Page 5 of Nitro (Redline Kings MC #3)

JANA

I was good at compartmentalizing my feelings.

I’d been doing it since I was six and realized how awful my dad was, only one year after he bullied my mom into sending me for a visit every month.

So I should have been fine the morning after my heated encounter with Torin.

That was what I kept telling myself anyway.

On repeat, like maybe sheer stubbornness would trick my body into believing it.

A good night’s sleep, and I’d be back to normal. Steady. Focused on what I’d come here to do.

Except I dreamed about Torin and woke up gasping his name. Relived him pinning me to the wall and making me come with just his fingers.

My skin still buzzed like his mouth had just left it. My pulse still kicked when I thought about the way he’d warned me that I wasn’t ready for when he stopped holding back.

How he’d demanded that I use his real name. My mom might’ve kept me away from club life as much as she could, but I knew bikers didn’t offer that up to just anyone.

I gritted my teeth and shook my head hard, as though I could rattle the memory loose.

I didn’t want to think about him that way. Or at all.

The distraction was unwanted. But he was already under my skin, like motor oil that wouldn’t wash off no matter how many times I scrubbed. The harder I tried to scrape him out, the deeper he seemed to sink.

And that was a problem. Torin wasn’t the kind of man you could shove back out once you let him in. Once he got through, there was no stopping him. He’d proved that last night.

I’d let him touch me. Craved it like I’d never done before. And I wanted more.

I was irritated that I needed to remind myself that I was here to make a name on the racing circuit.

Especially since the cards were already stacked against me as a woman.

So I pasted on a neutral expression and squared my shoulders like nothing had happened when I walked into The Pit the following morning.

As though I hadn’t completely unraveled for Torin.

Like my legs hadn’t gone weak the second his voice went rough, telling me to come.

Luckily, the garage seemed the same as always. Engines rumbled somewhere deep inside, music buzzed faintly, and men’s voices rose and fell in casual banter. It was normal.

And I told myself that was what I was too. Just another driver, here to earn my spot. Not the girl Torin had pinned to the wall and undone with nothing but his mouth and hands.

“Morning,” Gauge called.

I flashed him a brief smile. “Hey.”

I lied to myself as I moved through the bays, several other Redline Kings greeting me along the way. Then I doubled down when my pulse jumped at the sound of his voice drifting from somewhere I couldn’t see.

I was fine.

Totally fine.

Even if every cell in my body still hummed like he’d hotwired me and left the current running.

The farther I walked into The Pit, the steadier I tried to make my breathing. I latched onto the clang of tools and thrum of an engine like lifelines. Hoping that if I focused hard enough, maybe I could drown out the memory of Torin’s mouth on my skin.

It worked. For about three seconds.

Then I saw the bike.

The ZX he’d ripped into me for touching sat gleaming in its bay like it had been waiting for me. Freshly wiped down, chain oiled, tank full.

And draped across the seat was a folded scrap of paper, scrawled in messy block letters.

My heart thudded as I picked it up.

Try not to make me jealous.

Just one line, but there was no mistaking who’d written it. The note dripped with his crooked-smile arrogance, the one that always made me want to slap him and kiss him in the same breath.

I swallowed hard, reading it again, as though maybe the words would shift if I stared long enough.

Torin assigned the ZX to me. The bike I’d already fallen half in love with, the one I’d mapped until my wrists ached from working the throttle. The one he told me wasn’t mine to tinker with.

And now it was.

The note crumpled slightly in my grip before I forced my fingers to smooth the paper flat again. No one else needed to know how it made me feel—like he’d been paying attention. That he saw me in a way that went deeper than lap times and clean cornering.

I tried to rationalize Torin’s decision.

He probably just wanted me focused. To stop bouncing between bikes and channel all that stubborn energy into this one. It was practical, that was all. A strategic move. Nothing personal.

Except the note said differently.

I closed my eyes and inhaled as I swung a leg over the seat. My palms wrapped around the grips, and for a split second, it felt like his hands were there, bracketing mine.

Heat shot through me. Impossible to ignore.

I sagged forward, my elbows resting on the tank, and the note balanced between my fingers. Every wall I’d rebuilt since last night cracked under the weight of his thoughtful gesture.

Torin was patient. And he paid attention.

He’d noticed the bike I connected with. Remembered it. Gave it to me.

It had been too long since anyone other than my mom had done something like that.

My dad didn’t even bother making promises he never intended to keep, and my brother had let me down in a way I’d never forgive. I’d cut them out of my life after learning the hard way that men couldn’t be trusted.

But as I stared at the note again, my chest ached in a way that had nothing to do with racing.

As I shoved it in my pocket, I wasn’t sure what to think. Gratitude tangled with suspicion and desire with self-preservation. Every instinct screamed not to trust this. To be wary of Torin.

But the truth pressed in all the same.

This gesture meant something.

The grip of the ZX’s handlebars was familiar, but it sent me spiraling somewhere I hadn’t gone in years.

Back to a clunky old Honda dirt bike my dad had brought home.

I’d been nine, barely tall enough to swing a leg over it, and he’d laughed when I tipped sideways in the grass.

But then he’d crouched beside me, steadying the handlebars and showing me where to rest my boots.

His voice had been sharp most days, but that afternoon it had been patient.

He’d placed his hands over mine and taught me to feel the bike instead of fighting it. That was the only good lesson he’d ever given me. The only time I’d felt like he actually wanted me to succeed.

It hadn’t lasted. Nothing with him ever did.

Those wounds were why I’d sworn never to lean on a man again. Not for money. Or protection. Not even for a steady hand when I needed one. I built my own walls and told myself I was safer inside them.

But here I was, already leaning on Torin in ways I didn’t want to admit.

The note in my pocket burned hotter than any exhaust. That careless scrawl was dangerous. Because it showed he cared.

Torin didn’t owe me anything. He wasn’t family, bound by blood and disappointment.

He was something far scarier. Patient and relentless. The kind of man who didn’t back off just because I bristled. Maybe even the one who could give me what I craved—reliability. And loyalty.

If I let Torin too close, if I trusted him even a little, I knew what would happen. I’d fall for him. Hard. And I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to pull myself back up again.

I told myself that he might not be anything like my dad or brother. That I shouldn’t make him pay for their mistakes. That this was just about racing and carving out a place no one could take from me.

But the part of me that had dreamed of him last night and woken up gasping his name whispered the truth.

Torin was already inside the walls I’d built so many years ago.

I tightened my grip on the bars until my knuckles went white, as though I could squeeze the confusion right out of me.

The metal was cool and solid, something I could control.

But my mind was full of Torin. His dangerous patience, that crooked grin, the way his hands had felt when he pinned me against the wall and made me burn.

I’d come to Crossbend to prove myself. Not to fall for a man in a leather cut.

But every time Torin got too close, I wondered if he was the one thing I couldn’t outrun.