“I can’t go in there,” I told him as he parked the car. “I mean, I won’t.”
Aaron turned to me with an open, curious expression, resting one forearm on the wheel in a way that was strangely sexy as hell. “You wanna tell me why?”
I gestured to the mural of a skull and tattered, flaming wings painted on the brick wall of the low structure in front of us. A floodlight lit the massive mural like a spotlight from the heavens, highlighting a den of inequity.
“This is The Fallen MC clubhouse,” I stated flatly, trying to ignore the surge of bile threatening the back of my throat.
One thick brow arched. “You know the club?”
“Doesn’t everyone in BC?” I asked.
“You afraid?” Something gentled at the back of those coffee-coloured eyes, and he reached forward to brush a tattooed thumb along the edge of my jaw before gripping my chin lightly. “You got nothin’ to fear when I’m with ya, Blue. Don’t you get that?”
“I don’tgetanything. I don’t know you,” I protested, but the words were like ash on my tongue.
Could you know a person without having their details?
I didn’t know Aaron’s last name, his favourite colour, or where he was born, but I felt like I had a sense of his soul, a blurry outline coming into focus.
And the truth was, I wanted to see more of it.
More of him.
But I couldn’t, not if he was one of them.
“I told you, I was raised by criminals. It took a lot for me to get away from them. I won’t risk everything again on another criminal,” I said, mostly honest because I couldn’t seem to keep from confiding in him. Not when he was staring at me like I was a movie star or a model—as if he could spend years looking at me and never get bored of what he saw.
He was silent for a long moment, but I didn’t press. I liked the feel of his rough-tipped fingers on my chin too much to force this exchange to its inevitable conclusion.
“You wanna call me a criminal, I can’t stop ya, but I wish you’d think’a me like somethin’ less defined. Like twilight between day and night. I got darkness in me, Blue. Don’t have to tell ya that after what you saw in Beaker’s trailer. But I got light too, a fuck ton’a it. Maybe the ratio’s too close for comfort, but I thought for a second you were the kinda girl who found more comfort in chaos than in what others think is right.”
He paused, and I realized, somehow, he’d drawn closer without me realizing. I could taste his breath on my lips and see the detailed ink of the inked owl wings spread over his throat. He was so beautiful, it seemed unthinkable he could be as ugly inside as the other criminals I’d known, but I wasn’t naive enough to think the face of evil had to be as grotesque as its heart.
“You might see me and this place as dangerous. As criminal. Maybe you’re right. But I’m also the same guy who took your hand when you needed help, and I learned that from the people in that clubhouse, Blue. I learned how to love like the best’a them ’cause my brothers and their families taught me what it means to be a man who protects his kin, who fights to the death for what he feels is right, and who won’t change for anyone. Even pretty girls with lake water eyes he could drown in.”
His thumb traveled from the dip above my chin to the swell of my lower lip, pressing lightly into the indent there to open my mouth. The pad of that finger dipped just slightly over the edge, past my teeth onto my tongue.
He tasted like salt and metal and man.
Electric lust sparked over my taste buds and charged down through my belly to my groin.
“Yeah,” he murmured in a voice so low it seemed like more of a purr. “I may be a dangerous man, but I’m the one in danger here. You walk out on me, that’ll ache in a way I’ve never ached ’fore. C’mon, Blue baby, what’s reward without a little risk?”
Those words echoed back at me from earlier in the night. The taste of him on my tongue, like one single bite of forbidden fruit, tempted me overwhelmingly to screw all the wisdom and lessons I’d learned in my life and follow trouble wherever he led.
I opened my mouth to say something even though my mind hadn’t yet landed on the right words because my heart was muddling up my thought process. But I didn’t get the chance because Aaron kissed me then.
He pressed his warm lips to my mouth, his thumb still pressing my lower lip down so his tongue was free to slide inside and claim every inch of me. He kissed me like a reverent scholar learning an ancient text, testing the texture of my tongue against his, mapping the edge of my teeth and the vibration of the moans that seeped unbidden from my throat. His other hand dipped into the hair at the side of my head and traveled to the back of my skull, cupping me like I was precious. A treasure he’d found and would never voluntarily part with.
There was passion and lust, but also something that kicked at the door of my heart, demanding entry.
Tenderness.
That was what it was.
The word floated into my brain when he crowded closer, tipping my head back to plunder me further.
This big brute of an outlaw was seducing me. Not taking. Not even owning. Just luring me deeper into his thrall. I was utterly defenceless against it because I’d thought he was the kind of man to force and push and bruise, and there he was, kissing me breathless while holding me carefully close.
