Page 4 of Her Demanding Biker (Savage Kings MC #9)

Chapter

Four

W ell, shit.

I'd come face to face with the girl-

No, the woman, that I'd been in love with since before I could drink.

Legally.

And I could feel the wall between us.

There was no way that I could stand there in front of her and not reach out to touch her.

God, she was gorgeous.

Her skin was as smooth as I remembered it.

Her mouth-

Ah, fuck, her mouth.

I was fighting off a hard on and losing the battle.

I was an asshole, too.

I stepped in to cut her off because I knew that she was looking for an out, but I couldn't give it to her.

I needed to find out what she was doing here.

And how the fuck I was going to get her back into my life.

And that's when it happened.

She tried to escape from me, cracked her leg on the edge of the coffee table and fell right into my arms.

Or, I reached out and grabbed her because I was a selfish bastard.

And Arlys was my goddamn fantasy.

She reminded me that she had to use the head but there was no way I was going to let her use the bathroom everyone else did.

I knew what happened in that bathroom.

There was no way she was putting her ass on any of those seats.

So I took her into my room.

Yeah, it wasn't all that altruistic. I wanted her alone with me.

I wanted her.

That had never changed.

But I knew that the wall had to come down first.

While she was taking care of business in the bathroom, I got out my med kit and set out some things on my bed, both so she'd sit there and so I didn't think of trying to get into her pants before we talked things out.

She'd married.

Her father had told me that much.

Hell, he bragged about it.

I could practically hear him crowing when I saw the picture he'd sent me.

And a short note that said: She's married. You'll never get near her again.

The bathroom door opening brought me back to the present.

I watched her walk over to the bed tracking every damn step and breath she took.

There was something different about the way she moved now.

She was still beautiful, but she'd filled in where she’d been slim before. Her hips, her butt, and her... I had to turn away so I didn't stare at her breasts.

It was harder than I thought.

I wanted to look her over again and again, touch her the same way, but I knew I had to hold back.

I didn't want to scare her.

The single chair I had in the room was enough. I sat down and lifted her leg so I could take a look at the scratches from the table.

It was a mistake.

Touching her.

It stretched my already thin strand of control, but I still had some reserves.

I lifted the bottom edge of her skirt and tried to ignore what it felt like to have her skin against mine.

It helped to concentrate on the scrape in her skin.

It was red and raw, bleeding a little.

I left her skirt turned up over her knee and tried my best to clean the scrape without my hands shaking.

I remembered her skin.

The way it felt under my fingertips, my mouth, and my tongue.

Yeah, there was no way that I was getting up in the next half hour or so.

I was hard as a rock and with her sitting on my bed there was no way it was going to go back down.

I'd just opened the tube of antibiotic cream when I heard her voice.

"I didn't know you were here."

I nodded, trying to think of what I should say.

"I've been here for a couple of years now."

She nodded and I got to see her bite into the corner of her bottom lip.

That brought back memories.

The kind of memories when I'd chase that bite with my lips.

Before I could tell myself to shut the fuck up, I asked her the question that popped up in my head. "You still use that cherry lip thing?"

When I looked back up, she was staring at me, eyes wide, lips parted.

She'd looked like that the first time I'd kissed her.

A little bit like a rabbit staring down a wolf, but there was more than shock there. There was at least a little bit of heat.

"You... you remember my lip gloss?"

Oh, I remembered a lot about her.

The way her hair got lighter in the summer when she spent hours in the sun.

The way she smelled when I had her under me in my old Mustang with the passenger seat laid all the way back.

The taste of her on my fingers.

"Yeah," I had to clear my throat or risk that my voice might crack like a fucking kid, “it sometimes feels like I taste it on my lips.”

She tensed and pulled her leg off of mine so fast I almost worried she’d get a burn on her calf from my jeans.

Worried, I lifted my hands off of her, holding them a few inches away from where her leg had been.

She crossed her legs on the bed and used the edge of her skirt to cover her feet.

I let out a breath and kept myself from shaking my head.

I’d always liked her feet.

Holding them in my hands.

Rubbing the arch with my fingers.

I was going to end up fucking my hand sooner rather than later.

