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If McMurphy and the Black Dog found out about Devon’s money, he might be in danger. Devon was tough, but he couldn’t defend himself against a threat he didn’t know was coming. I had to warn him.
But I still didn’t want him to know where I was. Hence the burner phone. I just needed to get him a message, and then I was done.
I scrubbed a hand over my face. I was so tired my vision was blurring. I couldn’t handle this shit right now. I needed a shower, sleep. I needed to get back to the motel and make sure Dani was all right. I had the phone now; I’d deal with the rest of it later.
So I drove back, the burner phone sitting in the passenger seat, staring accusingly at me with its blank screen. Shut up, I told it silently. Devon isn’t going to die in the next few hours. McMurphy will come for me first.
I pulled up to the motel, which was silent under the relentless sun. I left the groceries in the car, because I hadn’t bought anything that would spoil. Nearly stumbling with exhaustion, I opened the door and stepped into the room.
She’d pulled the blinds down, so it took a minute to adjust to the dimness. An overhead fan spun slowly, its sound the only one in the room. On the bed was Dani.
She was wearing a towel wrapped around her, and nothing else. She was on top of the bedspread, and she had rolled over to her side, her top knee drawn up. Her long black hair was sprawled over the pillow. She was dead asleep.
I stared down at her for a long minute. I felt stupid, like someone had hit me over the head. Her face was beautiful in repose, her closed lashes long and dark. Every inch of her amazed me: her delicate shoulders, her slender arms, her long legs. I stared unashamedly at the shadow along her upper thigh, where it disappeared beneath the towel. The soft skin that vanished in shadow between her legs.
There was a dark bruise on the outside of her thigh, just below her hip. Crescent shaped—a heel mark.
He’d kicked her. McMurphy had kicked her.
She didn’t wake.
I reached to the back of my neck and pulled my t-shirt off over my head, dropping it to the floor as I walked to the bathroom. Then I stripped and got under the shower for a long time.
I couldn’t think. He’d kicked her—fucking kicked her. I knew McMurphy; I knew how he treated his women. I knew he liked to show them who was the alpha dog. McMurphy liked everyone, man and woman alike, to know he was the alpha dog. It was how he lived. I knew that.
And still, I was so angry I could barely see.
I pressed my hands to the tile, leaning on my arms. I was angry, and my dick was also hard—that was how fucked up I was. I was saving this woman’s life, helping her run from an animal because she’d begged me to, and I was as hard as a fucking rock just looking at her. I wanted to wake her up, slide that towel up, put her on all fours, and fuck her until I couldn’t think anymore.
I closed my eyes. I wasn’t particularly hard up; the Black Dog, like most MCs, attracted a lot of women. And something about motorcycles made women lose their inhibitions. If I wanted it, it was always relatively simple to fuck a woman against the back wall of the club house during a party, or get a blow job in a back room. The brothers never cared, and frankly, neither did the women. To them, I was a good-looking lay, but I wasn’t a brother with a brother’s status, which meant they didn’t want repeats. I was never bothered by clinging women wanting to be my old lady.
When I was nineteen, it had seemed like a good deal to have access to random, anonymous fucks. A decade later, I was twenty-nine fucking years old, and there wasn’t much excitement to it—so little I didn’t bother much, if I ever had. The last few times I’d done it had made me feel ill.
I put my hand on my cock and gave it a slow, experimental stroke, from base to tip, my eyes still closed, the image of Dani behind my eyelids. My nerves woke up under the hot steam, into my lower back and up, and down into my balls. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt anything like it. I didn’t even need to come, it felt so good.
I did it one more time, hissing quietly through my teeth as pleasure woke up in every part of me, almost painful, like frostbitten skin warming up. I ran my thumb over the tip of my cock, and then I let it go again. Finished my shower. Dried off. Drank a glass of water. Brushed my teeth.
I put a towel around my waist and tiptoed out of the bathroom. Dani hadn’t moved; if I didn’t see the regular rhythm of her breathing, I’d wonder if she was all right. Her back was to me, so in silence I pulled clean clothes from my bag and put them on, dressing fully in jeans, t-shirt, and socks. Despite what an unworthy fuckup I was, I didn’t want there to be any misunderstanding. I was not getting into bed naked with her.
She’d nearly panicked when I suggested we separate; she seemed to want some kind of comfort. So I lay on the bed, on top of the covers, behind her back. It was a tight fit, with my shoulder off the edge of the bed, so I rolled on my side, still not touching her. The last thing I remembered was the smell of her soap, and the gentle curve of her neck and shoulder, and then I was gone.
When I woke, she was whispering my name.
I opened my eyes to see her dark bro
wn gaze looking into mine. She had rolled over to her other side, facing me. The sun around the edges of the blinds was blazing; I had no idea what time it was.
“Cavan,” Dani said again.
I blinked at her. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she said. “You came back.”
That made me frown. “You keep thinking I’m going to take off on you.”
She watched me and said nothing. That was answer enough.
She didn’t trust me yet. That was fair. I wouldn’t trust me, either. “I’m not leaving you, Dani,” I said. “I’ve come this far. I’m in. I’m not going anywhere until you’re safe.”
