Page 8 of The Biker and His Bride

ROGUE

I didn’t mean to kiss her.

Hell, maybe I did.

I’d been holding back for weeks. Watching her move behind my bar like she owned it. Watching her laugh with my brothers. Watching her keep her walls up, even when she looked like she wanted to let them fall.

And when I finally kissed her, it was like lighting a match in a gasoline-soaked room.

She burned.

And I burned with her.

But now?

Now I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

The way her lips tasted. The way her breath hitched. The way she didn’t pretend it didn’t mean something.

I paced the clubhouse, restless.

The guys were downstairs. The usual noise. The usual bullshit.

But I wasn’t in it.

I was upstairs, staring out the window, wondering what the hell I’d just started.

Because Riley?

She wasn’t like the others.

She didn’t play games. Didn’t chase a patch. Didn’t ask questions she didn’t want the answers to.

She worked hard. Kept to herself. Made the best damn bourbon sour I’d ever had.

And yeah, I was attracted to her.

But it was more than that.

I respected her.

That was rare.

Maddox knocked once, then barged in. “Prez, we got a situation.”

“What kind?”

“Some outsiders sniffing around. One of them asked about the new girl.”

That set me off like a shot.

“Where?”

“Gas station off Highway Nine.”

I grabbed my cut. “Tell the boys to saddle up.”

“You think she’s in danger?”

“I think anyone asking about Riley without permission is asking for a bullet between the eyes.”

He whistled low. “You’re serious about her.”

I didn’t answer.

Didn’t have to.

We rolled out five deep, and when we got to the gas station, the outsiders were long gone.

But the message was clear.

Someone was looking for her.

And whoever it was?

They were gonna wish they hadn’t.

Riley had been here days now, and she already moved like she belonged.

Behind the bar, sleeves rolled up, working faster than half the regulars. Never once complained about the hours, the sweat, the mess. She joked with the boys, kept her head down when she needed to, and knew when to bite back when someone pushed too hard.

But it didn’t sit right.

Not completely.

Women like her didn’t just roll into towns like this. Not with nothing but a backpack and a beat-up car that ran on borrowed time.

Not unless they were running from something.

And I’d seen that look in her eyes—more than once.

So that night, after she’d finished cleaning the bar and went to bed, I called in Diesel.

“Need you to run a quiet trace,” I said, leaning over the counter. “Nothing official. Just dig around. Find out who Riley really is.”

Diesel frowned. “You think she’s a plant?”

“Not sure yet. But something doesn’t add up.”

“She’s been working her ass off.”

“I know. That’s what makes me nervous.”

He didn’t argue. Just gave me a nod and got to work.

By morning, he came back with more than I expected.

“You’re not gonna believe this,” Diesel said, dropping a file folder onto the table in the war room. “She’s not just some drifter.”

I flipped it open. Newspaper clippings, a scanned missing persons report, and a photo of Riley in a satin cocktail dress standing next to a blond man in a suit. Caleb Whitmore III. Trust fund sleaze with a Harvard grin and a snake’s soul.

“That her ex?”

“Yup. She was engaged to him. Family's loaded. Old Southern money outta Charleston.”

“And they reported her missing?”

“Officially? Yeah. Went cold a few days later, probably to avoid scandal. But there were whispers. Abuse. Control. Some say she bolted before the wedding. Took cash and a car, and vanished.”

I stared at the glossy photo of her. She looked like a porcelain doll—flawless, stiff, and miserable.

Not the Riley I knew. Not the one who cleaned blood off bar floors and didn’t blink when fights broke out around her.

“She left that world,” I muttered. “Why?”

“Maybe she had a reason.”

I closed the folder and shoved it away.

Didn’t matter why—not yet.

What mattered was whether or not her past was coming for her.

Because if it was, it wouldn’t just be her in the line of fire—it’d be all of us.

And that was a risk I wasn’t willing to take.

But I wasn’t going to confront her about it—not yet. If she was going to come clean, I needed to know I could trust her to do it on her own.

Until then, I’d watch. Listen. Wait.

And pray that whatever she was running from didn’t come knocking on our door.