Page 51 of Jett

I clamp a hand over my mouth. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s true. I’m just ... I’m just so tired lately.”

“You been sleepin’ okay?”

“Sure, when my anxiety isn’t through the roof and I don’t have to get up a thousand times a night.”

“We can get the butcher to get you some pills if you like? It’d help with the sleepin’.”

“I’m okay. It’s just been a big few weeks.”

“Weeks or years?”

I smile. “Both?”

“Well, I better let you get some sleep.” He stands and drains his bottle dry, moving into the kitchen to set it on the counter.

“Jett?”

“Yeah?”

“Will you stay?” I’m so surprised by the words that come out of my mouth that I bite my lip and wish I’d had the forethought to bite my damn tongue instead. “I mean ... that came out wrong. I just ... do you want to stay and watch a movie with me?”

“A movie?”

“Yeah. We could Netflix and chill, only ... without the chill because ... married.”

“What’s that code for? Sex?”

“Are you kidding me? How do you not know what Netflix and chill means?”

“Darlin’, I run a nefarious biker club. I can’t remember the last time I turned on a TV that wasn’t hooked up to a surveillance camera, let alone had time to Netflix andchill.”

“That’s a good point. I guess I never realised how much of your life the club takes up. I mean, obviously I know, because you’re there all the time.”

“Yeah, sometimes I think my wife preferred it that way.”

“Do you ... do you miss her?”

He gives me a wistful smile. “Sometimes. Most nights I’m too busy at the clubhouse to think about her, and others I wake in a cold sweat, seeing her eyes staring up at me from that box.”

“I’m sorry,” I say and stand abruptly, heading to the kitchen to grab him another beer.Why did I ask him that? What the hell did I hope to gain by making him talk about his dead wife?

I fill the kettle and put it on as Jett follows me into the kitchen and leans against the counter opposite me. Even now, standing here at the end of a long, emotional day, he looks sinful in his leathers and with his dusty blond hair and that beard I want to scratch. I open the fridge and grab him another beer, popping off the top and handing it to him.

“You usually ask a man a question and walk away while he’s pouring his heart out to you?”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I ... I still feel responsible.”

“How? Were you the one to decapitate her and mail her head to me in a box?”

I swallow hard and close my eyes. I know this kind of violence is normal for him. The Saints see brutality like that every day, and they still get up each morning. But I can’t help the visceral effect his words have on me, or the way my stomach lurches when I recall Jett opening that box—when I saw the horror, grief and anguish on his face, or the vengeance reflected in his eyes afterward. I will my tears away, but they spill over my lashes and I turn and pour myself a tea even though the kettle hasn’t quite finished boiling.

“Raine,” Jett says, his tone gentle and coaxing and far closer than I imagined. He stands behind me, his heat prickling the tiny hairs on the back of my neck and spine. He slides his beer onto the kitchen bench in front of me and his hand snakes around my waist, turning me in his arms.

“I can’t,” I whisper, afraid to look him in the eye, afraid I’ll see his desire reflected there and give in. “I can’t do this again.”

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