Page 28

Puck

We’d been on the road a solid ten minutes before I relaxed. I fought the slow trembles that followed the adrenaline dump and turned on the heat. As tucked into herself as she was, I figured Kenna wouldn’t complain about the extra warmth.

Halloween was just around the corner. It didn’t get cold and stay cold in the desert, but the nights could be chilly this time of year.

The excitement of the day must have been too much for my little man because he was cashed out in his car seat—cotton candy colored drool at the corner of his mouth. Every few minutes, I flicked a gaze to the rearview mirror to make sure he was still there, sound asleep.

I’d never wanted him to experience anything like that, not until he was older. The fighting, the bullshit, was a way of life out here. The guilt over that ran deep. Deeper when I thought of how much worse it would be with Jessica in his life.

“He freak out too bad?” The idea that he’d seen me get that violent made bile roll in my stomach.

“No. I covered his head with a blanket and told him a story.” Kenna glanced back at him, smiling softly. “He was very brave.”

“So were you.” I would forever see her standing defiantly on that side rail, hurling angry insults at the peckerwoods. Brave, bold, beautiful. Jesus, she was everything I could have ever wanted in a woman.

And she’d protected my son. From them and from me.

I didn’t deserve her, I never would.

She blushed and ducked her head, but leaned on the console. She was close enough that her scent made me want to kiss her. If I pulled over and laid one on her right then, I’d probably crush her.

At the first stoplight, I checked my phone. It had been blowing up since we left the fairgrounds. I replied to AP that we needed a meet with Ghost. Little bastard was playing both sides, and I was going to beat his fucking ass for sending those douche bags after her.

“What sort of story?” I asked, to distract myself as I turned onto the highway and toward The Black Cat to drop her off at her truck.

“About a hero slaying demons.”

There was something in the way she said it that had me glancing at her from the corner of my eye. Her expression was both thoughtful and sad. I took one hand off the wheel and wrapped it around hers.

We hadn’t really talked about the frat party—not like she needed to. What those fuckers had done to her, or almost done, was more than any one person should tackle alone. I’d done my part, and I’d be right here until hers was finished.

Maybe that’s why David and his girlfriend’s shit pissed me off so bad. Kenna wasn’t innocent, she wasn’t perfect, but she was the sort of person who’d cram herself in a tiny roller coaster just to make a little boy smile. She deserved better than she got at every turn.

“I’d do it again.” I didn’t mean those shits in the parking lot. I meant all of it. The god-damn party. Giving her the apartment. I’d been down this road before, the knight in shining armor—always looking for someone to save. If it weren’t for Eli…I’d be a goner.

Fuck.

“I know.” She stroked her thumb back and forth over my pinky finger. Her skin was soft and warm against mine. I’d never been affectionate. It wasn’t my thing. But this was…something else.

I liked it.

“You sort of just did.”

“You were about to hand him his ass.” I snickered.

“I was damn sure going to give it my best shot.”

“Sexy.” I brought her fingers to my lips and kissed them.

“Mm-hmm. I was thinking the same thing.”

“You flirting with me?” I dropped our hands back to the console, hers practically disappearing in my large grip. She was so small, but I didn’t feel like a big oaf…I liked it.

Damn, I was feeling a lot of things.

“Maybe.” She chuckled and relaxed, sinking into the passenger seat of my truck. “Thanks, seriously, for last night and today. For the apartment. You—I…I don’t know how I’ll ever pay you back.”

Who the fuck wanted to be paid back? “You don’t owe me shit. Not money. Not your body. Nothing. I’m an asshole, but I’m not that big of an asshole.”

“You don’t want my body?”

She was looking at me, feigning shock, with those big eyes wide. Then she slowly licked her lips. It was a fucking miracle I didn’t run off the road.

“I didn’t say that.”

“So, you do want my body.” She leaned against the console, brushing her breasts against my shoulder and nipping at my ear.

“Brat.” I nudged her back into the seat, to keep from wrecking with her and my kid in the truck.

“I can be.” She settled in, still holding my hand. “If I am, what are you going to do about it?”

My cock twitched against my jeans. Oh, there were things I could do. I wouldn’t say any of them with my kid in the truck. Because if I gave voice to those thoughts, I just might put them in action.

