Page 47 of Pain

I paused before I opened the door, trying to collect myself, and realized that she’d been there with me all day. Not in person, but in my mind. All day, I’d been looking forward to this moment, when I got home and opened the door to find her in my bed. I just hadn’t realized it until right now.

I forced my face into something casual, like I hadn’t just been thinking about what I wanted to do to her when I saw her again, and swung the door open. Only to see an empty bed.

My gaze shot from the bed to the dresser and then over to the desk I kept mostly to store books on, but Saraya was nowhere. Confused, I made my way quickly through the room and into the bathroom, looking for any sign of her, but she was gone.

Where the hell was she?

And why did her not being here feel like such a punch to the gut? The girl wasn’t mine—we hadn’t even discussed what had happened between us yet. I had no idea how she felt about me, or if she even had any feelings for me at all, beyond just thankfulness for my having been at the right place at the right time to pick her up out of the dirt.

Damn, I was an idiot. I knew next to nothing about the girl and yet here I was, going ahead and falling in deeper than I had any right to.

I whirled around and left the bathroom, furious with myself for being so stupid. And then I saw the note on the pillow.

My mind jumped immediately to what Mandy had said this morning, about Devil’s message. How she’d said that Devil wanted her back and that if we gave her up, he’d let the rest of us live.

Fuck. Oh fuck no, she hadn’t. She wouldn’t have. She had to know that Devil was lying; that he’d come after us no matter what, and her presence or lack thereof wouldn’t mean anything.

But I’d seen her taking care of Gemini yesterday when they were doctoring him, and I thought I knew the answer to that. If she thought it would protect the club, she would definitely give herself up. Go back to Devil without a second thought to make sure the people in a club that she didn’t belong to were safe.

Fuck.

I rushed toward the bed, horrified at the thought and trying to steal myself against what I thought I would find in that note. When I picked it up and started reading, though, the note didn’t say anything about giving herself up.

It said something completely different.

Come to the space behind the garage, it read. I have a surprise for you.

I had no idea what else that might mean, but it definitely meant she hadn’t left after all. She was here, she was behind the garage, and she was waiting for me.

My feet were taking me to meet her before I had a chance to think anything else.

***

I FOUND HER IN A GREEN string bikini that hid almost nothing, her small, curvy body draped across a bike in a way that made me immediately consider how many times I could have her before anyone else discovered us.

Then I realized that her bikini matched the bike exactly.

And that the bike in question looked... familiar.

Wait, I knew that bike. But when I’d known it, it was blue. Blue and riddled with bullet holes. And that had been just yesterday.

Now the bike was wearing an entirely new set of clothes.

I moved forward, amazed, and ran my finger along the green shine of the bike. “He fixed it,” I murmured. “Damn, he fixed it already? Everything?” My eyes went from one piece of the bike to another, looking for the bullet holes I remembered being there—one of which had shoved itself right through the engine, taking out some very important pieces.

I’d thought the bike was finished. And instead...

“Really?” a voice asked sarcastically from above where I was kneeling next to the bike. “I’m sitting here mostly naked, just waiting to say thank you for having given me your protection, and you’re more interested in drooling over your bike?”

Oh, shit. In my wonder at the bike, I’d completely forgotten about the little girl who was sitting on it. Mostly naked.

I stood up quickly, my body telling me that it hadn’t forgotten about her, and took her in. The green of her bikini did match the bike perfectly, but it was so tiny, just scraps of fabric. Her breasts were barely covered, round and firm and just begging for my mouth, and I suddenly remembered how they’d felt under my hands. How they’d felt pressed against me as I drove into her again and again.

How she’d cried out when I bit the nipples that were barely covered by the thing green material right now.

“I could never forget you,” I told her honestly.

She stood up and shoved at my chest. “And yet you walked out here and went right to the bike. Barely even gave me the time of day or a second glance. Asshole.”