Page 43 of Rogue
She gets out of the Humvee, slamming the door so hard behind her that I’m surprised the damn window doesn’t shatter. I watch her storming off into the desert, the pale blue of her t-shirt fading fast into the darkness as she hurries away from the car. For a moment I can’t move. I can’t think straight.She loves me, too?She loves me too. I feel like she’s just punched me square in the jaw. I mean…how?
I finally get my shit together in time to realize that she’s been totally swallowed by the near pitch-blackness outside and I should definitely find her before she vanishes for good. I get out of the car and run after her.
She’s not too hard to find. Standing with her back to me, she’s only made it thirty feet from the car, and she’s crying. “I should fucking hate you,” she tells me. “I shouldn’t give a shit about you, whether you live or die, but I do. That day you took me up on the roof of your dad’s place, you said something to me and it’s been stuck in my head ever since. You said, ‘Don’t bother trying to get inside my head. It’s a dark and scary place. Even I don’t want to be here most of the time.’ But I couldn’t help it. I wanted to get inside your head, and you…” She turns around, stabbing her index finger into my chest. “You invited me in. You didn’t for one second try and stop me from developing feelings for you. So why should you get to care more about me than I care about you? And why the hell amInot allowed to take risks to make sureyou’reokay? I have nothing to go back to, Rebel. I have a family and a college degree and I have an apartment sitting empty in Seattle, but if you’re not there with me then I havenothing.”
I can’t fucking breathe. I can’t…
I grab hold of her and pull her to me, wrapping my arms around her and holding her so tight to me that she probably can’t breathe either. She presses her face into my chest, clinging onto me, and we just stand there, not letting go. Not saying anything. Not moving.
This woman has turned me fucking inside out. I reach down and lift her up, my hands underneath her thighs, and she wraps her legs around my waist without question. I just hold her there.
“You want this? You really want this, knowing what it involves?”
She pulls back, her eyes slightly red and puffy. There’s real grit there, too, though. So much fire. She swallows, and then says eight words that will change things for us both forever. “I wantyou. And I’m not going anywhere.”
This is pure fucking madness, but I can’t help grinning. One of us will end up dead soon enough, but in the meantime I’m sure things are about to get really fucking interesting. “You realize you’re going to need to learn how to ride a motorcycle now, right?” The thought of her in charge of a bike is instantly hot. Her intensity breaks as a small smile spreads over her face.
“Seriously? That would be kind of badass.”
“Oh my god,” I groan. “You’re gonna be the death of me, woman.”
“Huh. And here was me thinking I would try and keep you out of trouble instead,” she says softly, biting her lip.
It occurs to me how fucked up this is—the fact that we’ve just disposed of a body in the desert in the middle of the night, and I’m swiftly developing a hard on. I laugh like a maniac because I can’t help myself. “All right, then. Sophia Romera, consider yourself the newest prospect of the Widow Makers Motorcycle Club.”