Page 12 of That Girl is Trouble

“What about this one?” She trails over the Phoenix on my chest, and I swallow, ignoring the sudden rush of blood I feel flowing to my dick.

“Kat—”

“Or this?” Her touch on my side sends shivers racking through me as her hand moves over the dagger inked into my ribs.

“Got that when I was locked up.”

She hums in response, her fingers lingering on the ink. “What did that feel like? Prison?”

I pause, pondering the question. Couple of us have been inside. Couple of us are still there. Some serving a dime for weapons charges or trafficking, others much longer for much worse. But no one’s really asked me that before. Sometimes they ask about the food or what it was like going four years without pussy or if I was ever at the wrong end of a shiv. No one ever asks what it felt like.

“Hard to explain. Heavy, maybe. Like the walls were pushing down on me. If I thought about it too much, sometimes I couldn’t breathe.” I swallow, the memories cascading through my brain. They’re burned there—the cold walls, the iron bars. Not being able to smell the open air other than the one hour a day I was allowed in the yard. It was fucking torture.

“Home was like that sometimes,” Kat says after a long silence.

I catch her fingers before they can move any lower and press her hand back into her chest. It settles on my bicep, and I let her keep it there.

“After Triss left, home was… quiet. She ignored me, my mom. Not just ignored but… forgot about me. That house was like a—”

“Prison?”

“Right. Sorry. I guess it’s not really the same, is it? Being alone in a quiet house and you being… in there.”

I shrug. “A prison isn’t always concrete walls and iron bars. Some guys inside actually fucking like it in there.” I shake my head. “You fuck up your life so bad that everyone wants you dead, being locked up is four walls of safety. Being out here was their prison. But a man like me in a place like that—a cage—not being able to ride, to live my fucking life.” A shiver ripples over my skin.

She gives my arm a light squeeze, as if she’s trying to comfort me. Another moment with Kat that feels all too intimate.

“It’s not somewhere I can ever go again. I won’t.”

She nods, pulling closer to me. “Tex says it was Graves’s dad you tried to kill.”

I could never regret that, what I did to that bastard after what he pulled on Graves’s mom. Leena was a fucking saint. Practically raised me. And after Graves laid out an absolute beating on his old man for smacking her and his baby sister around, the prick left town, and my dad took Leena as his old lady. Man had loved her since high school. Treated her right. He was good for her.

But then club politics got in the way, and Graves’s bastard father came back and took her—made it personal—raped and beat her until she was near dead. My old man left because of it. Packed up Leena and Graves’s little sister Gracie and drove out to the East Coast, leaving me the keys to his kingdom.

Retaliation is in my blood. It’s what I’m good at. Taking my time. The long game. But the wounds were fresh, and the second I saw Rick McKenna after all that shit, I lost control. I bashed his face in with my fists until he was almost dead. In the middle of the town square.

Guess I should count my blessings I only got four years.

Kat’s voice is quiet when she speaks again. “Why’d you do it?”

“Same reason Graves did what he did last night, Kat. To protect my family.”

Her hands pick up where they left off, wandering over my skin, but I pull her into my chest, locking her arms down under a tight grip.

“Get some sleep,” I say.

Immediately, she relaxes against me.

Comfort.

Safety.

It’s what I tell myself I’m doing. It’s what she needs. A modicum of comfort after what happened. A safe haven under my roof. Tomorrow morning, Jess will ride in, and shit will go right back to how it was—me mostly ignoring her, and her mostly being a pain in my ass.

Tomorrow, there will be no more of this.

That’s what comforts me into sleep. And when I wake, I’m greeted by Kat’s sleeping form for the second morning in a row. Her hair all over me, her body coiled around me.

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