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18

WRAITH

“ I think you blew that,” Atom says when he steps up next to me.

I’m a little dazed and confused. One minute, I’m standing in the armory, thinking all these conflicting thoughts about what happened last night. How the sex had been off-the-charts incredible. How it had felt amazing to be really intimate with a woman. To connect as more than just bodies. Yet waking with Raven in my arms, as good as it had been, had felt a lot like cheating on Hallie.

And the next minute, Raven is acting like a clingy bitch.

Which…

Fuck.

Hey, I got you some breakfast.

Reality smacks me in the face ten minutes too late. She wasn’t acting like a clingy bitch at all.

She brought me fucking food because I hadn’t eaten. Something Hallie would always nag me about. I’ve always just eaten when I’m really hungry. When I’m hungover or tired, I prefer a few cups of strong and sweet coffee in my gut before I add anything else to it.

Raven was caring for me. Looking after me when I’d left her alone in my bed. My behavior hadn’t changed hers at all.

And what did I do? Took my confusion and dumped it all over her.

I rub a hand over my face and look at Atom. “Shut the fuck up.”

He chuckles. “What did she do? Try to pin down your ass?”

Smoke glances down at my jeans. “He’d need to have an ass for that. He’s been skipping glutes on his workouts.”

I flip him the bird.

“Just a tip,” Catfish says. “If she was anything more than a fuck, you should probably talk to her instead of yell at her across the clubhouse.”

Some of the old-timers’ old ladies look at me with a cross between empathy and sadness. Like they know what’s going on inside me.

Am I that transparent?

I feel like it’s a weakness for everyone to know your vulnerability.

In many ways, I’m feared. My size, the violent acts I’m perfectly happy to complete for my club. But being a widower is an Achilles heel. It makes people sympathize with me, and I want to ram that fucking sympathy down their throats.

Grudge steps into the bar. “Do you know why the little one from the diner is stomping her way down the driveway in the rain? Because she told me to come ask you.”

Atom points to me. “Wraith freaked out.”

Grudge looks my way. “You told her to get the fuck out? In this weather?”

“Y’all need to stop fucking looking at me like I grew two heads, or I’m gonna punch one of you,” I say.

“Fuck’s sake,” Catfish mutters.

“I didn’t tell her to get the fuck out.”

Smoke chuckles. “Brother, she called you a coward, you ranted, she left, you yelled at her to get back, she ignored you—same fucking thing.”

Grudge winces. “You don’t do shit like that to women you like.”

I look at Grudge. “When did you all turn into fucking relationship experts? I’m closer to winning an Olympic gold medal in pole vault then any of you are to being in one.”

Grudge raises his hands. “You’re shooting the messenger. But for what it’s worth, the trail’s really slippery with all the rain. I’m worried she’s gonna hurt herself.”

Catfish sighs. “I’ll go pick her up in my truck and give her a ride into town.”

It doesn’t help that he stands and rearranges his junk in his jeans before he wiggles his knees so his jeans fall properly over his boots.

Isn’t this what I offered her? A ride from a virtual stranger because I was too fucking scared to do it myself.

I’m clearly not the one who struggles with a one-night stand, but I’ll leave anyway, seeing as you don’t have the emotional range or maturity to handle one.

I let out a breath, and Smoke slaps me on the shoulder. “You’re not really going to let the guy who’s fucked half this town go after Raven, are you?”

“She’s not for me.”

Smoke laughs. Like, full-on belly laughs. “Oh, fuck. This is going to be like one of those TV shows. It’s gonna be two seasons longer than it needs to be because Wraith won’t use his grown-up words and talk feelings.”

“It was one fucking night,” I say, exasperated.

Atom comes to stand on the other side of me. “If it was one fucking night, you wouldn’t be standing here this messed up about it. You’d have thrown a punch at one of us, and we’d already be laughing about it. Plus, Catfish was saying last night that it would be fun to try and break a small woman like Raven.”

I watch Catfish head for the door, daring myself to just let him go after Raven. But I can’t.

“Motherfucker,” I curse, checking my keys are in my pocket as I head out into the rain. Laughter follows me.

Catfish stumbles back when I yank on the collar of his leather jacket. Rain pounds on the two of us.

“What the fuck, brother?”

“You keep your fucking hands, eyes, and thoughts off Raven,” I shout.

He grins. “If you were taking care of her, it would be my pleasure. She ain’t yours, though, right?”

The punch I land on his face is lubricated by the rain. My fist glances off his cheek; it doesn’t remove the smile from his face.

“It’s an interesting turn, watching you lose your shit over a woman you barely know.” At that, he turns and walks into the clubhouse.

