Page 9 of Kaz (Salvation Kings MC: New Freedom Chapter #2)

Miles

HE WANTED to get settled into the room he’d be sharing with Emma for the foreseeable future before it got too late and he’d have to navigate his way through a bunch of drunk idiots with guns and overinflated egos.

Whoever decided that arming the twins was a good idea had to be out of their damned mind.

Then again, they’d also armed Nicky, though he wasn’t sure if that made them any saner.

He followed Emma outside to grab his go-bag from the car.

The fact that he still had one probably spoke volumes to his state of mind.

Despite the assassin who murdered his parents being long dead, he still felt that niggling in the back of his mind sometimes.

One of his fathers was an outlaw biker, and he’d always had a go-bag for the whole family at the ready.

He’d just continued with the precaution way into his adult life.

He pulled out his car keys and clicked the button to open the trunk, stopping in front of it to stare down at the toolbox he also always kept at the ready.

Was he really doing this? Spending the next few weeks with Kaz so close? With his biggest mistake walking around giving orders? Could he do it without losing his sanity? If he got his damned attraction to the man under control, then maybe―

“What’s on your mind?”

He looked up to find Emma watching him with a line between her brows, golden-brown eyes gleaming in the outdoor lights.

“Nothing.”

Her brows jumped, and she gave him an incredulous look.

“Right. Because my overthinker of a brother would definitely be thinking of nothing .”

He barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes.

“Fine. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“Like what? Kaz?”

He blinked slowly, his jaw clenching tightly.

“Wanna talk about it?” she asked, brows raising.

“No,” he said through gritted teeth and reached into the trunk to grab the strap of his bag.

He pulled it over his shoulder, ignoring his sister’s raised brow as he shut the trunk and trudged back toward the crumbling building he dreaded spending even a night in, and not just because he feared the foundation might give and the roof could cave in.

He walked through the front door, cringing at how close it was to falling off the hinges, and continued into the living room. He made it up the stairs and then stopped, realizing he didn’t know which room was his sister’s.

Emma brushed past him in the hallway, and he cursed under his breath before following her. The hallway turned to the right, and Emma pointed at a door with white paint peeling off it and said, “Bathroom.”

He grunted in response and continued down the hall, where Emma opened a door and stepped inside. The room was generally big enough for two, reminding him of his college dorm, except these were queen beds, not singles, which was good because Emmett and Travis would be staying the night with them.

He dropped his bag on the bed to the left, the right already having a bunch of Emma’s stuff on it.

“If this is gonna be anything like our sleepovers as kids, I want the spot closest to the wall.”

Emmett moved around in his sleep a lot, and Miles had ended up on the floor enough times that he’d learned to let Emmett take the outer spot on the bed if they were sharing.

Emma frowned at him, mouth opening and closing twice before she said, “I don’t care which side you sleep on.”

Miles’s brows jumped.

“I’m not sleeping next to Emmett?”

“He and Travis can share a bed,” Emma said with a shrug, trying to sound casual while she moved some of her stuff off her bed to the floor.

He waited for her to turn around before he spoke.

“Do you want to talk?”

Emma’s eyes flashed with something he thought might be annoyance, which wasn’t much like her. Something was going on. Travis and Emma had been tight since day one. Best friends, though he’d always thought they’d become more.

“You sure? I don’t think Trav―”

“Fine,” she snapped. “ I’ll sleep with Emmett.”

A short laugh escaped him, and he gave her a teasing smile as he said, “I don’t think you’re Em’s type.”

She flipped him off and called him quite a few choice words on her way to the door.

The second it closed behind her, he let out a sigh and shook his head.

Everything felt off. Being here, in a motorcycle club, with Kaz…

he’d caught Kaz staring at him in the backyard, and this time, it hadn’t been apathy he saw in Kaz’s eyes.

Just the opposite. There’d been a fire in those grays.

One he’d missed having directed at him for the past decade.

It terrified him. Kaz knew how to push his buttons.

He knew how to get his way. He’d felt like that na?ve nineteen-year-old again, lost in Kaz’s promises across the fire.

He had to remind himself that not only was Kaz a liar and a cheater, he was still in a relationship. And thank fuck for that, because if he’d been single… he wasn’t sure what he would’ve done. Kaz was dangerous. In general, but more aptly, to his heart.

He grabbed his toiletry bag and headed down the hall to the bathroom.

