Page 13 of Colt

My fingers flew over the keyboard. Smiling, I typed,

Freya:Thanks, girls. I’m going to a bar with my friends. You guys are good 4 my ego. I’llmessage 2morrow. Luv u.

Notifications pinged again with a flurry of messages from the girls who told me to have a good time. I cleared them and slipped my cell back into my pocket before turning to Abi. “The picture’s getting around already.”

“Good.” She grinned, jerking her thumb across the street to where a thumping bassline echoed from the bar, along with chatter and laughter. “Can we go? I’m gonna die of thirst.”

“Come on.” I linked my arm with my friend’s and picked our way across the street in sky-high heels.

Abi was Thelma to my Louise, Clyde to my Bonnie, a partner in crime in all ways. She made me laugh my ass off most days, which was no mean feat considering we were usually hangry and overtired. Our final year of med school was just as hellish as everybody said it would be.

“I love this place,” Abi said excitedly as we approached the lit-up bar. “It’s so fucking slick. Makes me feel like I’m going to a rockstar after party.”

“Well, wearegonna be rockstar surgeons one day, so it’s fitting.” I laughed.

“And we’re fucking hot,” she added, grabbing the door and ushering me inside.

A wall of warmth hit me as soon as I stepped over the threshold.

Beautiful men mingled in groups at the bar while even more beautiful women packed the dance floor. Glasses clinked, and laughter filtered through the bassline of ‘Desire’ by Years and Years, a song I recognized from a Zac Efron movie I’d watched the year before.

Below Zerowas an old, renovated manor house. The architect must’ve been a genius because, somehow, they’d managed to keep the original features but added glass and steel to bring it up to the twenty-first century.

A voice called my name as we approached the bar.

I turned to see our friends sitting on a massive couch against the back wall with small, round tables with stools on which our friends and colleagues sat.

Zuri stood up and waved us over. “Saved you two a seat.”

I pointed to the bar. “We’ll get a drink first. Do you guys want one?”

“Got you a beer, Princess,” a deep voice murmured from my back. “You know the rules: stick to beer when you’re out at bars.”

Slowly, I turned and looked up into ocean-blue eyes. My hurt lurched the same way it did whenever he walked into the room.

The corners of his mouth curled into a subtle smile, as if he knew the effect he had on me. The warmth of his gaze felt like a caress against my skin.

It had been so long since I’d seen him because I’d stopped going home, and when I did, I avoided him like the plague. It hurt too much.

I fixed a look of surprise on my face. “Colt! What are you doing here?”

He cocked his head and shot me the lady-killer grin that made me weak at the knees. “Thought I’d check you were stayin’ outta trouble. It’s been a while, right?”

I studied his beautiful face, and my heart flipped inside my chest as memories of Colt assailed me.

I was a girl of twelve when Dad first brought Colter Van Der Cleeve to the Speed Demons compound. The instant I caught sight of his dark blond hair, boy-band good looks, and cocky smile, everything inside me thudded to life. Colt was different from the other Speed Demons. For a start, he turned out to be uber intelligent, which was my catnip, seeing as I’d grown up in an environment where men used their fists rather than their brains.

Even as a girl, I gravitated toward him, and over time, Colt became the person who helped me with homework because nobody else could keep up. We discussed everything from psychology to anthropology. We watched True Crime shows and debated the intricate facets of human behavior until our voices became hoarse.

Colt challenged me at every turn and made me think for myself.

Then, on my sixteenth birthday, I ran out of the clubhouse to see him casually sitting astride his bike, wearing Ray-Bans, and oozing more sex appeal from his pinky than Jax Teller did in his entirety. He told me to get on the back because he was taking me for cake.

That was the day I fell head over heels in love with him.

“I’m on a job for Prez,” Colt said, pulling me away from my memories. “Ol’ ladies mentioned you were comin’ here tonight, so I thought I’d stop in and see ya.”

“Oh. Well, that’s nice. You haven’t been to see me for months.” I didn’t mention the fact I’d never told the ol’ ladies I was coming here. Iknewhe’d been watching my cell. I’d overheard him and Cash chatting about it when I was home last. It was just as well I had another phone I used for private messages I didn’t want the club to see.

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