I sat there in my chair, lowering my hands down until they were on my knees while I watched her.

“I… I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

A moment passed and she spoke again.

“In what I guess is your room.”

I had to smile at that.

She was feisty.

Outspoken in a way that she’d never been before.

“I figure we should talk.”

That last word seemed to fall like a weight between us.

She watched me, looking over me from head to toe. And I wondered if she saw what I did when I looked in the foxed mirror above my sink.

I was a little more muscular than I was when she met me. Time in the military outside of her father’s unit had put some bulk on me.

My hair was longer, taking on some curls when it became long enough to fall into my eyes.

And I’d gotten my share of white streaks. It had started when I left Arlys behind.

Maybe it was my body’s way of counting the days we’d been apart.

I really didn’t care much about the color of my hair and with one look you could tell that I wasn’t worried about styling my hair.

I didn’t even get it cut. It just grew free like the rest of my life since I’d patched in.

But I wondered what she thought of it.

She drew in a breath and let it out.

“You wanted to talk…”

I heard an edge in her voice.

“So talk.”

Shit .

I shook my head wondering where to start.

“Are you going to tell me why?”

I let out a breath.

“Why I want to talk?”

“No.”

Her tone wasn’t mad.

It was hurt.

When I looked into her eyes I saw tears.

Fuck me.

“Why you left me standing at the bus stop?”

“Honey-”

I knew it was the wrong thing to say when she tensed up.

“Why you ran away and left me behind.”

She drew her legs up and wrapped her arms around them.

It made her look smaller. Younger.

And made me feel even more like an ass.

“I hope it’s more than just being a chicken shit, Logan.”

Yeah.

I had no idea what her father had told her.

He had the advantage of time.

I was just the man who’d disappeared out of her life.

I nodded and sat back in my chair, hoping that she’d believe what I had to say.

I didn’t know if I could make up for everything that happened, but talking was a way to start.

“I had a choice. Leave you. Or your dad was going to send you to live with an aunt.”

I could tell by the look in her eyes that she knew who I was talking about.

“He… he told you that?”Her voice wavered and her hands gripped the fabric of her dress. “Why?”

“You’d probably know more about your dad’s motives than I did.” It still hurt to think about it. “I told him I wanted to marry you. I was ready to do whatever he wanted to make that happen.”

I watched her listen to my words.

Watched them sink in.

I’d hurt her when I left.

“That… that wasn’t all, was it?”

She looked like she was young again, back then, when we’d met.

The pain she was feeling? He felt it, too.

“He had plans to convict me in a military court.”

“Of what?”

“He didn’t say. He showed me a stack of papers. Evidence. He had a friend come over, too. Military Police.”

“Paxton.”

The name was suddenly there between us.

“You know him?”

Arylis nodded, her eyes a little too wide and her skin was suddenly too pale for my peace of mind.

“I knew him as Lieutenant Paxton. He came byevery few weeks.My dad would stay up late with him drinking.”

Her eyes lowered so he couldn’t see them.

“He always made me feel… off. Uncomfortable.”

I was reading her body language, and I didn’t fucking like what I was seeing.

Not one fucking bit.

I lifted my hand and reached out for her but stopped when she flinched.

“Did he hurt you?”

She stared and looked at me in horror. “No. No, he never came close to me, he just… looked at me. It was enough…”

So much I didn’t know.

“I left because I thought I was protecting you.”

I watched her, wanting to wrap my arms around her.

“Maybe I was a coward, but I-”

“You were right.”

I heard the words, but I couldn’t really believe them.

Over the years I’d thought about things over and over. I’d wondered if I’d made the wrong decision.

And then I’d wondered if she could ever forgive me.

Part of me thought I’d finally gotten my head knocked in and I was living in a delusional dream.

“You’re different now.”

I felt her hand on my arm, and I looked down to see it.

Her skin was more golden than pale now.

Her fingernails just as short as they always were but she had them painted with color.

“I hope that’s a compliment.”

I felt the words fall flat.

Humor had never been my strong suit.

Hell, I'd practically swallowed my tongue the first time I spoke to Arlys when I met her outside the PX where she'd picked up groceries.