The surge of jealousy when I remembered Jester cracking the belt across her ass.

Her lips quirked in a small, triumphant smile.

And just like that, I forgot all the heavy shit between us and couldn’t think of anything but fucking her senseless.

Her laugh soothed a smile out of me.

“You made that too easy, big guy.”

Maybe I did, hell maybe I needed it to be.

As I pulled into The Black Cat and parked, I glanced over. She was bathed in the streetlight’s glow; her face flushed a little and her expression soft. It was more than wanting to be inside her again. I liked her. The entire world had tried to stomp her down, but each time she got back up.

That was something I could respect. She deserved so much better than me.

Different versions of her danced around in my mind.

The sexy, drunk way I’d found her at the frat party, the breathy way her lips parted right before she came, the broken way she’d crumbled at David’s, and the defiance she’d shown as she talked shit tonight.

But this was the version I could fall for. I brought her hand to my mouth again and nipped at her knuckles. “I don’t need to punish you, to make you come for me, darlin.”

“Oh.” Her mouth formed the word as she tugged her hand from mind and popped open the passenger door.

I was out my door and around the front of the truck before she’d had time to even shut her door. I enjoyed the brief moment of shocked pleasure when I gripped her throat and pushed her back against the fender.

When I kissed her, it was slow, because I wanted to taste her. I took my time tracing the line of her lips, and then dipping my tongue inside, circling hers. Her fingers running up my chest sparked fires, even with my shirt as a barrier between my skin and her touch.

Broken women sucked me in, always had. But Kenna was different. At every turn, she put herself back together.

I pulled my lips from hers, breathless, because if I kissed her any longer—had her hands on me any longer—I was going to ask her to come home with us.

Instead, I fished out the key to the shop, dropped it in her hand. “Opens the back door in the alley and the apartment.”

Still sort of dazed, she glanced from the key to me. I told her the security code as I released my hold from the column of her throat and put a step’s worth of distance between us.

“Wait, what are the last two numbers?”

The first four were the year Elijah was born. That she knew that made me want things I had no right to. “Forty-Seven was my jersey number.”

She chewed her bottom lip and pushed off the truck. “Still got one of those lying around?”

I did, several to be honest. Kept them for my kid. Maybe he’d want them one day. “Yeah.”

“Can I wear one?” She sauntered toward her little pickup and stopped at the door, turned back to me with a mischievous grin.

“It would swallow you whole.”

“I hope so.”

I watched her drive away like some sort of love-struck teenager, before driving home myself. By the time I got there, I had a message from Cam…we’d be meeting with Ghost tomorrow. Table at noon. Mom was coming over to bring some stuff. She could keep Eli until I got back.

Cradling Eli on my shoulder, I grabbed his bag and some other shit from the truck. I was already juggling as much as humanly possible.

I needed to be at the shop more. Life, the MC, fatherhood. I didn’t have time for a relationship, but here I was wishing I did, finding ways to make time to see her. Hell, I’d moved her into my building.

Fuck me .

Eli woke up as I carried him inside, which was good. He was a candy-coated mess from the fair. But a quick shower and clean pajamas later he was snuggled in his bed sleeping soundly.

What I would give to sleep like that. Love warmed my chest in a way it never had until the first moment I’d held him. I’d done some fucked up shit, and I’d keep doing it, to make sure he had the most amazing life.

I’d always respected David for loving Kenna like that even though she wasn’t his.

Until last night.

That was something I could fix. I sent a text before going to sleep myself. A benefit of sitting at the table meant Kenna’s stepdad couldn’t ignore my request to meet me at the clubhouse before chapel.

He and I had some shit to talk about.

She wasn’t my responsibility, she was my—what, exactly? I didn’t make a habit of letting my friends suck my dick. But she wasn’t my ole lady, couldn’t be.

Why not?

Because I hadn’t talked to her about it, I didn’t need it. There was too much other shit holding me back and tying me down. Which meant I shouldn’t be sticking my nose into her business.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. When I pulled it out there was a notification from the cameras at the shop.

She was home, which was why I opened the app and watched her walk in and up the stairs before closing the door behind her. She hadn’t moved with the usual speed and bounce that Kenna always had.

It made me want to go to her. Had I not been home alone with the kid, I might have.

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