Page 3 of Her Obsessed Biker (Savage Kings MC #8)

Piper

I can feel his eyes on me.

Like a heat trail crawling up my spine, burning painfully into the back of my neck. I don’t have to turn to know it’s him—the man Blaze keeps calling Prez. I can feel his stare like a hand wrapped around my throat. Possessive. Unyielding. A warning and a promise rolled into one.

Blaze is still talking. Something about regulations. Rules. Lake depth. Distance. Liability waivers. His voice is a dull hum in my ears, completely drowned out by the roaring in my chest.

My heart’s beating too fast.

My hands won’t stop shaking.

I grip the edge of the bar counter and try to focus. Try to breathe. I don’t know why I’m so rattled. He didn’t touch me. Barely spoke to me. Just looked. But that look…it reached places no one’s ever touched.

“…and the final round is open-water, straight sprint back to the dock. You good with that?”

I blink, forcing myself to look at Blaze. “What?”

He grins. Boyish. A little too eager. Definitely not dangerous like the man behind me. “I said the final round’s a sprint. Straight through Willowmere’s cold-ass water. You good?”

I nod slowly. “Sure. Yeah.”

He raises a brow, but doesn’t push.

I can’t even remember what he said before that.

Probably should have paid attention, considering I’m now signed up for a challenge I didn’t even know existed two hours ago.

But my brain’s stuck in rewind, replaying the moment when the man—Prez—stepped out of the shadows like a walking threat dressed in black leather.

I shouldn’t pry. I should leave and never come back here…

“So…” I start carefully, pretending to be casual. “Your Prez. Is he always so…intense?”

Blaze chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck. “Rock?” He glances over his shoulder, instinctively checking whether the man in question is listening. “Yeah. That’s just how he is. Not a lot of small talk in his vocabulary.”

“Rock,” I repeat, rolling the name around my tongue. “Is that his real name?”

“Nah. Dane Johnston. But no one calls him that. He’s Rock. Or Prez. Depends how close you are.” Blaze leans on the counter like he’s telling me a secret. “He’s the president of the Savage Kings MC. Took over five years ago, after the old man stepped down.”

I nod slowly, filing away every piece of information. “He seems like a big deal.”

Blaze barks a short laugh. “That’s one way to describe it. He runs a tight ship. No bullshit. The club was starting to drift for a while, a bunch of guys getting sloppy, distracted with parties, outside drama. Rock put an end to all that real quick.”

I glance back instinctively, and of course, he’s still watching me. Arms folded across his broad chest, jaw clenched like he’s chewing through every reason not to storm across the bar and drag me out by the wrist.

It’s stupid how much that thought sends a thrill down my spine.

“So, he’s respected?” I ask.

Blaze nods. “Respected. Feared. You don’t cross Rock unless you’ve got a death wish. But he’s fair. Probably because he was a Navy SEAL before this. He’s tactical as hell and doesn’t waste a move.”

That explains a lot. The way he moves. The command in his voice. The dangerous silence that speaks louder than words. I shouldn’t be asking so many questions. I know that. But there’s something about him that pulls me in like gravity. Like the world tilts a little when he walks into the room.

“You got a thing for him or something?” Blaze asks with a teasing smirk.

I nearly choke on my spit. “What? No. I just—he’s hard to ignore.”

“Yeah,” Blaze says, looking past me with a flicker of respect or maybe fear in his eyes. “He usually is.”

I swallow hard and shift my focus back to the paperwork in front of me. Blaze hands over a waiver, and I sign where he tells me to, my hand only trembling a little now.

I need to stay focused.

I didn’t come here for Rock. I came for Wolf.

That’s the mission. The reason I’m even breathing the same air as these leather-clad giants and their biker bar of doom. I’m about to ask Blaze about Wolf, see if he’s heard the name before, but I stop myself.

I’ve already drawn too much attention. I can’t afford to slip up again.

I glance back at Rock one more time, can’t help it…and he’s still watching me. Always watching. Eyes like judgment and fire. I wonder who the huge man standing with him is…could that be Wolf?

I drop my gaze and force a steadying breath. I can’t go around asking every man in this bar who’s old enough if he’s my father. I just need to focus on the swim challenge right now, and keeping my ears open.

It’s just a game. A cover until I can find out what I came for. Luckily, I used to swim competitively back in high school. District meets. Freestyle sprints. State semifinals. It’s been a few years, but it’s muscle memory. I can fake it.

