Page 39 of The Biker’s Second Chance (Chrome Creed MC #2)

STARS IN HIS EYES

JAYNE

R umble kicks in the door with his boot like a showman and throws his arms wide. “Xavier is dead,” he booms, voice rich with triumph, like he just planted a flag on the moon.

The room explodes. Cheers crack the air.

Someone laughs so hard she hiccups. Two women cling to each other and sob into shared blankets.

Another lifts her chin and lets out a raw yell that turns into a shaky laugh, like freedom is a taste she is trying to learn.

The clubhouse smells like leather, coffee that has been burned to hell, and detergent from the mountain of washed clothes we got from every discount store within ten miles.

Mariah shoulders past Rumble with a grin too sharp to be sweet. “Took you long enough, big guy. I thought maybe you stopped for a snack on the way back.”

“Why are you worried about what I eat,” Rumble says, patting his stomach. “You got something you want me to taste?" He waggles his eyebrows and she scoffs.

“As if you would know what to do with someone like me?” she fires back. “Sorry, amateur fucks aren't welcome." She walks off.

The room howls. He clutches his chest like he is mortally wounded. She rolls her eyes and shoves him. He pretends to stagger into a table, grabs a cookie off a paper plate, and bows. Their bickering hums like a happy generator in the background while the rest of us swim in the relief.

I smile, but my face heats. It is like the shame starts at my throat and floods upward.

I thought Spike would sell us out. I thought he would sell them out.

I thought he would stand in a room and shake hands with a man who used girls like parts.

I feel my stomach twist. I am not dumb, but I was scared, and fear turns smart people into idiots.

I slip through the bodies. The women make space for me in that way people do when they know you have been carrying too much.

A few grab my wrist and squeeze. I squeeze back.

Someone presses a mug into my hand and I realize it is tea, not coffee.

Lemon and honey. I sip and it tastes like the end of a long run.

It only takes me a moment to realize that Spike is not inside.

I set the mug down and head for the front. The door swings open with a soft groan and the night air slides over my skin, cool and a little wet. The bikes are lined up like sleeping beasts, chrome catching the security light.

He is there on the steps, one shoulder against the post, cigarette between his fingers.

The smoke curls and vanishes into the dark like a secret.

His hair is a mess. There is a smear of something dark along his jaw he did not bother to scrub all the way off.

The leather of his kutte creaks when he shifts.

He does not look at me right away. He tilts his head back and stares at the fat slice of moon like he is measuring it.

I slide up beside him and let my arm brush his. Electricity runs down my ribs.

“I am proud of you,” I say. My voice comes out soft and certain. No wobble. No apology. Just the truth. “All of it. The rescue. The plan. The finish. I am proud of you.”

He takes a last pull, taps ash with his thumb, and finally looks over. That smirk I know by heart sits on his mouth, but it is not cold. It is the kind that pulls low in my belly because it is pleased and tired and earned. He flicks the cigarette, grinds it out with his boot, and turns fully to me.

“Feels good,” he says, voice low enough that the word hums against my shoulder. “Not just that we won. That we fought for something. That it mattered. And that I got my woman back.”

My chest squeezes. “You always had me.”

He raises an eyebrow like he does not fully buy that. I swallow my pride with the night air.

“I was scared,” I admit. “ I should have trusted sooner.” I put my hand on his chest, right over the steady beat of his heart. “I am your woman. Always was. Always will be.”

The smirk softens. The muscles along his jaw relax.

His hand slides around my waist and pulls me that last inch until our bodies line up and the heat passes straight through the denim and leather like the fabric isn't even there.

He kisses me, slow and sure. No hurry. No demand.

Just the press and seal of a promise we both recognize. His mouth tastes like smoke and mint.

When we break, I keep my forehead against his. He lets his palm flatten at the small of my back like he is pinning me to this exact spot so I do not float away.

“Come on, Jaynie,” he murmurs, a smile in it. “Let them see you with their hero.”

“You are insufferable,” I say, but I am smiling so hard it hurts a little. I lace my fingers with his. His knuckles are rough. The calluses scrape lightly along mine and it feels perfect.

We walk in hand in hand.

Noise crashes over us like surf. Laughter.

Music turned up too loud. Plates clatter.

Someone has started a chant at the back and then messed it up and now everyone is arguing about what the chant even was.

Leo sees us and tips his chin. Lash lifts a bottle.

Tella gives me a look that is almost a grin.

I nod back at all of them. My chest gets tight again, but it is the good kind this time.

The kind that happens when joy tries to fit into a space that used to be all jagged edges.

“Look who decided to grace us with her presence,” Rumble bellows, hopping onto a chair like a clown. “Our lady of blankets and bolt cutters. You done saving the whole damn world, or you need another hour?”

“Give me fifteen minutes and I'll get to work making wine out of water.” I shoot back. The room laughs.

I lean into Spike’s side and let the sound roll through me.

The blood on the floor at the warehouse feels a thousand miles away.

The cages feel like a bad dream that finally broke into morning.

The girls here are not okay. Not yet. But some have color in their faces again.

One is sleeping with her head on another’s shoulder.

Someone braided someone’s hair. Someone else patched a tear in a sleeve with pink thread that does not match on purpose.

This is what peace feels like. Not silence. Not stillness. Noise with no panic under it. Work with no dread threading through it. Laughter that does not hide a flinch.

I breathe in Spike, leather and smoke and the clean edge of the soap he pretends he does not use. My shoulders drop. My mind stops running in circles. The world settles into a shape I can hold.

“Tomorrow,” I say into his shirt, “we write lists for the clinic. We make a schedule. We talk to the shelters again. We set up beds in the back room and put locks on the doors that only the women have keys to. We help make a safe space for everyone who needs it.”

“Tomorrow,” he agrees. He kisses the top of my head. “Tonight you eat something. Then you sleep. I will post prospects at the doors and no one gets within ten feet of you without answering to me.”

I smirk against his chest. “Possessive much.”

“Always.”

He tugs my hand and we wade deeper into the crowd.

Mariah is still lecturing Rumble about proper cookie storage like she is the High Council of Snacks.

He nods along with a serious face, then ruins it by winking at me over her shoulder.

She catches it and smacks his arm with a dish towel.

He yelps, grabs the towel, and the two of them start a tug-of-war that ends with the towel snapping across his stomach and him laughing so hard he wheezes.

“Place your bets,” Leo calls, already pulling bills from his pocket.

“Ten on Mariah,” I say, and a chorus of “same” rises around me.

Spike squeezes my hand, and I look up. His eyes are on me. The pleased look is still there, but it is softer. He looks like a man who took a mountain apart with his bare hands and found a garden on the other side.

“You good?” he asks.

“I am better than good,” I tell him. “I am home.”

We stand like that for a beat, not talking. Then he lifts our joined hands and kisses my knuckles. The rough scrape of his beard catches my skin. It is a small thing. It feels like forever.

Mariah finally yanks the towel out of Rumble’s hands and holds it up like a trophy. He bows, low and ridiculous, then snatches a cookie off her plate and takes a huge bite. She shrieks and chases him through the tables. Everyone cheers.

I laugh and tuck myself under Spike’s arm.

The music bumps. Someone starts a new chant and actually gets it right this time.

The women clap along. Someone cries and someone else holds her and no one looks away.

We have a long road ahead, but the path finally looks like it leads somewhere worth going.

I tip my face up. “Ready, Spike?”

“Always,” he says again, and the word curls warm in my chest.

We walk forward together, into our people, into the noise, into a night that finally belongs to us.