I’d had a major crush on him, but he never gave me any hint that he felt the same way—not once.
So I’d pushed it aside, forgotten about it. And I definitely didn’t want all those old feelings bubbling up again now. No fucking way.
I loved Smoke—he was my best friend. But when it came to sex, men were nothing but trouble, and I didn’t want anything to do with them. Perhaps forever.
As if he’d sensed my presence, Smoke’s head came up sharply, his black eyes slamming into mine.
And the weird heat that had me gripped intensified.
Holy shit. There was something in his gaze that made my knees weak for a second, that made me dizzy. Made me forget who I was.
As if he was looking at me for the first time in his life and really seeing me.
It was wrong and strange, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. So I looked away, my face feeling like it was about to go up in flames.
‘Cat?’
His voice was usually quiet and deep, but now there was an edge to it, rough and husky, that made something inside me shiver.
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’
I stared fixedly at the wall opposite. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. But...I need you.’
‘Christ, I’m a little busy—’
‘It’s Annie.’
He went silent. After a moment he muttered something to the woman kneeling at his feet. There was the sound of rustling fabric, the jingle of the chains attached to Smoke’s low-slung jeans, a zipper being done up.
I tried to will the blush in my cheeks away, tried to calm the fast beating of my heart. I had no idea what was wrong with me, but whatever it was I didn’t have time for it.
The woman hurried past me, giving me a pissed-off look. Clearly she didn’t like being interrupted either.
‘Talk to me,’ Smoke said shortly.
I took a moment to calm myself, then looked back at him.
The expression on his face was the same as it always was—guarded, wary. The walls behind his dark eyes were impregnable. That fierce, hungry look was gone as if it had never been. And there was a part of me that couldn’t help but be sad about that. A part that wanted to see it again.
Getting a hold of myself, I ignored that part. ‘I’m sorry—I really didn’t want to come out here. But it’s Justin. He picked Annie up from school and was supposed to have dropped her off four hours ago. He didn’t. He’s not answering his phone or his texts or...’
I stopped, feeling a bubble of panic welling up inside me. I didn’t want to go to pieces now, and there was something about knowing Smoke was here, that he had my back, that made the tension inside me relax.
‘Hey,’ he said quietly, and his familiar, deep voice eased the panicked feeling. ‘It’s okay. We’ll get her. You tell anyone else about this?’
‘No.’
‘How did you get here? You got a car?’
‘Yeah.’ The short, flat questions calmed me even further.
‘Good.’ He ran one long-fingered hand over his shorn head. ‘Fuck. Okay. I want you to go home and stay there. I’ll go get Annie.’
I knew he’d help because he always did. Still, relief had me leaning against the wall to stop myself sliding down it. But that was the way I dealt with things. If something needed to be done I tended to focus on that to the exclusion of everything else—even my own feelings. Because feelings just got in the way.
The downside was that when I’d done what I needed to, I tended to get overwhelmed by the inrush of the emotions I’d managed to block. It probably wasn’t a healthy way to deal with things, but it had got me out of a lot of bad situations in the past so I wasn’t knocking it.
Smoke’s gaze sharpened, his dark eyes glittering. He knew when I was crashing.
‘You need a lift home? I’ll get Tiger to take you.’
Part of me wanted to go with Smoke, but I knew he wouldn’t want me getting in the way. Still, I wasn’t going to collapse like a complete loser.
‘No, it’s okay. I’ve got my car.’ My throat tightened, a wave of fear hollowing out my stomach. ‘I just want her home, Dane. Please.’
Panic had made me use his given name, and even though he hated it when I did, the look in his eyes softened.
Lifting one of those large, warm hands, he touched my cheek—light, fleeting. ‘It’s okay, kitten. I’ll get her back.’
Kitten. When I called him Dane he called me kitten. A stupid joke.
Yet for the first time ever the touch and the dumb pet name sent a strange shiver straight through me.
He didn’t seem to notice as he dropped his hand. ‘Jesus, why the fuck is he doing this? He knows I’ll fucking kill him if he so much as touches you or Annie.’
I dismissed the shiver. I really didn’t need any more weirdness tonight.
‘I don’t know. He seemed fine when he dropped her home last week.’
Justin had been quiet for weeks, with the threat of a restraining order keeping him in line. He was a lawyer, and he was always talking about how he could get around it, but he hadn’t done anything—much to my relief.
Then again, if Smoke went and got Annie and some shit went down...
‘Don’t do anything stupid, okay?’
I hooked a finger into one of his belt loops, holding him in case he decided to take off without listening to me. He never had before, but I wanted to be sure. He viewed Annie as a surrogate daughter and was hugely protective of her.
‘I know Justin’s a dick, but he could make life difficult for you.’ I didn’t add that he could also make life difficult for the rest of the Knights, too, but I didn’t need to.
Smoke looked down at me, his face unreadable. ‘He’ll get what’s coming to him, Cat. Nothing you can do to stop it. Especially if he tries pulling any more of this kind of shit.’
I swallowed, my throat dry all of a sudden. ‘It’s not him I’m worried about.’
Something shifted in his guarded dark eyes, but I couldn’t tell what it was.
‘Yeah, I know. Don’t worry.’
He smiled. and I knew then that he was furious. Because he only ever smiled like that when he was angry.
‘I’ll let him live.’
And for the second time that night I shivered.
