Page 11 of Claimed By My Biker Daddies

“You survived,” he says.

“Barely,” I say, and my smile gives me away. He reaches for the tub I just wrapped and sets it to the side, his fingers brushing mine again. We are getting reckless with it.

Deacon comes through behind him with a coil of rope slung over one shoulder and soot along his jaw.

He looks like a man who has gone into a storm and come back with the bones of a world so the roof can hold.

He takes in the trays and the tub and the way Cruz is standing too close to me and says, with that mild voice that hides sharpness, “If you knock my elbows out in this kitchen, Navarro, I will measure you for your own drawers.”

Cruz throws him a look of theatrical innocence and eases back a half step. The half step is still close enough to feel like yes.

“Desserts lived,” Deacon says to me, and the approval lands like a coin in my pocket.

He taps the chalkboard with two clean knuckles. “Your list will hold tomorrow.”

“My list always holds,” I say. He hears the pride and nods.

The lodge shifts toward the end of the night and that particular intimacy late hours bring.

People stop performing and start existing.

Jackets slide off and hang along chair backs to steam.

A prospect sweeps the deck with his head down and his pride up.

Someone hums. Someone snores. Someone tells a story about a road trip that no longer sounds like trouble because the trouble made the person telling it into a memory worth keeping.

I steal another glance as I clean, because I have not learned my lesson.

Roman is outside with Deacon, speaking low, his head inclined, his hands quiet at his sides.

The movement of his mouth catches the light and I think about what it would be like to learn that mouth by heart.

I finish the last pan and stack it, then peeling a sugar thread from my wrist and licking it away.

The action feels like a small vow for no one but me.

When I look up, Cruz is watching without heat, just that easy affection he wears like a shirt.

“Hungry?” he asks.

It’s been far too long since that last plate of food. “I’ve had far too much sugar,” I say. “I could use something that bites back.”

He opens the cooler and pulls out a container wrapped in waxed paper. Carnitas.

Warm even now because the cooler works both ways in the hands of a man who knows how to use it.

He forks a piece into my palm.

I place it on my tongue and the heat and smoke and citrus bloom. I close my eyes and hum.

He looks proud in a shy way.

“I like you,” he says. “You eat the way honest people eat.”

“That is the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a storm,” I say, and we both laugh.

The last of the guests filter out.