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CHAPTER 9

GHOST

I love the fucking gray.

“Stalking is a crime, ya know?”

I smirk at Ember as she walks toward her front porch, a box in her hand that appears to have personal stuff in it. When I left the clubhouse, I had no particular destination in mind. Ending up here was not on the agenda.

Yeah, keep telling yourself that.

An image of her address in my GPS flashes in my mind. “I’m not stalking you,” I snap, my annoyance with myself unintentionally directed at Ember.

She arches a perfectly manicured brow. “How’d you know where I live?”

And the answer to that will only confirm her stalker theory.

When I don’t respond, she taps her foot. “I’m waiting,” she prods.

“Would you believe that I was out for a leisurely ride and just happened upon a house that I thought could be yours?”

She does her best to hide the ghost of a smile threatening, but I know her expressions. The crinkles at the corners of her eyes give her away. “No, Pa—” She presses her lips into a flat line for a split second. “No, Ghost, I wouldn’t believe it.”

I heave a sigh. “Fine. Tracer may or may not have helped me out where your address is concerned.”

“Tracer?”

“He’s the tech guy for the club.”

“He’s the hacker, you mean?”

I smirk. “That, too.”

Ember shifts the box in her arms as she studies me. Her blue eyes are the same as I remember: full of emotion. Only now, I can’t identify the emotion.

“You’re different,” she finally comments.

“It’s been fifteen years, Em.”

She rolls her eyes. “No shit,” she snaps, pushing past me. She struggles to unlock her door and hold the box at the same time, so I grab the keys from her to help. “Thanks,” she mumbles when I push the door open.

“No problem,” I reply, following her inside.

“Sure, come on in,” Ember says, her tone dripping with sarcasm.

“Thanks. I think I will.”

After setting the box on a table by the door, she turns to face me. “What are you doing here?”

I thought about that very thing while I was waiting for her to get home. Hell, I even tried to talk myself into leaving, but clearly, that didn’t work.

“I came to offer my services,” I finally say.

Her eyes widen. “And what services would those be?”

For the first time since I laid eyes on her again, I let my mind wander. My gaze travels from her baby blues to the curve of her shoulder and then down over her chest. Only when I reach the apex of her thighs do they stop. My mouth waters, and I swallow, swearing she can hear the thunk of my Adam’s apple.

She clears her throat, jarring me out of my perusal, and I whip my head up to stare at her face.

“Hmm?” I ask, sure I must have missed something she said.

Ember sighs dramatically. “What do you want, Parker?”

“Ghost,” I correct automatically.

She waves her hand. “Whatever. What the hell do you want?”

“Honestly?”

“Of course.”

“At the moment, I want you,” I blurt.

Her hand goes to her throat, and I stifle a groan. “You… Um, you want… me?”

“Sounds crazy, huh?”

Glancing at the box she’d been carrying, she shrugs. “It’s been a crazy day.”

Hope flares, and I know I should squash it and run out of her house as fast as my size elevens will carry me, but my feet are rooted in place. Nothing good can possibly come from anything happening between us. The problem is, I’m not the honorable man I used to be. I’m not the same person who used to make what I thought were good decisions.

I’m Ghost, a patched member of a one-percenter motorcycle club. I’m a Soulless King who no longer believes in black and white, good and bad. I live and breathe the space in between, the space in the gray.

The moment she levels her gaze back on mine, I’m on her, pushing her back against the wall and fusing my lips to hers.

Like I said… I love the fucking gray.