“Of course not,” I said, my voice firm. “You saved my f**kin’ life. I wouldn’t do that to you. Hell, I don’t want to do anything to hurt you. Should’ve stayed away tonight, but I wanted you to know it was all over.”
Bullshit. I wanted to see her. Touch her. Smell her hair.
“It’s hard to know what you’d do,” Em said. “You taught me an important lesson—you can’t trust guys you meet online, remember?”
I winced.
“Yeah, about that . . . I’m sorry. It was a dick move.”
“But you were cool with romancing me and using me to manipulate my father in the first place?”
“Well, to be fair I did it to get laid, too. Wasn’t all business.”
She gave a little snort. Not an angry snort, more of a snuffly, surprised laugh that caught her off guard.
“Are you going to erase those pictures?” she asked, finally, her voice sobering. “I don’t want them out there. You owe me—I saved your ass, I saved Skid, and I saved this precious truce of yours.”
She made a good point. But there was no way I’d erase those pictures. Fuckin’ crown jewels in my spank bank.
“I’ll get rid of them,” I lied. Shit, if that was the worst one I told today, it’d be a damned record.
“How do I know you’re telling the truth? For all I know, you’ve emailed them to your whole club already.”
“Naw, if I’d done that, it would’ve made the rounds of your club, too,” I told her. “No way my brothers would be able to resist sending them to your dad. I’ll take care of it. You never have to worry about seeing them again, okay?”
“Okay,” she agreed, her voice drifting. She was falling asleep, I realized. I held perfectly still. After a few minutes I heard a very soft, very feminine little snore.
Note to self: Pot knocks Em on her ass.
I smirked, and then it faded because not like I’d have a chance to use that information. Pretty sure I wouldn’t be seeing her again after tonight. Hell, best-case scenario, the peace would hold and I’d see her across a campfire in a few years at some kind of gathering between the clubs. She’d have an old man by then . . . I’d just have to deal.
Unless it was that cocksucker Painter. I didn’t like that guy.
My last thought before I fell asleep was that if I ever saw him with Em, I’d have to kill him.
Just no escaping it.
EM
The birds woke me up. I was freezing cold on my right side, which seemed to be resting on . . . the ground? My back was warm, though, and a man’s arm lay heavy over my body.
What the f**k?
Then it came to me.
Liam. Hunter. Whatever the hell his name was. He’d met me outside last night. I’d kicked him in the balls, and the memory warmed me immediately. Then we’d talked and smoked and it hadn’t been bad at all. Shit. That’d probably been stupid. But even with the ground all cold and damp beneath me, I felt fantastic cradled in his arms. His bicep made a hell of a nice pillow.
Ewww. I’d drooled on him.
I felt carefully in my pocket and pulled out my phone. Five thirty in the morning. I needed to get back inside, I realized. Not that Painter was my boss or anything, but he was a damned good spy for my father. I slid out from under Hunter’s arm carefully, then stood over him, taking him in one last time. Like so many people, sleep made him look young and innocent. Sure, he was still a big man made up of strong muscles and sharp angles, but his face had softened. Dark stubble covered his chin, and his near-black hair flopped forward over his eyes.
He wore his Devil’s Jack cut, too—the first time I’d seen it.
It looked good on him, I decided. Of course, everything looked good on him. He was such a beautiful son of a bitch, I thought wistfully, and now I’d probably never see him again. I couldn’t help but wonder what could’ve been.
Pulling out my phone, I took a couple quick pictures, figuring he’d done far worse to me. Then I walked carefully around the side of the bunkhouse and back to the house. I felt like a teenager sneaking inside after a date, a more accurate analogy than I’d realized because Dad’s bike was parked in the driveway. Sometime in the night he’d come home, although how I’d missed the sound of his big black Harley I couldn’t imagine.
Oh yeah. I’d been stoned off my ass. Oops.
I opened the door carefully. Then I snuck past Painter and climbed the stairs. I pulled out the phone and the gun, setting them on my bedside table before crawling under the covers. On Monday I’d give the folks at the aesthetician’s program a call, I decided. Follow up, see what they’d think of me coming to Portland for classes when the next quarter started.
It was a city, after all. Not like I’d ever see Liam at all.
Part Two
CHAPTER NINE
SIX WEEKS LATER
COEUR D’ALENE, IDAHO
EM
I considered the playlist I’d put together on my phone, and smiled.
Then I hit play on the stereo system’s control app.
Bass filled the front of the house, rattling the windows. Dad’s room was in the addition off the back, so it wouldn’t be too loud in there. Just loud enough to make a hangover much, much worse, if you were unfortunate enough to have one.
Odds were whoever came home with him last night—giggling hysterically, because the endless sex noises weren’t quite annoying enough—had a hangover and a half. It’d been the club’s Halloween party. I’d gone for a classic, the Playboy Bunny (in honor of Bridget Jones), which had been rather satisfying. Painter was all over me, something I would’ve killed for six months ago. Now? Fuck him.