“Are you willing to show me, or is that an earned privilege?” I asked. It was a dangerous question, one I had no idea I was capable of asking. But with this man, I suddenly felt like I could take on the world in his presence.
His jaw clenched, those midnight eyes lowering to half-mast. Still, he didn’t reply. He didn’t need to. Niyol’s gaze spoke the words his mouth couldn’t—lowering to my breasts, studying their fullness, then moving back up to my lips. In turn, I pulled the bottom one between my teeth, a surge of heat washing over me at my unspoken invitation for him to kiss me.
But seconds passed, followed by what felt like a minute, then two. My skin grew itchy, unnerved. And the more Niyol continued to study me from a distance, making no other move to touch me, the more I realized I’d been reading this situation entirely wrong.
Never did he urge me closer with his words or his hands. Instead, his expression faded from enraptured to… blank. Emotionless. Hard.
Then, as if some internal decision had been made in his head, he grabbed his duffle bag off the floor, tucked it over his shoulder and said, “I’ll meet you in the car.”
My hands stayed frozen at my waist, oxygen trapped in my throat as I blinked back tears of embarrassment.
Oh, God, what had I been thinking?
* * *
“Sorry, kiddo. Car’s dead. Not turning over at all.” My grandpa slammed the hood of my Range Rover shut, his hands greasy, and his arms coated in the same mess.
I glanced at Niyol out of the corner of my eye, painfully aware of his presence, now more than ever. Smudges of dark oil covered his strong nose and cheekbones; a bit on his temple too. Adorable. Sexy. And scary as hell. A man I’d nearly thrown myself at… only to be blown off in the end. Something I was sadly used to in the past, even with the men who supposedly loved me. Men like my father. My brothers, my own fiancé…
At least I had my grandfather to count on.
“Did you turn the ignition off after you got out last night?” I asked Niyol, attempting to keep my voice even.
“Yes,” he answered, his voice emotionless.
I fidgeted with my hands, peeking up at him finally. His eyes were drawn together, focused on the hood.
“So, it’s not the battery then?”
Grandpa answered me first, wiping his hands on the towel flung over his overalls as he did. “Ny checked that out. Said it was good and charged.”
I bristled at the nickname, rubbing my upper arms at the same time. Ny? Since when had they jumped into nickname territory with one another?
“We’re on a schedule,” I huffed, frustration pulling at my chest like a game of tug-of-war. I wanted to get to Denver before nightfall. Do some shopping too. I had plans, and a broken car didn’t exactly coincide with them.
When my schedule was compromised, I struggled to compromise. I was the type of woman who needed order and control to stay functioning. A creature of routine? That was me. This feeling of helplessness was not a good one to have.
“Since when?” Niyol folded his arms, narrowed eyes refocusing on me.
I shivered at the intensity. “Since when what?”
“Since when did we have a schedule?”
“Since before we started driving.” I just hadn’t had a chance to tell him was all. “I have an itinerary in the glove compartment, if you want to see. It’s one of the reasons I agreed to drive you. I want to see the states. Do a few touristy things.” Enjoy life and the freedom of travel. Find myself when I felt so incredibly lost, most of all.
Niyol frowned at me, forehead creased. Another second passed, then two. I rolled my lower lip between my teeth, nervous for his response.
Thankfully, my grandpa chimed in before I said something I didn’t mean. “Ny thinks it might be the radiator. He and I are gonna run into town, grab some fluids and change the oil.”
“I just had the oil changed, that’s the thing.”
“Don’t worry, Princess.” Niyol glared at me. “This is what I do. Fix cars. I’ll figure it out and get you on the road in no time. Would hate for you to go off schedule.”
I mouthed out, Asshole.
Niyol’s reply was a snarky wink.
A few minutes later, I pushed through the front door of the house, livid. What I needed was some comfort food to cleanse my internal irritability.
“Sweetie, I heard the news…” Grams stood at the kitchen sink, her lips turned down in sympathy.
