Page 11 of The Biker and the Single Mom

Her hands fisted in my shirt. "I don't want you getting hurt because of me."

"Too late. Already in this." The admission cost me, but it was true. "You're not alone anymore, Rory. You've got me. You've got the club. And we protect our own."

"I'm not⁠—"

"You are." I cupped her face, thumbs stroking her cheekbones. "You're mine to protect. Both of you. That's not up for debate."

The words shifted something in her expression. "Yours?"

Fuck. Too much truth. But I couldn't take it back now.

"Yeah," I said. "Mine."

Luna crashed at seven-fifteen, worn out from an afternoon of playing while Rory and I pretended the Matt situation wasn't hanging over us like a blade.

I tucked her into my bed—their bed now, I guessed—and came back to find Rory on the couch, staring at nothing.

"Hey." I sat beside her, close but not touching. "You okay?"

"I don't know." She turned to face me. "I haven't felt safe in so long. Then you—you make me feel like maybe I can stop running. Maybe I can stay somewhere. And then Matt calls and reminds me that⁠—"

"He's got no power here."

"He's a cop, Doc. He'll find a way⁠—"

"Let him try." I took her hand, lacing our fingers together. "Pope's already making calls. We'll have Matt's employment record by tomorrow, find out what kind of cop he really is.”

"You'd do that?"

"I'd do worse for you." The words escaped before I could stop them. "I'd do anything for you."

Her breath hitched. "Doc⁠—"

"Cole." My name felt foreign on my tongue. "When it's just us, call me Cole."

"Cole." She tested it, and the sound did things to my chest. "What about you? Do you feel safe?"

The question caught me off-guard. "What?"

"You protect everyone. You take care of Luna and me, you run the clinic, you help the brothers. But who takes care of you? Who makes you feel safe?"

No one. Not since Afghanistan. Not since the nightmares started and my hands started shaking and the Army decided I was too damaged to keep.

"I'm fine."

"Liar." She touched my face, her palm warm against my jaw. "I see you, Cole. I see the way your hands shake when you think no one's looking. The way you check the locks three times before bed. The way you⁠—"

I kissed her.

Her mouth was right there, her hand on my face, her eyes stripping me bare, and the truth would break me wide open if I let it.

She made a soft sound—surprise or surrender—and then she was kissing me back. Tentative at first, testing, learning. Then hungry when I opened for her, when my tongue stroked against hers and she melted into me.

The kiss hit like lightning, her mouth soft and eager against mine. Years of touch-starvation meeting six months of running, both of us taking what we'd been denied too long.

Her hands slid into my hair, gripping tight, while mine found her waist and pulled her closer until there was no space between us. The kiss deepened, turned desperate. My fingers tangled in the silk of her hair, her nails scraped against my scalp, and every nerve ending in my body came alive.

I pulled back before I took it too far, both of us breathing hard. Her lips were swollen, her eyes dazed.