I didn’t come this far to get scared off now.

Even if my instincts are screaming that this isn’t a game I can win. Even if Rock looks like the kind of man who never plays fair.

I tuck the waiver away and give Blaze a tight smile. “Thanks for the info…and the help.”

He tips his chin. “No problem. You sure you’re good? You look kinda—”

“I’m good,” I cut in, forcing a steady tone. “Just tired. It’s been a long drive.”

He nods slowly, like he doesn’t fully believe me but doesn’t want to push. “Alright then. I’ll see you at the challenge on Friday.”

“Yeah. See you.”

I turn away before I can change my mind. Before I make the mistake of asking one more question. Or worse, looking back at him.

Rock.

The bar door swings shut behind me, and I step out into the dying light of evening. The air is cooler now, touched with the scent of pine and exhaust. Everything looks quieter out here, slower…but not safer.

Not for me.

I pause by the curb and scan the lot. There’s my truck.

My mom’s old, dented Ford. Faded red paint, one busted headlight, and a temperamental engine that growls louder than a Harley on its best day.

It’s the only thing I have that still smells like home.

Like her. I shove my hands in my pockets and slowly walk toward it, heart sinking with every step.

No plan. No room. No food. Just a name and a gut feeling that may or may not ruin my life.

What the hell was I thinking?

This was never a real plan. I left everything behind chasing a ghost. Just a name in a letter and a place scribbled in the margin.

Jackson Ridge.

I haven’t eaten since this morning. I’ve got thirty-seven bucks to my name, a phone with a cracked screen, and a growing suspicion that this whole thing was a huge mistake.

God, I’m such an idiot.

I stop next to the driver’s side door and lean my forehead against the window, closing my eyes. Maybe I should just sleep in the truck tonight. Save the money. Hope no one decides to rob me while I’m parked behind a gas station.

Before I can make up my mind, I hear the sound of boots scraping against the gravel. I look up to see three men walking toward me.

Bikers.

They round the corner of the building like they’ve been waiting for me to be alone.

I don’t recognize them from the bar. They’re older.

Dirtier. Cuts hanging off their backs like afterthoughts.

One’s got a face full of piercings, the second has a tattoo of a bleeding skull across his throat, and the third looks like he hasn’t blinked since Vietnam.

“Well, well…” the pierced one drawls, stepping closer. “Look what wandered out all by herself.”

My spine stiffens as the others fan out around me like wolves circling a rabbit.

“You lost, sweetheart?” the throat-tat guy asks, grinning with brown teeth. “We could help you find your way.”

I take a step back, pressing against the truck door, my fingers curling into fists.

“Back off,” I say, keeping my voice steady. “I’m not interested.”

They laugh. Loud, obnoxious. One of them makes a kissing noise. Another whistles low.

“I think she’s shy,” says Piercings, his eyes crawling over me like slime. “Maybe we should help her loosen up a bit.”

My heart kicks against my ribs.

I’m just about to yell, just about to make a run for it, when he appears.

Rock.

No warning. No sound. He just steps out of the shadows like a goddamn phantom, all muscle and menace, the streetlamp casting his face in hard lines and steel.

The air shifts, all three men freezing like prey who just spotted the alpha predator.

Rock doesn’t say a word at first. Just looks at them with that cold, calculating stare that could cut granite in half. His arms are loose at his sides, but I can feel the violence radiating off him like heat.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” His voice is quiet. Controlled.

Lethal.

Piercings takes a half step back. “We—we didn’t know she was with the club—”

“She’s not,” Rock says, still calm. “But she’s in my territory. That makes her mine.”

The way he says it sends a shiver right through my spine.

Not an offer.

Not a threat.

A statement of fact.

“Sorry, man,” mutters Throat-Tat, holding up his hands. “Didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”

“Next time,” Rock says, taking one step forward, “don’t mean anything within two hundred feet of her. Got it?”

They nod jerkily, instantly backing off with their hands raised in surrender. No fight. No back talk. Just three grown men scrambling like rats with their tails on fire.

Rock turns to me then, and for one long, breathless moment, we just stare at each other. His eyes scan me from top to toe, making sure I’m whole, unharmed.

“You okay?” he asks finally, voice still low but without the edge.

I nod, barely. “Y-Yeah. I’m fine.”

