the same way she had back then, those big eyes glazed with fear, and it annoyed me at the same time as it made my chest feel tight. Because I hadn’t wanted her to be afraid of me back then and I didn’t want her to be afraid of me now. It felt...wrong somehow.
I had no idea what was up with that shit because it wasn’t as if I was a nice, caring kind of guy. I was an enforcer, for fuck’s sake. I made sure the brothers stuck to the club rules. And I only cared about three things—my club, my bike and making myself feel good as often as I damn well could.
Nothing else mattered.
Certainly not this scaredy-cat who’d got herself into some pretty deep shit.
But knowing all that didn’t stop the tightness in my chest. And I found myself rubbing her little chin with my thumb as if I wanted to soothe her or something. ‘You gonna tell me what you’re doing here, baby girl?’ I asked, deliberately using the name I used to call her years ago, when I’d wanted to get a rise out of her. I’d always figured that since being nice to her hadn’t got her to be less scared of me, maybe getting her angry would work. ‘Did Crash hurt you? Because I’m telling you right now that if he did, his name is going straight to the top of my shitlist.’
She didn’t respond to me ‘baby girl’-ing her. Instead she swallowed and I found myself staring at the pulse beating in the hollow of her throat. It was fast. Way too fucking fast.
‘Tiger?’ she said at long last, her voice husky and uncertain.
Hearing her say my name like that shocked me. I didn’t know she’d even remembered it, because she’d certainly never used it to my face.
‘Yeah, you know it.’ Her skin was incredibly soft and smooth under my thumb and I couldn’t seem to stop myself from stroking her again. I’d touched plenty of other women so there was no reason why her skin should feel any different. But somehow it did.
She blinked a couple more times, staring at me as if she’d never seen me before in her entire life. Then her gaze slowly dropped to... Holy shit. She was looking at my mouth.
That thing inside me kicked again, harder this time, and I felt my cock stir.
Christ, what the fuck was she doing that for? Didn’t she know what a come on it was?
As if I’d said it out loud, those big blue eyes came back to mine again, and she must have realised what she was doing because suddenly colour washed over her pale skin and she jerked herself out of my grip.
‘Don’t,’ she muttered, bending her head again and looking at her hands twisting in her lap, the long blonde hair in a curtain around her face.
‘Okay. So you can talk.’ I resisted the urge to grab her again, settling for putting my hands in my pockets instead. The warmth of her skin against my fingertips lingered, which pissed me off for no good reason. ‘You wanna answer my question about Crash?’
She was silent and I thought she was going to retreat, but then she said finally, ‘He didn’t hurt me. He was just...insistent.’
‘More than insistent. Looked like he scared the shit out of you.’
‘I wasn’t s-scared.’
‘Yeah, and I’m the fucking Queen of England.’
She didn’t say anything to that, her hands white-knuckled in her lap.
Christ, this silence bullshit was starting to get really fucking annoying.
‘What the hell are you doing here, Summer?’ I demanded, coming to the end of my patience. ‘And look at me when I’m talking to you.’
Finally, she lifted her head, and maybe I was imagining things, but it seemed like her eyes were less dark. I saw a small blue spark had flickered to life in them.
If it was anger, then good. That was way better than fear.
‘Maybe I just wanted to hang out with some b-bikers,’ she said, a defensive note in her voice.
I nearly laughed. ‘Seriously? You were nearly catatonic back there, baby girl. So, no, I’m not buying you wanting to hang out with some bikers.’
That pretty mouth of hers thinned. ‘I’m not a baby and I’m not a girl.’
Yeah, looked like I was annoying her, which was excellent. It also looked like she had a bit of spirit in her after all. Certainly more than she’d had when she was seventeen.
Yeah, and you like that, too.
Which I was not going to think about.
‘I don’t care who you are,’ I said mildly. ‘You’ve got five seconds to give me the truth or I’m taking you straight to Keep and you can tell him.’
Fear flashed in her eyes again, but this time that determined chin firmed. Another good sign. ‘Don’t do that. Please.’
‘Okay, well, you’d better start doing some talking then, hadn’t you?’
Her gaze flicked away from mine. ‘Well...um... I... It’s...uh...’
‘Use your words, baby girl.’
It flicked back, another of those blue sparks flashing, the colour in her cheeks pinker. Much, much better. Annoying her was clearly the way to go. Which was excellent considering I was a master at annoying the shit out of people.
‘Give me one good reason I should tell you.’ She lifted that chin, looking down her nose at me, all haughty and shit. And fuck knows why, but my cock found that extremely hot.
‘Because I asked you,’ I said gently, ignoring my impatient dick.
She frowned. ‘That’s not a good enough reason.’
Holy shit, this woman was a problem.
‘Baby girl,’ I explained, trying to be patient, ‘the way I see it, you have two choices. You either tell me what’s going on right now. Or you tell me what’s going on right now.’
Her frown deepened. ‘But...those two are the same.’
I folded my arms and gave her my enforcer’s smile. The one guaranteed to make a brother wish they’d never been born. ‘Yeah. I know.’
Summer
I SAT ON Tiger’s bed and stared at him, feeling something deep inside me quiver in a way that had nothing whatsoever to do with the weird panic that had overtaken me in Crash’s room.
Or rather, it felt related to fear but not like I was in imminent danger of death or anything. More like when you get on a rollercoaster or a plane taking off, and everything is fast and out of control and it’s freaky and scary at the same time.
Tiger had always had that effect on me. He had been exciting and scary and I just hadn’t known what to do with myself around him.
I still didn’t.
Him suddenly appearing in Crash’s room like some kind of tattooed avenging angel, bringing all my confused teenaged feelings about him flooding back, had made me freeze. Like I just...couldn’t deal with Crash and him and where I was and what was happening all at the same time. And then he’d picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing at all and my brain had simply shut down.
Sometimes it happened to me like that. When I got overwhelmed, I froze. As if I was afraid something worse might happen if I moved.
I hated it. Or rather, I hated myself when I got like that. Especially when it happened in front of someone so strong and in control.
Someone like Tiger.
And he was just as strong and in control now as he had been back when I was seventeen. Just as tall and muscular.