“It sucks. I have reservations at hotels, plans, things I wanted to do along the way too.” I plopped down at the table in the kitchen, greeted with a plate of pancakes and bacon. Orange juice sat to my left and I picked it up, guzzling the cool liquid before I continued. “I just had the thing in for service. Everything was fine. I don’t understand what happened. The oil was freshly checked, and the battery was good. The muffler’s in top-notch shape too. I’m just so… so mad.”
Mad at myself for letting Niyol get to me upstairs.
Mad at myself for not being able to adjust to things when they went awry most of all.
“Eat. One more night here won’t hurt. You and Niyol can even have the place to yourself for a while this evening, rest a little before you start back up on your trip. Grandpa and I go to bingo Saturday nights, and then play bridge with a few other couples afterward.”
I stabbed at my eggs with a fork. “Grams. For the last time. Niyol and I are not…”
The back door squeaked open, and in came Grandpa, laughing at something Niyol was saying. “You’d make a fine fishing buddy, my boy.”
Grinning from ear-to-ear, Niyol sat across from me like everything was just fine and dandy—maybe to him it was. My fingers tightened around my fork even more at the thought, and suddenly the pancakes on my plate were his eyes as I stabbed each piece.
“Fishing would be fun, sir.”
I snorted, then coughed to cover it up. Sir? Did Niyol really just throw down the manners when he’d rarely shown me a single bit of courtesy since we’d started?
“I haven’t done that since I was a kid,” he finished.
Niyol put his hand around the back of Grams’ chair. She leaned close to him, patting his cheek. “Maybe Paul can take you to the farm pond about a mile up the road this afternoon. You two can get some afternoon fishing in. Catch some crappie for dinner.”
Niyol’s smile grew even wider, more genuine, sending a shot of anger and sadness into my belly. Again. Growing up, visiting my grandfather, that’s what the two of us always did. Fish together at the pond. Talk until the sunset about my mother, what she’d been like as a kid. Now Niyol was the one getting to do the thing I craved? Not fishing, exactly, but spending time with one of the only males in my life who I didn’t feel abandoned by.
“I’d like that.” He nodded at Grandpa, who was grinning like he’d won the lotto.
I bet Niyol didn’t have a single clue how to fish. He was just playing like he did to piss me off; grow close to my grandparents, pretend that he was a first-rate asshole instead of a lowly asshole.
“Oh, good. Summer and I’ll run to the store for some sides. Cornbread and whatnot. We’ll make a huge meal of it tonight before we head to bingo.”
Niyol nodded enthusiastically, nothing about him in that moment reminding me of the guy who’d basically written me off as a waste of space. A ride. What was it he’d called me? His chauffeur? At the thought, I gritted my teeth, losing my temper and all sense of who I was—losing my patience most of all.
“Gee, Ny. I didn’t know that fishing was a big pastime for guys like you.”
He stiffened at my words, eyes narrowing at his plate, not me. His reaction had me smiling wider, batting my lashes; innocence guarding my irritation. I’d gotten to him.
“I fished growing up,” he managed, twirling his fork through the butter on his pancake. “Might take it up again when I get to California. Who knows?” He leaned back in his chair with a shrug. The picture of impassive yet again.
Ugh. What would it take to c
rack this man?
I shoveled food into my mouth, mumbling around it. “Sure. Keep telling yourself that, Hawk.”
I heard his quick intake of air, saw his fingers tightening around his fork like my own. I knew little to nothing about Niyol’s life in the club, other than what Emily had told me. One of those things she’d mentioned was the fact that all the club members received names after patching in. And Niyol’s name? It’d been given to him by his father. A man who was no good and had nearly ruined his life. According to Emily, he refused to go by the nickname anymore, especially when it came to civilians. The fact that I’d just rubbed it in and used it? Well, it wasn’t very nice, to say the least.
Surprisingly, Niyol didn’t lose it on me. In fact, after that little outburst, things grew fairly quiet, albeit tense, except for the occasional conversation between Grandpa and Grams—who seemed oblivious to the emotional beatdown I’d basically just given to Niyol in the form of a simple name.
