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“Remember what I said,” Mathieu murmured behind him.
Win swung his gaze back to him. “I remember everything you’ve ever said to me.” He couldn’t help the barb.
Mathieu’s mouth opened and closed. His lashes lowered briefly and when they lifted, his eyes were their usual: cold and unfeeling. “You know where I am if you need me.” A clear dismissal.
Win didn’t linger. He got out of the SUV, ignoring the handful of Mathieu’s men hanging around, waiting for their boss. He spotted his car and shook his head. He hadn’t even known they’d brought it to him.
He got into his vehicle and headed home to deal with whatever fallout awaited him.
“You know where I am if you need me.”
He desperately wished he could stop needing Mathieu Pascal.
6
Win expectedthe house to be filled with Jairo’s men. If his husband was worried, then he’d have his men around him, at least those he trusted. He likely would have given them orders to find Win, by any means necessary.
But the house was quiet when he let himself in.
He tossed his keys aside and then took off his shoes before making his way upstairs.
The house was Jairo’s safe place, Win’s too, but Jairo only allowed a handful of the men in his motorcycle club, those he absolutely trusted, to know where he lived. There’d been more than one attempt on his life, after all. Three in the years since Win had been with him.
At the top of the stairs, he entered the bedroom. He didn’t immediately spot Jairo, but the ensuite bathroom door was ajar, the room’s lights on. Win took a deep breath and made his way in, stepping into the bathroom. Jairo was in the shower and Win stood with his arms folded, watching him through the clear glass.
He’d feared Jairo the first time they met, having listened to Mathieu talk about him with such vitriol. Everyone in Miami knew the Rogue Warriors MC, how brutal and dangerous they were, led by the devil himself. Win had known who the other man was, but as Win had always been Mathieu Pascal’s most closely guarded secret, no one knew him. Jairo hadn’t known his identity when they’d started up a conversation about Cuban food, which had turned into Jairo extending an invitation to dinner. That had been a shock, but Win had noted the writing on the wall where his role with Mathieu was concerned.
And he’d wanted to make Mathieu hurt.
So he’d said yes to Jairo.
He hadn’t expected the MC president to be so different from his reputation. Win hadn’t expected to like the time he spent with Jairo. And he hadn’t expected to like the other man, period. But he had.
Then Mathieu found out and whatever tentative connection they’d still maintained had gotten severed permanently. After that, Win had used Jairo ruthlessly as a distraction to mend the parts of him Mathieu had shattered, which turned out to take so fucking long because he hadn’t realized that Mathieu had shattered all of him.
When Jairo made his proposal, it’d been easy to say yes after watching Mathieu be happy with someone else. Win had learned to be happy with Jairo. He’d learned to put Mathieu and that time to the side and focus on the life he had with a man who actually wanted his company.
But of course, his relationship with Jairo was built on lies, on secrets.
“I can feel you watching me.”
He jerked his head up. Jairo was bent under the spray of water as he washed his hair. Win forced a chuckle. “You always say that.”
Jairo flung his head back, smoothing his hair away from his face, and finally turned to peer at him through the glass. “Because it’s true.” He didn’t smile. His eyes were serious, maybe brimming with concern, from what Win could make out.
Win held his tongue and neither of them spoke again until Jairo stepped out and grabbed a towel, rubbing his head, then wrapping it around his waist as water sluiced down his body. He was a beautiful man: powerfully built, body still perfectly sculpted at almost forty-five years old, with curly salt and pepper hair that fell to mid-back, deep brown eyes with the sexiest crinkles at the corners, and completely covered in colorful tattoos from his neck to his knees.
His back piece alone—from nape to hip—was the Rogue Warriors’ logo: a jawless skull over crossed bayonets.
The delicate gold ring in the left side of his nose twinkled when he frowned at Win, eyeing him from head to toe. “Where were you?” He didn’t wait for Win to answer before he was tugging on the familiar black gloves, quickly covering up his horribly scarred hands.
It took almost a year before he’d allowed Win to see him without his gloves, and even that had been the briefest of peeks. He only ever took off the gloves to shower. It was a weird sight he made, standing there with the white towel around his hips, gloves on, hair dripping water onto his naked shoulders. Only Win got to see him like that, and the trust Jairo had in him would always honor him.
Misplaced though that trust may be.
“I had to think,” he answered Jairo’s question softly.
An eyebrow shot up. “All night?”
