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I’d known her less than a day, and apart from anything else, she was the bravest damn thing I’d met in years.

I knew one more thing, too. If Vega or any of his people got within reach of her again, I’d kill them with my bare hands and sleep fine after.

I was done for, and I’d barely touched her.

I slept on the floor beside my own bed.

Sometime after midnight she started crying. She did it real quiet, with her face pushed into my pillow thinking I wouldn’t hear, and her whole body shook with it.

I knew exactly what it was. All day she’d been running on fear. It had gotten her into that plane after her boss was shot, flown it and then put it down hard on that strip. Now reality had set in, and everything she’d seen was coming back to her in the dark, over and over.

I’ve watched it happen to hard men who’d been through a hell of a lot less than she had. I’ve had nights like it myself, more than I’d ever tell anybody. Military life had a habit of staying with you.

Every part of me wanted to get up off that floor and put my arms around her until she stopped. But I’d known her for less than one day. I was a stranger with a gun who’d brought her to a clubhouse full of bikers, and the last thing she needed was me climbing into that bed.

So I stayed where I was, close enough that she’d hear me breathing and know she wasn’t alone. After a while the crying slowed, and then it stopped.

By now the cartel would be tearing Russ Harlan’s whole business apart. His hangar, his office, his desk, his files. They’d have her name off a paycheck and her address off some form she’d filled out the day she was hired. Before the sun came up, they’d know more about Mya Crawford than she’d ever told me.

She couldn’t go home. Not tomorrow, and maybe not for a long time.

I should have hated that she was stuck here with me. I should have hated it a hell of a lot more than I did.

CHAPTER 3

MYA

Three days inside a biker clubhouse, and I’d worked out that the grumpiest man alive was a total fraud.

Shade gave me his bed and slept on the floor beside it. On the second night I told him he was being ridiculous.

“It’s a big bed. I’ll stay on my side. I don’t bite.”

“Floor’s fine.”

“The floor is concrete and uncomfortable.”

“Floor’s fine, Mya.”

He didn’t budge. He just lay down on his pile of blankets with his back to me and his arms folded, like a man who’d slept on worse.

Twice a day he changed my dressing. He’d sit me on the edge of the bed, peel back the tape and check every stitch. I’d sit there with my shoulder bare and his rough hands moving over my skin, and every time I forgot how breathing worked.

He never looked at my face while he did it. His jaw would go tight and he’d look at those stitches like they were the most important thing in the world. When he was done he’d tape a fresh dressing on, stand up and walk out of the room without a word.

Except once. On the second evening he finished taping and didn’t move. His hand stayed flat on my shoulder, and his thumb moved, just once, along my collarbone. I looked up. He was looking at my mouth.

Neither of us breathed.

Then he took his hand back like I’d burned him, and walked out, and I sat on that bed with my whole body buzzing.

I’m a pilot. I wake up with the sun, and I’m cheerful about it. On the first morning he’d lifted his head off the floor and glared at me while I hummed and found my socks.

“You’re up too early,” he said. “And you’re too damn happy about it.”

Then he went out, came back with a mug of coffee and put it in my good hand without a word.

On the second night I kicked the blanket off in my sleep. Half awake, I felt it settle back over me and a big hand tuck it around my shoulder, careful of the stitches.