The longer we all sat there, the more guilt wrangled my chest into submission. God, I was stupid. Jealous, too. After that, Niyol refused to look at me, talk to me, even acknowledge me. Instead, he stared at the uneaten food on his plate as though it were his worst enemy, only occasionally nodding at something my grandparents said.
Halfway through our meal, I’d grown too upset to eat. I wasn’t a mean-spirited person. If anything, I was a pushover. I hated how I’d let Niyol get to me upstairs, that was all this was. Why I’d snapped like I did. It wasn’t a worthy excuse by any means. And I was certainly not proud of calling him what I did either. The fact of the matter was, though, I couldn’t take it back. But I could try to make things right.
Somewhere along the way, the two of us had gotten off-track. Now, it was my job to rectify things. Bring us full circle and start over once and for all.
Decision made, I sat up straight and cleared my throat. “Would it be okay if I went fishing with you guys—”
Abruptly, Niyol stood and shoved his chair away from the table, interrupting me. He nodded at my grams and said, Thank you for breakfast, completely ignoring me again as he headed outside. I jumped in my chair when he slammed the door shut in his wake.
Crap. I’d really messed things up.
Seven
Niyol
I’d gone fishing once, damn it. On my tenth birthday with Flick, the second in command for the RDs. Granted, it had been in a shallow creek just outside the compound, and only because Pops had been too busy getting drunk and fucking groupies to even remember what day it was.
But still, it was fishing.
“Niyol?” Summer’s voice cut through the air from the front porch. I stiffened at the sound, wishing she’d just leave me the hell alone. Ignoring her would be even more critical now, especially since I’d let her get to me.
Hawk. She’d called me fucking Hawk.
How had she known?
One day with her and she’d sunk her claws in deep. The second she’d sat across from me in that booth, I’d known she was trouble. Old habits die hard when it came to bad men wanting to corrupt good women. Which was exactly why I was determined to get away from her as fast as I could. Get to Maya and San Diego most of all.
As Flick’s niece, Maya wasn’t good in the traditional sense that Summer was. If anything, she was just like me. A former member of the club, in her own right, raised in the MC world and taught wrong more than right. Besides Slade and Arch, she’d be the only one who’d understand what I went through—what I was going through, more like it.
“I’m so sorry.” Summer’s feet shuffled through the gravel as she approached, tiny whimpers slipping through her lips at the same time. “I didn’t mean to be such a bitch. I’m just stressed. About the car and the delay and… other personal stuff. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“How did you know?” I gritted my teeth. “About my club name.”
A pause. “Emily told me.”
Of course she did. My stepsister had a big mouth on her. I spun around to look at Summer, but wound up scowling at her feet. Fuck. Me. She’d come out here, walking on gravel, barefooted, just to apologize?
“Where the fuck are your shoes?” I asked, looking back under the hood.
“Oh,” she laughed a little. Nervous. I could tell. “I wasn’t thinking. Just took off outside.”
“You’ll cut your damn feet.” And why did I care?
“I’ll walk in the grass on the way back inside.” Her voice was softer then. Maybe she thought I was being nice. Maybe I was.
The thing was, I wasn’t pissed at Summer. I was pissed because everything she’d said inside was true. The life I’d lived, my lack of a father… the whole fishing thing. The lack of real-life experience when all I’d ever known growing up was law-breaking and getting drunk, club life, and all that came along with it.
There I was, running from a place that I was ninety percent sure was where I was meant to be all along. But going back now? I’d be deemed a traitor even more than when I’d ratted out my father. Which was why I had to keep going. I’d made my decision, and now I needed to live with it.
“Niyol?” she whispered my name like she was afraid I was a bomb, seconds from detonating. “Scream at me or do whatever it is you feel like doing. Just please, don’t shut me out. We’ve got days left to go on this trip, and the silent treatment will only make this thing between us worse.”
I grunted, still not looking at her. There wasn’t a thing between us. Never would be either. Which was why ignoring her was so futile.
In a way, I deserved her attitude as much as she did mine. It was a reminder that people like Summer and I weren’t meant to be friends—weren’t meant to feel what I’d felt with her upstairs in that bedroom. That fire sparking between us, ready to engulf us if doused with gasoline.
