Her minty and cinnamon breath.
Clean.
Pure.
A moment he never should’ve had again.
Not since he’d laid his daughter on his chest, smelled her head. Felt her skin.
Those moments were lost to him.
His fucking soul was lost to him, because he was responsible for that lightness in his chest that haunted him with the truth as to where his baby girl was. Who was responsible for that.
He’d resigned himself to the fact that he was in Hell.
Perfect and pure moments didn’t exist in Hell.
But there he was, having one.
One he didn’t fucking deserve.
With a woman he didn’t fucking deserve.
So he broke the moment. Not just by breathing but by forcibly stepping back, releasing her hips from his grasp, and mounting his bike, then starting it in one swift move.
Lauren was gaping at him, her eyes dreamy, her body swaying slightly from the loss of his hands.
He should’ve left her there. Not said a thing. Just imprinted the moment on his memory as his one pure moment in Hell, and then go straight back to the pit where he belonged. Leave her up top, in the clean air, where she belonged.
“Be outside at five,” he barked. “And if you fuckin’ even think about walkin’ farther than up those stairs and to your desk, I’ll tan your ass.”
Then he roared off.
Not in the direction of the pit.
Because Hell wasn’t anywhere he could ride to.
It was something he carried around inside him.
Something he was throwing Lauren into.
Five
Lauren
“Lauren, am I having a stroke, or did you just get dropped off on a motorcycle?” Abagail, the receptionist, asked as I wandered past her, gripping the helmet I’d just realized Gage hadn’t taken with him.
Marty, our sports editor, was leaning against her desk, as he always was at that time of the morning, trying to get her to go out with him. It was an ongoing thing that Abagail was too nice to end. She was pretty, young, kind, and Marty was older, sleazy, and wore more hair spray than a Vegas show girl.
“She did. Saw her with one of the Templar guys,” he put in, his eyes running over the length of me in a way that made me need a shower.
And I didn’t want a shower. I didn’t want to wash Gage’s presence off me.
But it had already seeped under my skin. His smoky scent. His desire that was somehow malicious, dangerous, and tempting all at the same time. His penetrating gaze the moment he’d climbed off the bike to pull my skirt down for me. To protect my modesty. Granted, him all but forcing me on the bike was the reason my modesty needed protecting, but he hadn’t exactly forced me. I’d gotten on under my own volition.
Heck, I hadn’t even noticed or cared that my skirt had ridden up almost to my hips. On Main Street. In broad daylight.
No, I was too busy trying to calm my heart rate. Do difficult things like breathe and blink at the same time after pressing against Gage, having the roar of the motorcycle underneath me, and not be distracted by a head wound like I had been the night of my crash.
It was magnificent. But I had wanted more. I’d bitten my lip to stop myself from squeezing his abs, from screaming at him to go faster, go farther.
And then there was the whole image of him just sitting on his bike, tattooed hands clutching the handlebars, eyes on me underneath his shades.
I’d never thought something would be so savagely beautiful.
So I’d been taken by surprise when he’d dismounted in one fluid movement, and in another he’d yanked my skirt into place. Then he’d gently, almost reverently, run his hands up the fabric, resting them on my hips, just staring at me.
I’d been frozen, eyes on his face, on the hard edges of it, thinking about how his beard would feel brushing against my cheek. What his lips would feel like against mine. I’d been so sure I’d find out, the moment so taut with sexual pressure that it drowned out the world around us.
But then he’d stepped back. Violently. In direct contrast with the gentle way he’d handled me seconds before.
And he’d climbed on his bike, shouted at me and roared off. I watched him till the blackness against the soft morning light was gone.
My core was still pulsating with his throaty and savage voice promising to “tan my ass” if I did any walking. Because he knew I still hurt. And technically the promise in itself was to hurt me more—on the surface, at least. But the way his voice melded around the words, I was certain it would be the best kind of pain.
I was tempted to forgo work and walk to the outskirts of town, to the Sons of Templar compound, so he could keep his promise. So I could demand he do so.