Page 12

Dante

As much as I hadn’t wanted to leave, I did so because, despite myself, I felt a seed of respect growing for her.

I had half expected her to burst into tears, to plead with me to let her go. It had almost seemed like it was going that way when she said she wouldn’t tell anyone, but then she had fired back with even more threats, and once again, I was mistaken.

I was fast beginning to realise that I had already made a lot of mistaken assumptions when it came to her.

And as fucked up as I was, I actually felt myself growing aroused.

The blank look had been replaced by one of fire, and it ignited something in me.

She was a knockout, even with blood on her chin and a bust lip.

She had thrown her head back in defiance and challenged me, almost mocking me, daring me to take things further.

And as much as I had been wrong about her before, I would have sworn I wasn’t wrong about the brief flash of arousal that had flared in her eyes before she shut her lids, closing me off from what she was thinking.

So I left, because if I had taken things further, I would have challenged her to see just how much pain she was capable of taking.

Which wasn’t what we needed for our first night together.

As fucked up as I was, I knew things like that needed a conversation first.

I gave a small chuckle as I replayed her swallowing our spit and shook my head in amusement. She was wilder than I expected. Who knew if it would last, but I liked the taste I had got.

“How’d it go?” Macbeth asked as he came up the stairs and spotted me.

“Fine,” I said simply.

“Hers or yours?” He nodded at the dried blood on my lips.

“You think I ate her or something? I don’t mind eating a woman, but cannibalism isn’t high on my to do list.”

He gave a dry laugh. “There’s not much I’d put past you.”

“Fuck off, Macbeth,” I said with a scoff, pulling away from him.

“Ahh, she’s got to you, hasn’t she? Was it really that easy? A tight dress and a nice pair of tits, and you’re lost. Does she know the power she has over you already?”

“Put her out of your mind, Mac. She’s no concern of yours.

” I brushed past him, heading to my own room.

He always was an annoying little fuck. Even when we were kids, he’d do anything to get under someone’s skin.

I was usually good at ignoring him, knowing attention was exactly what he was seeking, but after dealing with Rachel and her little dramatics back there, I wasn’t on usual form.

“Maybe I’ll do the exact opposite,” Macbeth called after me with a smug tone in his voice.

. “Maybe I’ll go pay her a visit an—” He didn’t get to finish.

The rage that crept over me in such a fierce wave had me turning around and charging him, slamming him against the wall of Rachel’s room with such force the door rattled to the left of us.

“You’ll do no such thing,” came a voice from me that I didn’t even recognise.

“Has she got under your skin that deep already, brother?” Macbeth asked, but the quivering of his voice betrayed his words.

“Dante,” a warning voice came from behind us. “Leave him.”

“Listen to your mummy,” Macbeth mocked. My fist came up and connected with his jaw before he had time to move and before my mother had a chance to stop me.

Second punch of the day, and I hadn’t even been trying.

“Get him out of my sight,” I spat at my mother, who was shaking her head at the both of us. “I’ve enough to be dealing with without him pulling his usual bullshit.”

I stepped over him and walked away, without so much as a backwards glance. I heard my mother help him up and ask if he was okay. The two of them would sit and talk for hours about what a bad bastard I was. Macbeth was good at that. He always knew how to play our mam like she was a fiddle.

Macbeth was my older brother, but he had always been an irresponsible thorn in my side.

I spent more time cleaning up his messes than I did anything else.

He was next in line to be the club leader up until a few years ago.

After Bee’s mother died, my dad had said Macbeth simply wasn’t up to the job, and had passed the reins on to me, telling me it would get my mind off the grief.

Macbeth had been worse since then.

Everything he did was to get a rise out of me, and usually I let it slide, not letting the slime ball have the pleasure of a reaction.

I hadn’t been in grief over Bee’s mother, and we both knew it.

My dad was looking for an excuse not to give Macbeth the club, and Laura’s death had been the perfect tragedy.

I really hadn’t cared for her one way or another.

I had married her because it’s what was expected.

My mother loved her, she knew the club lifestyle, and she was easy to deal with.

I hadn’t needed to protect her from anything. She kept herself to herself and made the perfect housewife. There was no fire there. No passion. We had the same sex every day, and she thought she was doing me a service by swallowing and not spitting.

I’d heard plenty of club members say things about her. Not out of spite, but out of concern. Which is why I had never bothered to lash out at them for it.

Yet the mere sound of Rachel’s name on that dickhead’s mouth had provoked a reaction from me that neither of us had been expecting.

I hated that.

I hated that I was impressed by her.

I hated that she had enough fight in her to stand up to me.

I hated that she knew how to push buttons I didn’t even know I had.

I hated that she was here, yet I hated the thought of her not being here. Less than half a day, and that blank expression was becoming my favourite thing in the world, even though it angered me to distraction.

I hated that I was beginning to realise I might have made a huge fucking mistake.

But I’d see it through to the end, and Rachel was about to realise what it really meant to anger a biker.