Bottom line? I was driving cross-country for a chance at a new life. And Summer was a distraction I couldn’t afford.
She leaned back against the bumper and flexed her hands together. “Are you listening to me?”
I glanced down at her pale legs, swallowing hard at the view. The things were endless; muscled and elongated by ass-hugging cutoffs. Fucking sexy. Upstairs I’d wanted them wrapped around me. I’d wanted to bury myself between them. I’d wanted to strip her naked and fuck her until she was limp in my arms. I still did. But again, we weren’t right for each other. If anything, I belonged with someone like Maya, someone who understood where I came from, who I was. Even if I didn’t feel that way about her anymore.
I wiped my hands down the front of my shirt and slammed the hood shut. “Yeah. I’m listening.”
“Okay, good. Because I’d really like it if we could start over. Get to know each other the right way.”
Slowly, I leaned my hip against the front bumper, arms folded. “Fine. Whatever you need.” Though there wouldn’t ever be a right way for anyone to know me, especially not this woman.
She fidgeted with the bracelet she wore around her wrist, crossed and uncrossed those legs, too. “You’re not still mad at me then?”
I reached out and tugged the end of her braid, not even thinking, just reacting. “No. I just think you’re a pain in my ass, is all.”
Doe eyes blinked up at me like she’d been caught in my net, and a sweet smile grazed her lips.
“I am kind of a pain, sometimes. I know. I’ve always said what’s on my mind, not necessarily thinking things through beforehand. It’s probably my worst quality in life, to be honest. But, I’ll try harder to tame it down, okay? Maybe not be so blunt.”
If this was her version of being blunt then I’m pretty damn sure she didn’t know what that word meant in my world. Regardless, my damn chest grew all warm at her confession, the way she looked at me too. Slowly, I dropped my hand away, gaze going to her lips, her pink cheeks too. Fuck, she was pretty. Too pretty for the likes of me.
“It’s fine. I don’t care one way or another. You’re my ride, remember? That’s all.”
“Yes. Okay. Your rid
e.” Her throat worked over as she swallowed, the movement drawing my gaze to her throat. She had two freckles that sat in the center of her neck, and they danced together as her skin moved up and down. “I’ll remember that from here on out.” But her voice caught at the end, proof that she didn’t believe what she was saying.
“Good.” Because someone had to.
She fidgeted some more. “I’m thinking of calling an old friend, seeing as how we’ll be here another night. Her name is Ashley. She’s super funny and charming. Doesn’t talk quite as much as I do, so you’re safe there.” She waited a beat. “Would you mind if I go out with her tonight?”
“Not your keeper.”
Summer nodded, as a heavy, humid breeze blew across our faces. Pieces of her long hair flew upward from under that braid, smacking her across the nose. She sneezed in turn and, Jesus Christ, even that was cute.
I spun around to study the rows of corn beside the house, refusing to look at her any more than I had to.
“We’ll talk later then?” She touched my shoulder. “At dinner? You have to go be all manly and find us food.” She lowered her voice, acting like a caveman.
I stuffed my hands into my jean pockets, fighting a smile. “Yeah. Okay.”
The sound of her ouch had me turning to watch as she walked back to the house, through the gravel, and on her tiptoes. Fingers balled into fists, I fought the urge to scoop her up, carry her inside. But I wasn’t a hero. I was a bad dude who’d done bad things. And the sooner she understood that, the better off we’d be.
* * *
Summer’s grandpa drove me to an autobody shop so I could grab the new cooling belt for the Range Rover. With the old man at my side, I spent the afternoon working on it, teaching him all I knew about car repair. He was a good dude, a fast learner too. Rough in his own right. Served in the military for ten years and came from nothing, kind of like me. I liked the guy. A lot more than I thought I would.
Around three that afternoon, we’d gone to the farm pond, fished like he’d promised. He told me war stories, and, to my surprise, I told him about the club and what had happened to me, preparing for him to either kick my ass, or tell me to leave.
Her Wild Ride: An addictive, steamy biker MC romance suspense novel Page 5