Page 12 of Kane's Kingdom

“I'm concerned I'll be blamed when the president can't stand upright because his back hurts."

"You won’t be. There are at least ten other things they'll blame you for first."

She steps toward the hall just as I move to let her pass, and we end up in the doorway together, too close. Her shoulder brushes my chest, and the contact runs through me like acurrent finding ground. Her warmth presses along my side, and my body answers without permission. Muscles tighten, blood redirects, every nerve strains toward the place where her hip nearly touches mine.

Every thought in my head narrows to the shape of her mouth. Bella's breath catches, shallow and uneven, and she looks up at me while the whole clubhouse falls away.

I could touch her. I've imagined it often enough to know exactly how. My hand at the back of her neck, my mouth on hers while twenty years of restraint finally burns itself out.

Her gaze drops to my lips. Want moves over her face before anger comes to cover it, and that's what saves us.

I step back, feeling the cost of it through every muscle I've got. Bella notices. Of course she does.

"Good night," I say.

Her fingers tighten around the strap of her bag. "Good night."

She walks down the hall and closes my bedroom door behind her. I lie on the couch beneath the eyes of every brother still awake, hanging around the clubhouse and stare at the ceiling.

My father has been dead just over three weeks. Sometimes I wake before dawn and feel his absence like a missing stair. For one clean second, I'm relieved; then grief arrives behind it and turns the relief ugly. Bella being here tangles both feelings tighter. King is gone, but everything he broke keeps walking through my doors.

Of all the women I could've wanted, it had to be her. Red's daughter. The woman my father's club taught to hate us. The girl I've loved since long before I understood what loving her would cost.

My rule was always simple. Not her. It's the only one I've never trusted myself to keep.

THREE

BELLA

The worst part of coming back to the Kingdom Come compound is how little of it feels strange.

The gates still screech when they roll open. The yard still smells like hot metal, old oil and river damp.

A prospect crosses in front of me carrying a crate of beer. He dips his chin without meeting my eyes. The message is clear. Respect, distance, and don't make the president's guest uncomfortable.

I hate that I understand it. This place lived in my bones before I learned how to get it out of my life, and apparently I never did quite manage it.

"You coming in?" Kane stands in the doorway.

He's wearing the same black T-shirt he had on when he took me to the Landing this morning, stretched across his arms with no cut over it. Without the PRESIDENT patch, he should look less dangerous, but he doesn't.

"I'm deciding."

"About what?"

"Whether I'd rather sleep in the yard."

"Mosquitoes will carry you off."

"I'll take my chances."

"You already did that once this week."

The softness of the words makes them land harder. I've been behind these gates for two days, going to work with brothers at my back and returning to the compound afterward. Kane gives me his room every day and sleeps on the common-room couch, where every man in the club can see what his decision costs him.

He hasn't complained once, and that's becoming a problem. I walk past him.

The clubhouse is louder than it was when I was a kid and somehow exactly the same, with music grinding low behind the bar, and men arguing over pool. Heads turn as I enter.