Page 38 of Bruised MC Bear

17

Angel

Angel feltlike a lump of cooling clay in her seat, still reeling from the brush of Axe’s lips across her palm. It was small touch, almost non-existent, yet it seared in her brain as her pulse thrummed beneath every inch of her sensitive skin. Something so light shouldn’t have been as intimate or more meaningful than the handful of encounters that they already shared together, with their clothes off.

Quotes about solemn passion and powerful flames from romance classics likeJane Eyretwisted through her thoughts as she stared at her empty hands in her lap. Clearly she had spent way too much time reading at the library instead of actually working. And all those idealistic meanderings had ruined her a long time ago, causing her to gravitate to men like Axe all the time. It was obvious to her that except for the fact that he was a shifter, he needed fixing. He was as broken as any other man she’d been attracted too. Which is exactly why she needed to back off.

She had always been drawn to broken souls, yes with this man, the baggage he carried around was bigger than this truck. Working on him was sure to be a doozy, a project she would never overcome or grow sick of until his pain spilled over and wrecked everything good in her life. Her track record was stellar for picking men who were all kinds of wrong for her. She would be with them, and eventually would try to fix them, and sometimes, she was partially successful. But then a spring would come loose, and she would be frustrated at her failure. The majority of her exes either wound up hating her for trying to make them better or leaving her after their improvement.

Axe was an utterly gorgeous disaster waiting to happen—or rather, happening right this second—and she had hardly seen the tip of the snowflake resting on the tip of the iceberg that was his unique set of issues. Even his secrets had secrets. The messy shadows waiting in the depths were sure to swallow her whole, spitting her out ragged, exhausted, and alone. Or dead, given the last day’s events.

She tried to inwardly express a few affirmations.

Axe is not my problem.

Axe is not my mission.

I’m a librarian, not a goddamned missionary.

The sad reality was that Axe Voltaire was not someone she should ever give her heart to, even if she allowed herself the pleasure of being with him casually. The reason had nothing to do with the fact that he was a bear shifter or from being traumatized as a child. It was not because he was desperately in need of weekly therapy, and not because he was probably the worst of the outlaws in his motorcycle club. It was not because he was completely her type either.

Nope.

None of those.

Angel could not afford to fall for the man because his touch still lingered on her skin long after he let her go, and it rested there even after they pulled up beside his sister’s suburban cookie-cutter dream, and probably after she returned to her life before he had come into it.

She glanced in his direction as he put the car in park. Maybe he was intentionally avoiding her for the same reason. She followed his gaze, which was glued to the front door, and realized she was dead wrong about that part. The door had opened. A small boy and a taller girl hurtled outside, descended the front porch and ran around in circles on the perfectly manicured front lawn. Their exit from the house was randomly timed, because they began to play, not noticing that she and Axe were watching them from the side of the road.

Angel’s eyebrows popped up when a woman bustled out of the house in an outfit that looked like something straight out of a Talbot’s catalog. Axe’s sister had the preppy soccer mom thing down pat. How on God’s green earth could that woman be related to the man sitting less than two feet away? He was possibly immersed in organized crime, doing deals with the underbelly of society. And there was his sister. She could have easily been put in a time machine in her ‘as-is’ state and do a walk-on role onLeave it to Beaver. Their paths must have deviated somewhere or another, never to rejoin—until today.

The woman watched the kids for a moment, and her stare traveled, settling on the bullet-ridden, beat-up eyesore of a pickup truck at her sidewalk. Neighborhood watch in the area was probably firing texts down the emergency call tree of homeowners, or may have already put out a BOLO on the vehicle. Axe’s sister’s lips compressed for a millisecond, and her face slowly stretched into a broad smile that didn’t quite meet her eyes. Still, she didn’t make a move toward them. She stood on the porch with her hands clasped at her middle as if waiting for some kind of direction. Angel remained neutral, waiting for Axe to make the first move. He remained glued to his seat, staring through the windshield.

Angel poked him in the ribs with her elbow. “Go talk to her,” she hissed. “You’re being weird right now.”

“I’m going,” he said, sounding strangled.

His fingers clicked his seatbelt buckle and threw the belt off his shoulder. Opening his door, he slid out of the seat and just stood there. Something was not right between these two people. Angel was sure she was missing some crucial piece of the puzzle. They acted more like strangers, like there wasn’t enough history between them. Axe eventually walked across the driveway to meet her, and they embraced in the most awkward, uncomfortable way. It was hard to watch.

So, things with Axe’s family weren’t simple either.

Why was she not surprised?