Page 15 of My Reckless Biker

I move toward the door, need air, need space to think without her standing this close. But I stop with my hand on the knob and turn back because there's something I need to say and if I don't say it now I won't say it at all.

"What do you think about Vigil?" I ask.

She blinks. "What?"

"What do you think. About us. About how we operate, what we do, the code we follow. Not what you know about us or what's strategically relevant. What do you actually think."

She goes completely still, and I watch the question land, watch her try to process it, and then I see it. The moment of genuine confusion. The pause that's not calculation, just someone who's been asked something they don't have a prepared answer for.

"I don't know," she says finally. "No one's ever asked me that before."

"I'm asking now."

The pause stretches longer this time and I can see her working through it, trying to find an answer that's true instead of strategic.

"I think you're dangerous," she says slowly. "I think you operate outside the law and do things most people would call wrong and you don't apologize for it. I think you protect what's yours with violence that most people couldn't stomach." She meets my eyes. "But I also think you have a code and you actually follow it. And that makes you more trustworthy than most of the people I grew up around who talked about honor and loyalty while stabbing each other in the back."

She pauses, and I can see her deciding whether to say the next part.

"I think if you say you'll protect me, you will. And I think if you decide I'm lying and need to be handled, you'll do that too. And I respect both of those things even though one of them terrifies me."

The honesty in it, the way she sees us clearly without romanticizing or judging, lands somewhere in my chest and stays there.

"Your father operates the same way we do," I say.

"No. My father operates without a code. He does what benefits him and calls it strategy. You do what protects your people and call it what it is. That's the difference. That's why I'm here."

I study her face, looking for the lie, for the performance, for any indication she's telling me what she thinks I want to hear.

I don't find one.

What I find instead is someone who's been asked what she thinks for maybe the first time in her life and is still figuring out how to answer honestly instead of strategically.

And that cracks something else. Something deeper than suspicion.

"The arrangement is still in effect," I say, changing direction. "The fake dating. We'll need more public appearances eventually. But with Marrow positioning after those photos spread, Clint's holding off on sending us back out. Doesn't make tactical sense to be that visible while we're assessing Crane's response."

She nods, and I can see her filing that away.

"Come on," I say, opening the door. "Cain probably wants to ask you follow-up questions about the intel."

She follows me out into the common room and I watch her walk over to Cain, watch the way she moves, the curve of her hips in those jeans, the way her hair falls past her shoulders now that it's loose.

I notice the soft swell of her breasts under her shirt, the fullness of her body that's substantial and real and I've been trying not to think about since she first pressed against me on that bike.

And I realize I'm not just watching her for signs of deception anymore.

I'm watching her because I want to.

She settles into the chair beside Cain and leans forward to look at his screen, asking questions about financial structures and distribution networks, and I see the intelligence in how she processes information, the way she tracks connections faster than most people could.

Cain says something and she laughs, just a quick sound, genuine and unguarded, and it changes her whole face. Makes her look younger.

She glances up and catches me watching.

Our eyes meet across the room and hold for three seconds, maybe four, and I don't look away and neither does she.

Then Cain says something else and she turns back to the screen, but I saw it. That moment where she realized I was watching her and didn't immediately assume it was because I thought she was lying.