Page 3 of Savage Lust

Then he surprised me. “Want a beer?”

Without waiting for a response, he turned and stalked from the room. I got a good look at the back of his vest. Desert Kings MC. He was a member of Rick Bowman’s motorcycle club. Not how I envisioned my introduction to these guys.

I followed him, not so much for the beer, but propelled by some sort of enigmatic force. If he was even a little like how Mom had described these guys, I should be running the other way. Instead, I was slinking into the kitchen, looking at my feet, thankful he couldn’t read my mind.

If he could, he’d be getting up close and personal with how much I’d enjoyed having him on top of me. A scuffle on the bed had been better than my sweaty, awkward, high school make out session with the neighbor.

With a guy like this, things would be very different.

My cheeks heated with the thought.

“What are you doing here, darlin?”

“Riley.” I sat at the scuffed, round wooden table and took the beer he handed me. “But you already knew that.”

No way was he more than five years older than me, if that. In the kitchen light, his face was younger—like he wore the goatee to hide his age. Either way, the look was disarming. Everything about him was, especially when he grabbed a pint of ice-cream and a spoon and leaned against the counter while I nursed the beer.

When he caught me staring, he saluted me with the spoon. “I need a clear head.” His eyes were bloodshot, his face still flushed. Weed, alcohol, whatever it was, I doubted he’d been crying in a funeral home pew. “Now, answer my question.” But there was a cool, commanding way he said it. Like he expected people to tell him everything he wanted to know.

“This is my father’s house.” I clutched the beer between us. Not that it was a shield against anything. I didn’t relax. The wayhe’d taken the gun from me and skillfully unloaded it was kind of scary—and exciting.

He’d already proved that I didn’t stand a chance, physically, at defending myself. I should be scared, yet I wasn’t. I was too tired to calculate the risk. The adrenaline was wearing off and left me deflated and tired.

The worst part was, I had nowhere else to go.

He pulled the spoon between his lips, licking it clean. My eyes hung to every motion, no matter how hard I tried to look away. “No shit. Same father you’ve never been to visit.”

I took a long swallow, tried not to choke on the thickness of the beer—the almost bread like taste. Anything to distance myself from the seething accusation in his voice. “Not that it’s any of your business, but he didn’t seem to want much to do with me. The first contact I had with him was a letter from his lawyer that he died.”

He paused with a spoon full of ice cream a few inches from his lips. “When was that?”

“Fuck off.” I needed to be nicer. I had the feeling that if he didn’t want me here, it would be a problem. I didn’t need any more of those. I had plenty already.

I never imagined my life would come down to having to ass kiss some random biker douche just to survive.

Could be worse. I gripped the bottle tight and tried not to think about the shifty truckers and drug dealers that populated the truck stop I’d slept at for months.

He didn’t respond but ate his ice cream like it was the last remaining tether to his patience and waited for me to cave. Because he knew I would. Guys like him were used to always getting their way.

“Earlier this week. I have to be here for the reading of the willandthe funeral.” My inner independent woman groaned.

“Give you keys?”

“Yes. And the code.”

He acted so at ease, so at home here, and it grated on my nerves. “My turn. Who are you?”

“Cam.” He finished off the container and tossed it into the bin a few feet away with a swish of the bag, then dropped the spoon into the empty sink with a clatter.

“Let me see your phone.” He pushed off the counter, hand extended. I was handing it to him before I thought better of it.

His fingers flew across the screen before he passed it back. “If you need me, call me.” He headed toward the door stopping to slip the gun into his pocket. “Set the alarm, get some rest. I’ll be back in the morning before the funeral.”

He didn’t ask why I wasn’t staying at a hotel and of that, I was grateful. One humiliating moment a night was my limit.

two

Cam

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