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“I’d appreciate it if you’d let me walk back from here alone.”
He narrowed his eyes. It wasn’t like he needed to walk her to her door, but the cold shoulder treatment stirred up something fierce inside of him.
“What? Afraid Mommy and Daddy would find you with someone of the likes of me?”
She kept her pace in front of him, ignoring him all together now.
He closed the distance between them and stopped her stride by holding her biceps in his hands, standing still in front of her. “Is that it? You don’t want them to know you’ve been slumming it with a biker? What are they gonna do? Ground you? Limit your tablet time?”
For whatever reason, her withdrawing from him made him put an even bigger foot in his mouth in search of any kind of reaction from her.
She raised her chin, pinning him down with her blazing brown eyes. “You don’t get to talk about my parents like that. I don’t care what you think of me. You made up your mind about me long before you even got to know me, and that’s okay. But I’ll not stand here, listening to you bad-mouthing my parents who have welcomed you on their farm just weeks ago during that stupid family reunion of yours!”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, letting go of her arm. She shook off his other hand and strode up to a wooden fence leading to the dirt path to the stables.
“Wait!”
A horse neighed before she closed the fence coming up to his waist between them. “Shh. You’ll wake up everyone. Just go…”
He raked a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. I’m an asshole.”
She snorted. “As you keep telling me.”
“Well, it’s true. I’m just going to hurt you.”
A long moment of silence passed between them, in which her scrutinizing eyes seemed to see right through him.
“Who are you trying so hard to convince you’re a jerk and all wrong for me, Devlin? Me…. Or you?”
With that parting shot, she walked away from him. Her pink dress fluttered in the night as she quickened her step. His eyes followed her go up the steps of the wraparound porch and inside the ranch.
A cool breeze filled his nostrils as he took a calming breath. Her scent still clung to his shirt. He grabbed the neck of his T-shirt and inhaled deeply. Sweet summer hay, clean green grass and something so sweet and sensual that made his dick twitch: Teagan’s juice.
A light flickered on in the attic and made him freeze on the spot. Behind a thin threaded beige curtain stood unmistakably his little bird. She probably watched him through the crack in the curtain as he lurked from the fence line under the darkness.
A dog suddenly barked, and a light flickered on inside the ranch. The guy he remembered from the day of the reunion as Teagan’s brother appeared on the wraparound porch with a shotgun in his hand. Devlin wondered how long he could stand here unseen.
Teagan briskly tugged her curtains closed and her silhouette faded as she stepped away from the window. He kept hoping for another glance at her until she finally hit the lights.
“Rudy…” Teagan’s brother shouted before he whistled so loud he’d probably woken up the entire ranch.
On his way to his bike, he figured whatever Wolf had to say about his earlier outburst wasn’t going to be a walk in the park.
He took a deep breath as he straddled his bike. Even though he’d tried to warn Teagan, she still kept seeing something in him. He knew it the moment she’d said that he was only trying to convince himself about not being right for her.
He gunned his engine and blasted over the winding road, leaving a small piece of him in the dewy grass.
He passed his home on his way to the clubhouse. Another ten more minutes and he would have to face Zeus, the new Prez of the Iron Vikings MC, and his longtime friend. It had been Zeus’ dad who’d welcomed him into his motorcycle club after Devlin had nowhere to go at seventeen.
He entered the industrial plot in the middle of nowhere outside of Austin and parked Callie. He grabbed a strong hold of the prospect’s shoulder who’d hurried over to clean his bike for him. “If you scratch her, I’ll carve you up from head to toe with a knife.”
The young guy he didn’t know by name other than ‘Prospect’ seemed ready to pee in his pants, but nodded.
Devlin grinned as he walked away. Man, it was too easy playing with these guys who were still wet behind the ears. He remembered how the old timers did exactly the same with him as he showed up on these exact doorsteps.
He passed the office of the MC’s towing company and garage to the side. He waved at Turtle, the oldtimer of the club, who gave him a chin lift as he scratched his long, gray beard with his tattooed hand.
Devlin entered the bar and passed a few brothers with women hanging all over them. He turned left and entered the long hallway with several doors on each side. He knocked on the last door in the hallway, not bothering to look up at the camera pointed at him.