She'd worn a T-shirt and shorts with ankle socks and tennis shoes, and I'd been lost from the moment I saw her walking on the edge of the planter along the street.

She'd been a vision then and now?

"You're happier now."

I wished I could say the same about her.

"I did a lot of thinking in Korea when I was stationed there.

Then, when I was stateside again, I moved around, trying to find a place to live that didn't remind me of everything I'd lost. When my POS Jeep broke down somewhere in the Dakotas, I picked up a second-hand Harley Sportster.

Once I had wheels, I could travel more. It's how I came across the Savage Kings on a ride.

They were participating in a charity ride, and I met them at a stop along the route.

"I got to know some of the guys and before I knew it, I was headed here to prospect with the club. Now I'm a fully patched member living here in town."

Arlys shifted on the bed. Her eyes looked up at me for a moment before lowering to the bed around her feet.

I recognized that look.

The slight sag of her shoulders.

The graceful bend of her neck.

She was falling asleep.

The nights I'd snuck into her house to talk to her?

Those late nights?

She'd looked like this, too.

Exhausted.

"Hey... Do you need me to take you back home? Is someone waiting up for you?"

I didn't know about the situation with her husband.

I wasn't stupid-

Well, that was my assessment.

I hadn't seen a ring, but that wasn't proof of much.

It could have been lost.

Or maybe they hadn't wanted to wear rings-

I decided against that moments after I'd questioned it inside my head.

This wasn't the time for in-depth questioning.

With a slow exhale she spoke. "No. I'm here by myself."

"I thought that maybe you'd moved here for a job, maybe come with a friend."

She shook her head, ending with her head lolled a little to the right.

"If you don't have to leave now. You can stay here in my room."

I was on my feet before she could say a word.

"I can sleep in the main room with the others." I felt every inch of my 'advanced' age weighing on my bones. "The party is likely to go on until a few hours before dawn. If you stay here, it'll be quiet. No one will bother you here."

With that, I managed a nod.

I turned on the heel of my boot so I could get a blanket and a pillow to put under my head, but I only got as far as putting my hand on the wardrobe door pull.

"Logan?"

I looked over my shoulder at her. "Yeah?"

"This is your room. I can take the-"

"I hope you know me better than that." I lowered my hand and looked at her. "We can share the bed. I'm not the kind of man who'd touch you without your permission."

Arlys' cheeks reddened with a faint flush of heat. "I... I trust you."

Those three words had turned me into a bit of a liar.

I wasn't going to seduce her into having sex tonight, but that was in my head.

My dick had other ideas.

He was ready to go with or without my permission, so I'd be sleeping in my jeans where their snug fit would help me remember that I wasn't about to put my hands on her.

At least not yet.

We had things we needed to talk through first.

But we were going to talk about them.

A soft inhaled breath reached my ears.

Arlys had fallen asleep, her cheek on her knee.

I got up from my chair and turned off the light using the switch by the door. After that, I pulled a pillow out from under the blanket and set it back in place.

It took me a minute to shift her on the bed so that her head was on the pillow and her legs laid out in the direction of the foot of the bed.

I pulled a blanket out of the wardrobe and covered her before I laid down on the bed beside her.

I was a kind of natural furnace in bed. Even in the dead of winter with snow outside, I could sleep in a T-shirt and shorts and be perfectly comfortable, but Arlys? if she was the same as she was when we'd known each other before, she liked to wrap herself up in her blanket like a fucking burrito.

Before my head hit the pillow, I heard her sigh and felt her body sink into the bed.

She was asleep.

I turned on my side to look at her in the wedge of light coming through the window.

I had heard more than one person say that there were people who were able to sleep the peaceful sleep of innocents.

Well, Arlys was one of those people.

Me?

I'd done my share of shit in my life. I'd left innocent in the dust years ago.

But I could lie here looking at her, drinking my fill, and I was going to do it for as long as I could.

I'd walked away from her before because I thought I was doing a good thing.

Now, I was going to be a selfish asshole.

At least for the rest of the night.

I had her close enough to touch, but all I was going to do was look.

It was going to be torture, but it was enough.

For tonight.