Page 63 of Fox (Road Rebels MC 4)
I stood up from the bed with a jerk.
“I didn’t mean to scare you, Noelle. You wanted to know,” he said, and I wrung my hands together.
“But you’re going to walk into gunfire again, aren’t you? You’re going to put your life at risk again!” I argued and noticed how my voice was quivering as I spoke.
Tank breathed in deeply, his gaze flitting intensely over my body again.
“Every day involves putting my life at risk, on this job, Noelle. That is the world I live in, and the code I live by. I don’t want to scare you,” he replied, and I backed away from him. What was I thinking? I shouldn’t have visited him here. I shouldn’t have asked him to explain his life to me.
“You could get shot again!” I cried out, and Tank stood up. He towered over me and followed me as I backed away towards the wall.
“Yes, Noelle, I could get shot again,” he said, and I could feel my neck burning up, a cry rising in my throat. Even if I never saw this man again, I didn’t want him to get shot. I didn’t want him to put his life in danger every day. I wanted to scream, I wanted him to promise me that he would get out of the MC. But what right did I have over him? We had met only a few days ago. We weren’t even in a relationship, and after today, I might never see him again.
“So, now you know the truth. You know the world I belong to. Do you regret coming here and speaking to me?” he asked and I tried to even my heavy breathing. The closer he drew to me, the more I was reminded of how much I wanted him.
“No. I needed to know, and now I know,” I said, and for a second, I thought Tank was going to reach for me. His arms flinched, but he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his track pants instead. He had changed his mind.
“I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you,” he said, in a low gruff voice and I shook my head.
“You’ve not disappointed me, Tank. I just want you to be safe. I don’t want to find you in the corridors of this hospital again, on a gurney, bleeding out of your stomach. I don’t want to have to see an open wound on your body again!” I felt crazy as I said the words. I could feel my whole body shaking. Nothing was making sense to me anymore. Why was I losing my self-control like this? What kind of hold did Tank have on me to make me behave this way?
He had been staring at me, with a blank expression on his face, so that I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
“Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?” he asked, and I crossed my brows in surprise.
“What?” I snapped, and Tank stepped closer to me. He kept his hands to himself, as though he was afraid that if he touched me, he would break me.
“Will you let me take you out on a real date?” he asked, and I could feel my breathing returning.
“You want me to have dinner with you?” my heart was thudding in my chest. What made Tank think, that after everything he had just told me about himself, that I would want to have dinner with him?
“Yes. I want to see you again,” he said, and another one of Tank’s rare smiles had begun to appear on his face. I stared at him, into his hazel eyes, at the thick beard that had grown on his jaw, at his scruffy long hair, at his wide muscular shoulders…
“Yes. I’ll have dinner with you tomorrow,” I said, and Tank stepped away from me.
“Good,” he said and returned to his bed and sat down again. I could feel my knees weakening like he had released an imaginary hand from around my throat.
“Meet me at Corleone’s at seven tomorrow night. I’ll be waiting there for you,” he said, and I realized that I had run out of words. So, I ran out of his room, like I was trying to get away from him.
Outside in the corridor, I tried to catch my breath. I hadn’t even responded to him, I was so afraid of what I had agreed to do. But I couldn’t help myself, I felt like he was an addiction growing on me.
CHAPTER 9
Tank
I didn’t expect Noelle to turn up. I had been sitting at the table for two that I had booked earlier that day, and by now, I was on my third beer. When Noelle walked in, a little after seven thirty, I noticed how heads in the restaurant turned to look at her.
She was speaking to the hostess near the door, who then started leading her towards me, and I stood up from my table with a jerk. I hadn’t seen her in anything but her hospital scrubs yet, and now that I saw her, in a red silk cocktail dress, I felt like I was running out of breath.
Like a nervous, giddy teenager, I walked around and held a chair out for her. Noelle smiled at me like this was all completely normal for her, and she sat down. The dress clung to her curves, its neck dipped deep down so that her cleavage was revealed…making promises of how juicy her breasts were. She had her hair loose, and it delicately grazed her hips as she flipped it over one shoulder. She had parted her bangs, and it lay across her forehead now on the right.
Noelle was staring back at me as I looked at her. She was this gorgeous, perfect princess out of a fairytale or something, and I felt like the ogre who had no chance with her.
Even though I knew this restaurant was relatively fancy and way different from the usual joints we hung out at; I was still in my usual leather jacket and dark jeans. My hair was hung down on my shoulders, but it was brushed, which was probably the only extra mile I had gone for tonight.
“I didn’t expect you to come,” I said to her, and she blinked her eyes as a smile spread across her face.
“I didn’t expect me to come, either. But here I am,” Noelle replied in a soft, seductive voice and already, I could feel my cock moving in my pants.
“What made you change your mind?” I asked her and Noelle reached for the glass of sparkling water that the hostess had poured for her. I watched her as she took a sip, leaving a faint mark of her red lipstick on the rim of the glass. I wanted those lips on me, on my cock…and I shifted in my chair. Being around her made me uncomfortable with a desperate desire for her body. I wanted her to know what she was capable of doing to me.
“I wanted to see you again,” she said, in a matter of fact voice and I picked up my bottle of beer.
“Order anything you want,” I told her, and she gazed at the menu.
“Do you know what you want?” she asked.
“I’ll have what you’re having,” I replied and she smiled as she looked down at the menu, her bangs falling over her eyes.
“Not a fussy eater! You don’t fail to surprise me do you?” she said and looked up at me again.
“What made you think that I was a fussy eater?” I asked her, leaning over the table a little towards her. I got a whiff of her expensive floral perfume, and I breathed in the scent, allowing it to
take over my senses.
Noelle shrugged her shoulders.
“Just something about you told me that you like things a certain way, and if you don’t get your way, you make sure to put up a fuss,” she said with a smile. I could see from the twinkle in her eyes that she was teasing me.
I didn’t like being teased, but with Noelle, I quickly realized that she was allowed to do anything she wanted with me. I smiled at her, and her eyes glowed.
“You should smile more often, Tank. It makes you look more approachable,” she said.
“I don’t have any business being more approachable,” I said and leaned closer to her. She did the same so that there was a distance of only a few inches between us over the table now.
“What if I told you that I want to make it my business to make you smile more?” she asked, in a soft husky voice. I looked into her dark blue eyes, she was calming me down, she had that magic about her.
“Then I would say that you have a long road ahead of you,” I replied and with a comical roll of her eyes, that made her look more childish than she was, Noelle sat back down on her chair and drew her glass of water up to her lips again.
“I’ve decided what I want. The Garganelli with mussels in a white wine sauce,” she said and laughed when she saw that I had no idea what she was talking about. All I knew about Italian food was pizza and pasta.
“I’ll have the same then,” I said, and she arched her eyebrows at me.
“Are you sure?” she asked with the smile still tugging her lips. She was testing me against my claim about being a non-fussy eater. I decided to present her with a smile.
“Yes, I’m absolutely sure, Noelle. Order away,” I replied and indicated to one of the waiters to come over to our table.
Noelle was beaming widely at me, studying my face.
“I think I’m going to have a lot of fun getting to know you tonight, Tank,” she said as the waiter approached us.
He had his notebook ready to take down our orders, and Noelle looked up at him, after passing me a flourishing look.
