Page 60 of Ride or Die

She gave him an edged smile and played him just right.

“All yours,” she agreed with a drawl. “Nice bike though.”

Saint stared at the quiet woman he thought he knew as she poked fun at a patched Eighty-Sixer. No one had an ounce of self-preservation around here.

Riley turned to Saint. “See you for dinner?”

He nodded, and she ran up the stairs without a backward glance.

Maybe she didn’t need rules so much as someone to give her permission to act.

He tilted his head, watching her disappear through the entryway.

Pots and pans rattled, and the fridge opened.

“I think I’m in love,” Ryan said.

Saint rolled his eyes. He turned to Ryan and dropped his voice. “She needs to feel safe here. Understood?”

Ryan sobered and nodded. “Yeah. Sorry.” He rubbed a hand over his shaved head, eyes trailing up the stairs. “She’s, uh… seems very nice.”

Saint gave Ryan a patient smile, and the biker paled a bit. He shook his head as if to clear it, and when he turned back, he seemed to have remembered the reason he’d come.

“Coop wants you to remember how generous he’s been and make sure you’re not biting the hand that feeds you.” Ryan ran his tongue around his teeth. “I don’t know what you did to rattle his cage this much, but sometimes I wonder if the next orders are going to be to put you down. I really don’t want to do that. Really, really don’t.”

It was probably because Saint hadn’t agreed to babysit Cooper’s daughter, and he needed to reassert control. Insecure men were the bane of Saint’s existence.

“I probably looked at him wrong at poker. You should keep that in mind when he gets it in his head that you’re coming for his throne too.”

Ryan shook his head. “That’s not gonna happen. Not for a long while.”

“It’s already happening.”

Ryan shook his head again and looked away.

It didn’t matter. Cooper was going to do whatever he was going to do, and Saint would be ready for it. Hopefully they got to keep the peace for a bit longer.

Ryan made noise about letting him go and wheeled the bike inside.

If they wanted to pay him to look at a working bike, he wasn’t going to stop them.

Saint raised his hand in a wave, then locked the doors behind Ryan before turning to go upstairs.

Chapter 19

Riley

Riley folded her arms over her chest while she waited for the coffee to drip through and for Saint to finish up with his client downstairs. She wasn’t making dinner until they’d talked about that.

She couldn’t date a fucking Eighty-Sixer.

Saint appeared at the top of the stairs and scanned the loft until he found her in the corner of the L-shaped kitchen.

She sipped her coffee but didn’t smile. Saint’d effectively conditioned her with soft words and orgasms to be relaxed around him, and it had basically worked. He asked for nothing, refusing when she tried to reciprocate, only using his fingers and mouth to bring her pleasure at every opportunity he had. How could she be mad about that? Riley’d learned about operant conditioning in Psych 101 and knew what he was doing even if he didn’t.

But her heart didn’t pound as he took her in, so maybe the conditioning had worked. He knew something was up.

Good.