Page 180 of Rogue Riders Duet

“Doing what?” he asks, keeping his eyes on the road.

“This.” I gesture vaguely toward the heat, the hoodie, the driving. “Being decent to me.”

Luc’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. “I’m not being decent to you. I’m being decent to Petit. He likes you, for whatever-fucking-reason, so I’m making sure he doesn’t get to cuss me out for letting you freeze to death in the mud.”

I scoff and sink deeper into the hoodie. Mini Crews cried in my arms yesterday because of this fucker, and yet…

“And let’s not forget…” he mutters bitterly, “… you were the one fucking everything up. I didn’t ruin this.”

My head snaps around. “Ex-fucking-scuse me? You are the one who treats me like absolute shit.”

“Because you ruined everything,” he grits back, his blue eyes flaring.

I stare at him, pulse climbing again for a whole different reason. “What the fuck did I ruin?”

“You know exactly what’s ruined.”

I do.

Still doesn’t mean it was me who ruined it.

I stay quiet because what the hell am I supposed to say to that? That I miss what we had, too, when it wasn’t even anything?

Luc huffs, as if my silence confirms everything he hates. “I’m talking about our dynamic, Payne. That tension, that thing we had on the track? I lost some of my magic because you and I aren’t the same anymore. And I fucking hate you for it.”

“Don’t act like that,” I snap. “We weren’t even friends. We⁠—”

“Putain, I know that!” Luc explodes, cutting me off with a swipe of his hand. “I fucking know we weren’t friends, but you and your goddamn smirks, your scowls, the way you teased with your eyes, I don’t even know why, but it made me faster, okay? It made me hungry. You made me want to beat you.”

You made me want to do a hell of a lot more than beat you.

My gaze snaps away from his flushed cheeks at the unwelcome thought.

What the fuck?

I always knew Luc was hot, the kind of hot that made your mouth go dry and your pulse tick up, but I filed it away as trivial. Background noise. Just something to clock, not act on, because he was Luc-fucking-Delacroix. He is loud, cocky, and surrounded by women like they were just another sport.

And definitely straight.

That banter between us, the smirks, the sharp words, the eye contact that always lasted a second too long. I figured it was just a byproduct of our rivalry, something to keep us hungry. And it was, but maybe it was also me, flaring like a live wire around him, and throwing jabs to see what he’d throw back, not because I hated him, but because I wanted his attention.

And he gave it to me.

Over and over, he reacted. He looked.

Until last year.

“You’re a fucking asshole, and a coward. And a—” He cuts himself off, but the next word still comes out as a bloody bullet. “Rapist? Really, Mason?”

It doesn’t matter how many times I hear that word, whether it’s whispered, yelled, or spat in my direction, it always lands as a punch to the ribs.

Luc’s breathing is harsh beside me. “You look like a fucking Greek god,” he spits. “You could have anyone, but you go and take what’s not offered? Are you insane?”

“I’m not a fucking rapist!” The words rip from me, raw but crystal-clear.

Luc’s anger burns out, and he sighs like the idea of me being innocent is more tiring than the alternative.

“Everybody else says you are.”