Page 37 of True North

“With who?”

The muscle in my jaw ticked as I ground my back molars together. “The biker,” I said, those two words coming out as a growl.

Her brows winged up, her eyes widening in surprise. “You mean Rake?”

Fucking Rake. The guy had been nothing but cordial…and I wanted to smash his face in with my fist for how he’d touched her and made her laugh earlier.

“Yeah. Rake,” I gritted the word out, ignoring the vile taste it left on my tongue.

Jealousy was rolling off of me in waves, and I saw the instant it crashed into her. Her expression shut down, those warm brown eyes going blank.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but no. He’s just a friend.” She closed her eyes and pulled in a deep breath, her berry stained lips moving ever so slightly, like she was silently counting down from ten. When she opened them again, the disappointment in them hit me like a goddamn wrecking ball. “Now if you’ll excuse me⁠—”

I panicked when she attempted to step past me, every single fiber of my being screaming at me to not let her escape.

“Little flower.” Those two words sounded as ravaged as they felt as they were ripped from my chest. “Please. Can I…can I touch you?”

If she said no, there was a strong possibility I was going to lose my mind completely.

EIGHTEEN

IRIS

“Little flower.” My lungs stopped working at those two words. They sounded almost painful as they rolled up his throat. “Please. Can I…can I touch you?”

Oh no. I could feel that wall I’d put up to protect myself from all things North begin to shake like a chain link fence rattling around in a hurricane. Totally useless.

I blew out a trembling breath. “North, I don’t think⁠—”

“Please.” That one word was full of so much need it physically hurt to hear it. I couldn’t have denied him if I wanted to, and I would have been lying to myself if I said I didn’t want to.

Pulling my bottom lip between my teeth, I bit down anxiously as I extended my hand to him. I was giving it. I couldn’t help it. It didn’t make me weak. Wanting someone didn’t cause weakness, at least in my opinion. But that didn’t mean my infatuation with the man who’d managed to crush my heart to smithereens was smart.

At my acquiescence, he shot forward, dodging my hand completely and wrapped both his large, rough hands around either side of my neck, his fingers dove beneath my hair, meeting at the nape as he dragged his thumbs back and forth across my jawline. The sigh he let out as he lowered his forehead to mine and squeezed his eyes closed was nearly enough to do me in. There was just so much relief in it, his body sagging like this contact was the only thing he needed to survive. More than air or food or water.

“There she is,” he said quietly, his words dripping with reverence. Like he’d been searching for an eternity in a deep, dark fog and finally found me.

I didn’t know what the hell to think. Or feel. The only option I had to keep myself grounded was to wrap my fingers around his wrists and told on tight so I didn’t float away. “North,” I whispered, his name scraping against the inside of my throat like it was made of sandpaper. “I don’t know what’s happening.”

His fingers pressed in deeper, like he was trying to leave his finger prints on my skin. “I remember.”

It was suddenly difficult to breathe around the lump that had formed in my throat. My eyes shot wide as I stared up into his. From so close, I could see flecks of gold and gray swimming in the ocean of blue, and the beauty of that, as well as the words he just spoke, nearly rendered me speechless. “What?”

His fingers began rubbing circles on the back of my neck, applying just the right amount of pressure against my straining muscles, that I had to swallow down a moan. It just felt that damn good. “I remember that night, Iris.”

“H-how much?”

A growl rumbled up his chest as he stepped even closer, bringing our bodies flush together. The steel of his erection pressing into the softness of my belly was answer enough, but he spoke anyway. “Every. Single. Thing.” My lips parted on a broken gasp, the air coming in jagged and sharp. “I remember the way you smelled. The way you felt.” His left hand slid so he could traced the underneath of my bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. “I remember exactly what your lips felt like when you kissed me. The greedy, hungry little noises you made when I touched you in just the right way. Christ, little flower. I can’t stop remembering, and I don’t want to. That night has been playing on a repeating loop in my brain for the last goddamn week.”

I tried shaking my head, but the hold he had on me wouldn’t allow it. “North, we can’t⁠—”

“I’m so fucking sick and tired of telling myself I can’t when it comes to you.”

I was struck mute for a handful of seconds as those words sank into my lust-soaked brain, trying to fight for space. “You—you want me?”

“Honey, I’ve wanted you from the moment I set foot in this town.” At that confession, my lungs stopped working completely. And I can’t ignore it anymore. Especially not now. Not when I remember that the reality of you blows every single fantasy I had out of the water. And honey, the fantasies I’ve had would shock the hell out of you.”

I wasn’t so sure about that. I’d done my fair share of fantasizing, and I’d they had seriously run the gambit. Every romance book I’ve read in the past few years (and they had been a lot), I pictured him as the hero. Whether it was a dark romance where he bent me to his will, or a sweet contemporary where he was wooing me, it was always North in my head, and the things he could get up to would have had most mama’s in church on Sunday mornings, fanning their faces in shame.