He doesn’t look convinced. “They touch you?”

“No.”

He exhales, long and slow. Then steps closer. The scent of leather, smoke, and something distinctly male wraps around me like a second skin.

“This place isn’t for someone like you,” he murmurs, his eyes never leaving mine.

I force my chin up. “Someone like me?”

“Innocent. Unarmed. Unprepared.”

I should be offended. But instead, heat curls in my stomach, wicked and slow.

“I can handle myself.”

The words leave my mouth sharper than I intend, but it’s a lie and we both know it. Still, I need the illusion of control.

Rock doesn’t move.

If anything, he steps closer.

The heat of his body rolls over me like a wave, thick and suffocating. One second I’m standing beside my truck, and the next, I’m pinned between it and him, without him even touching me.

His hands are still at his sides, fingers loose, relaxed…but every inch of him screams control. Power. A silent kind of domination that makes my knees feel like water.

“You think you can handle yourself, huh?” His voice is a low murmur. Dangerous and dark. “Think you’d be okay if I were one of them?”

My breath catches. “You’re not.”

“No?” His head tilts. “What makes you so sure, darlin’?”

The way he says darlin’ wrecks me. Smooth and gravelly and intimate enough to make heat flare low in my belly.

“I’d know,” I whisper, before I can stop myself.

A muscle ticks in his jaw.

And then, like a switch flipping, his big, hard body is pressing forward, not quite touching but close enough that I can feel every breath he takes.

He raises one hand, planting it against the truck beside my head, then brushes the other lightly along my hip as he leans in, his movement slow and predatory.

“You wouldn’t last two minutes in this world,” he says, his lips hovering just above mine. “Not without someone like me keeping the wolves off your pretty little neck.”

His voice is a mixture of heat and danger, a low masculine challenge that makes every part of me hum with a delicious sensation.

“I don’t need—”

“Yes, you do,” he cuts in, voice a rough whisper. “You want to prove otherwise?”

His mouth is inches from mine. So close I can feel the rasp of his breath on my lips.

And for one, long second, I forget everything.

Why I’m here. What I’m running from.

All I can think about is him.

Rock.

This man who looks at me like he wants to ruin me and protect me in the same breath. My back hits cold metal, my hand clutching the side mirror. My heart is thundering so hard it hurts.

I should shove him back.

I should tell him to go to hell.

But instead, I blurt the first words that come to my head. “I’m looking for someone.”

His body stills.

The heat between us doesn’t disappear, but it stops moving, suspended in the air like a match waiting to be struck.

His expression shifts. Barely, but I see it. “You’re what?”

I swallow hard. “I came to Jackson Ridge to find someone. His name’s…Wolf.”

The effect is immediate, like I dropped a bomb at his feet.

Rock’s entire body stiffens, his eyes immediately losing that smoldering gleam, replaced by something darker. Sharper. His jaw tightens, and the heat between us goes from molten to ice in seconds.

He pulls back just enough to study me, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. “Why?”

I hesitate. Then, slowly, I reach into the inside pocket of my jacket. His gaze never leaves my hand.

I pull out the letter. Worn and yellowed with age. Folded and refolded a hundred times. My mother kept it for over two decades. I kept it because it’s the only lead I have.

I hold it out to him.

He snatches it, not roughly, but with a swiftness that tells me he’s on edge. His eyes scan the faded ink, the looping handwriting.

Then his jaw goes hard as stone.

“It’s dated twenty-two years ago,” I say slowly, watching his face. “Before I was born.”

Rock’s hands curl around the edges of the letter like he’s holding something too dangerous to rip, too meaningful to toss.

I look up at him, my heart hammering so loud I wonder if he can hear it.

“I think he might be my father.”

For a long, stretched beat, he doesn’t speak. He just continues to look at the letter. Then he looks at me, and I catch a flicker of something in his eye. But it’s gone so fast I can’t put a name to it. Anger. Shock. Something deeper that he slams the door on almost instantly.

He folds the paper once, slips it back into my hand, and then grabs my wrist. His grip is firm, leaving no room for argument. “You’re coming with me.”

My breath catches. “What? Where—”

“You want answers?” His eyes cut into mine, all fire and steel. “Then you ride with me.”

He pulls me toward his bike, not yanking, but leading, like it’s already been decided.

Like I stopped having a say the moment I mentioned Wolf.