I look up at the sky for a minute. He’s right. Everything I’m feeling seems overplayed and out of proportion. I don’t understand it.

I’m losing my mind over one night with Raven, and that can’t be a good thing.

My truck roars to life beneath my feet, shaking the floor. Yet it does little to settle the thoughts in my head about what I’m gonna say to the pint-sized stubborn-ass woman stomping away from the clubhouse.

When I finally spot her bright yellow raincoat and black hair halfway towards our security gate, unexpected protectiveness swirls around in my chest. I don’t want her walking home in the rain, being out on her own and exposed like this.

I don’t like being judged by other men for the way I treat my woman…not that she’s my fucking woman.

And the turmoil starts all over again.

If she can hear my truck, she doesn’t look back. But she does pause, putting a hand to her brow to stop the sun fighting behind the rain from blinding her. I see her shoulders rise and fall, as if she took a deep breath.

And then I notice the giant rainbow she’s looking at that reaches from the mountains down to the lower pasture.

One of the old ladies at the club once said to me Hallie would send me signs, and boy, did she love rainbows.

“If you’re trying to tell me something, Hals, I’m gonna need clearer instructions.”

When I reach Raven, she’s still looking at it.

I lower the window. “Get in the truck, Blue.”

Raven glances over her shoulder. I wish she hadn’t because it gives me a close-up view of the devastation I caused on her face. Then she shocks the shit out of me by ignoring me and storming off down the hill.

Takes me all of two seconds to catch back up to her.

“I said get in the truck.”

She ignores me again, her face straight forward.

“Fuck me,” I mutter. My stomach growls, and I realize just how much I wish I’d shut my face and eaten the damn breakfast.

This time, I drive past her, pull to a halt, and jump out of the truck. Instead of asking, I pick her up, hoisting her over my shoulder.

“Wraith,” she cries, her fists slamming into my back. Her bag drops to the ground. It’ll be muddy, but I don’t care.

After yanking the passenger door open, I drop her into the seat. Her hands are clenched into fists, and her lips are pursed like she’s sucking on a lemon.

“Stay there.” I slam the door shut and lock it to make a point.

Then I grab her bag from the wet dirt and throw it onto the back seat as I climb into the truck.

“You walked away from me in the clubhouse, you walked away from me a second time just now—there won’t be a third time.”

She glances my way. “There will if you carry on being an asshole. Just drive.”

Other than the time I cheated, Hallie always apologized. Didn’t matter whose fault it was. She’d apologize to get us back on track. Sometimes made me feel like a shit because I’d let her. Seemed easier than having to dig within myself to search for what had me behaving any kind of way.

I kinda like that Raven doesn’t let me off. From the get-go, she’s called me out.

She turns to face the window and worries her lower lip between her finger and thumb. Simply thinking about kissing those lips of hers again gives me a boner.

I do as she says and start the ride to her apartment. “You need me to grab Fen on the way?”

“I don’t need you to do anything except shut up and stop making this truck ride any more awkward than it needs to be.”

The corner of my lip twitches in the fixing of a smile, but I hide it.

By the time I pull up in front of her place, I’ve managed to bury it. I jump out of the truck and walk around to her door, but by the time I do, she’s already opened it. In her haste to leave, she almost tumbles to the asphalt, but I catch her, holding her close to my body before I lower her to the ground.

“I’d prefer it if you just left me alone for a little while,” she says. “I don’t deserve you treating me like shit now that you’ve had sex with me. There’s got to be other coffee shops or diners you can go to for now. Or if you need to see Margie, go when I’m not on shift.”

Her eyes are filled with defiance, but she nibbles on her lower lip nervously. The contrast affects me. I come a step closer to admitting I like both sides of her.

“Never said I wasn’t a dick, Blue.” I reach for the edges of the braid that hangs over her shoulder. As it slips through my fingers, I recall how her hair felt the night before.

She bats my hand from her face. “Did you have to be a dick so publicly?”

The words are filled with so much anguish, I can’t stand it. I cup her cheeks and kiss her, losing my mind in the process. She’s warm, sweet, and so fucking short, I have to stoop to reach her mouth.

“Why the fuck can’t I stop kissing you?” I mutter against them.

Then her palms, small as they are in comparison to my own, shove me away.

“Leave me alone, Wraith.”

“We need to talk,” I say, thinking if I keep my voice low, it might take some of the energy out from between us.

“The time for talking was fifteen minutes ago.” And with that, she hurries inside, forgetting her bag, and slams the damn locks I put in for her before I have the chance to stop her.