He brushed his teeth and washed his face, staring into the mirror for a long moment, unsure if he recognized the guy staring back at him.

How had so much changed in such a short amount of time?

He was without a job, his sister was an outlaw biker, and he was about to live down the hall from the man who broke his heart into a million pieces, most of them so small he hadn’t been able to put them all back together.

He wished he could hate Kaz. Wished that he could blame it all on him, but he couldn’t.

Kaz wasn’t to blame alone. Had he been stupid and na?ve? Yes, very much. Had Kaz made him any promises? No.

He shook his head and reached for a towel to dry the water off his face, and then he walked out of the bathroom. He turned and bumped into someone. Someone big and muscly. Someone who smelled like citrus and leather. Kaz. Fuck.

He stepped back, head snapping up. Gray eyes regarded him with a calm calculation that sent his pulse spiking rapidly.

“You’re welcome,” Kaz drawled, one brow cocked at Miles.

His temper flared bright, and he felt a pinch of pain as he dug his nails into his palms to keep from slamming his fists into Kaz’s infuriatingly handsome face.

“You honestly want me to thank you?”

A smile spread on Kaz’s lips, a smile promising a kind of danger that had Miles’s heart beating even faster.

He took a step back to put some distance between them because, fuck, Kaz was watching him with a look he’d tried to forget for over a decade.

He tensed when his back hit the wall, and his mouth dropped open when Kaz put his arm against the wall right by his head, leaning over him.

“Yes, Miles, I want you to thank me,” Kaz said with that infuriating smile on his face.

Kaz put his hand on Miles’s chest, right over his thundering heart.

He sucked in a breath and instantly regretted it because Kaz’s scent filled his nose, and that mix of citrus and leather had a certain part of him taking notice.

“Kaz,” he hissed, eyes shooting down the hall. The last thing he wanted was for someone to walk around the corner and see something that definitely wasn’t what it looked like.

“When Emma asked if you could stay, I should’ve said no,” Kaz said, fingers running through Miles’s hair and leaving him breathless. “But when the hell have I ever been able to say no to you?”

He swallowed hard, then found himself caught in stormy gray eyes. Kaz touching him was one thing. Kaz looking at him like that? Like he was the very air he needed to breathe? Like he was the only thing in the world? It was no wonder he folded the first time. No wonder he fell.

Kaz’s gaze dropped to Miles’s mouth, and a surge of heat had him gasping.

Fingers under his chin tilted his head back just slightly, Kaz’s thumb brushing across his bottom lip. He snapped his gaze up and shivered when he saw just how dark Kaz’s eyes had gone, that perfect storm brewing inside them.

Kaz lowered his head, and the floor started to shake. No. Tremble. His legs were fucking trembling. A noise full of need and desperation escaped him, and Kaz’s sharp intake of breath set his pulse racing.

Footsteps and voices from down the hall had him slamming his hands against Kaz’s chest, sending the man back just far enough that he could twist out of his hold. He took three long steps away from Kaz and tried to calm his raging heart.

He couldn’t do this again. He couldn’t fall for Kaz’s charms. He should only look at that handsome face and feel disgust, not… not whatever he’d just been feeling.

He had to swallow back a curse when Jane and Killian appeared. Jane’s brows snapped together, and she glanced once between Miles and Kaz, cold slithering down Miles’s spine.

“There you are,” Killian said with an easy smile. “The boys need your help outside.”

“You mean they need me to save their asses because they did something stupid?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

Killian grinned and wrapped an arm around Kaz’s shoulders, tugging him down the hall.

Miles had to take a deep breath before he dared turn and meet Jane’s gaze. No matter how hard he steeled himself, he doubted he would’ve been prepared for the calculated look in Jane’s eyes as she stared at him.

“Miles,” Jane said, head tilting slightly to the side.

“Hey,” he said, rubbing his sweaty palms on his jeans, “Just to be clear, I’m not here to try and get with Kaz. I’m not trying to get between the two of you. I just want to fix this place up, so I don’t have to worry about my sister.”

He wasn’t sure which of them he was actually trying to convince.

Jane’s gaze was searing as she stared at him. Her lips twitched, and she seemed to have come to some sort of decision as she let out a breath and relaxed her shoulders.

“I know. We’re good, Miles.”

He nodded, his tongue feeling much too thick to speak.

As much as he wanted to believe her, he wasn’t sure he could. Nor was he sure he believed his own promise.