive cologne, the type I knew well growing up around snobby businessmen and rich kids who honestly smelled like they bathed in it instead of water.
His was subtle though, enough to pull you in and want more but not enough to disrupt all your senses. Which I was glad because when I was around Wrench, I wanted to use every single one of them.
“Yeah, you said that,” I shot back, forcing a frown on my face and hooking my fingers into the belt loops of my jeans so I wouldn’t reach out for him.
He, on the other hand, had no qualms about taking what he wanted when he wanted it. “I’m sorry.” He reached out, plucking a few strands of hair from where they hung loosely around my face and twisted it in his fingers. “You went dark,” he commented, studying it closely.
A shiver ran up my spine and I lifted my chin. “I needed a change.”
It wasn’t a complete lie, the change was something I needed and had done on a whim last night after a two a.m. trip to the store, but probably not for any reason he could come up with. Peter hated my hair dark. My natural color being a mixture of brown and red. He always told me that when it was darker, it made me look hard and unapproachable, that I wasn’t sophisticated enough.
So that was the look I was going for—unsophisticated, unattractive, unworthy.
If I was going to play my part in his game, I wanted to seem unappealing and almost disgusting to him. I didn’t want him to want me.
“Why are you here, Wrench?” I finally found the courage to ask, despite the fact that his touch, even on a few measly strands of hair, was driving me absolutely crazy.
He took off his cap with his free hand, exposing his messy blond hair that I knew he hated. He tossed it across the room, and I followed it as it hit the wall and fell to the ground. With the distraction, he took the opportunity, dipping his head and pressing his lips to my neck, his body coming flush with mine. I stumbled, but he caught me, his hands pressing against my back and holding me against him.
His tongue snaked out, licking at the skin beneath my ear and forcing an airy gasp from my lips. “I’m here because we both know it’s what we want. And I for one, am sick of fucking fighting it.”
“Wrench,” I whispered, licking my lips, my mouth completely dry.
“Tell me to leave,” he taunted, his mouth grazing my neck as he trailed it lower and lower. “Tell me to leave right now, and I’ll walk out and swear to fucking God… I willnotcome back.”
I wanted to tell him just that, I tried to form my mouth to say the words, knowing that he would follow through, knowing that he wasn’t one to speak empty threats.
But I couldn’t.
He was right, and for the life of me, I couldn’t deny that fact. Wrench made me feel alive, with every touch or brush against my skin it electrified me and took away the numbness that had settled over my body.
That’s all I wanted. To feel something. Anything.