How long had it been since he’d seen that smile?
When she didn’t follow them out, he crossed the road, and walked around the building to the back of the shop. Jagger had spent the morning with her, and whatever she’d told him made his best friend unusually distant and frustratingly uncommunicative. But he had grunted his approval when Zane offered to take first watch on the shop in case Axle returned.
Although tempted to look in the window, he didn’t want to scare her, so he leaned against a storage shed across from the back door. Should he wait or should he go in? What would he say? Did he really want to see her?
What the hell was he doing here?
He pushed away from the wall, intending to return to his bike when the shop door opened.
Evie.
Although he was prepared this time, he couldn’t stop the rush of blood pounding through his veins when she stepped onto the gravel, a piece of fairing in her hand. She wore tight jeans that clung to the swell of her hips, and a T-shirt, cut low enough to expose the crescents of her breasts. Her ponytail swayed gently as she held the fairing up to catch the light. More beautiful now than she had been as a girl. His words died in his throat. All but one.
“Evie.”
She froze, her head snapping to the side. And then her eyes widened. Recognition dawned. With a gasp, she dropped the fairing and staggered back. “Zane.”
He had imagined this moment every night for the last nine years: the words he wanted to say; the emotions he’d kept bottled up inside—anger, despair, loneliness, and a pathetic longing that just wouldn’t go away. In the fantasy, he lambasted her for not waiting for him, accused her of betraying him, let loose a stream of shouts and curses about her inconstancy, and after unburdening his heart, he walked away.
But he did none of those things. Instead, he concentrated on fighting back the desire to take Evie into his arms and hold her, the way he’d held her the last time they were together. Although his need for redress was strong, stronger still were the feelings he’d had for her since he was ten years old.
“I thought it was you,” she said softly. “Last night, when you spoke … your voice, and the way you were standing … but when you didn’t say anything—”
“You look good. Older.” Fuck. Not the right thing to say to a woman, but his tongue wasn’t working the way it should. She was beautiful and sexy, with a confidence she hadn’t had as a girl. But he hadn’t expected any less. She had always taken his breath away.
“Well, it has been nine years. People change,” she said bitterly. “Although it seems you haven’t, except for the whole biker thing. Still the silent, brooding type skulking in the shadows. I mean, who doesn’t say hello when you’re standing in front of someone you haven’t seen for nine years?”
“Had a job to do.”
“So did Jagger and yet he managed to say hello.”
Damn. This wasn’t going well. He cocked his head to the side and forced a smile, as if her anger hadn’t touched him where it hurt the most. “Hello, Evie.”
A smile ghosted her lips, and her voice lost its edge. “Hello, Zane. I go by Evangeline now.”
Encouraged by her gentle tone, he took one step, then another, until he stood only a foot away, close enough to see her eyes glisten. “Why? You hated that name.”
Desperate to touch her, connect, assure himself she was real, he cupped her jaw and stroked his thumb over her cheek. So soft. So utterly perfect. Did her hair still feel like silk? Did she still wear jasmine perfume? Without thinking, he leaned down, his lips brushing over the curve of her ear as he inhaled her scent and then …
She slapped him.
His head snapped to the side under the force of her blow and the pain shook him out of the haze that had brought him to her side. He grabbed her hand and slammed it up over her head against the metal door, an instinctive reaction and one born of years of hard living. Evie’s eyes widened, and then she scowled.
“You have no right to touch me. After you left, after I lost everyone I cared about, I had to start over.” Her jaw tightened and she lifted her chin, her eyes both defiant and challenging. “I married Mark Dubois after I gave up hoping you would ever come back. He always knew me as Evangeline.”
He threw down his own gauntlet, one that he had carried for years. “I saw you together,” he spat out. “And your boy.” He drew in a ragged breath. “Because I did come back, Evie. Just like I promised. You didn’t wait.” He leaned in toward her, resting his forearm against the door beside her head, her wrist still in his grip. Intimidating? Yes, given his size relative to hers and the fierce emotion that made his body shake. But she wasn’t scared. Fear made Evie tremble and she wasn’t trembling now.
“I waited three long years for you.” Her eyes blazed with fury despite the fact he was holding her against the wall, caging her with his body, more than capable of breaking the fine bones of her wrist with only the slightest squeeze of his hand. But his Evie had never been a coward.
“Everyone said you killed my dad, but I didn’t believe them,” she continued. “I said you weren’t a killer. I said the Zane I knew would never do anything like that. You would never hurt me that way. So I waited for you. I thought you’d come back for me. Explain. But you never did.” Her voice tightened with emotion. “How hard would it have been to call or text? How long did you expect me to wait? But that’s not what it was about, was it? You got what you wanted from me and moved on. You hurt me, Zane. You made me realize I didn’t know you at all.”
He would have waited for her forever, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. Not when she was clearly lying to him. “You already had a kid when I came back,” he growled. “So don’t pretend you waited. He was walking for fuck sake. How long was it? One month? Two? Were you seeing him before I left?”
Bile rose in his throat at the thought of her and Mark together. A rising star on the football team, Mark had been sidelined after he was arrested for drunk driving. Zane had warned him away from Evie shortly after he was released on bail. She’d suffered enough with an alcoholic parent. She didn’t need to be dumped back in the cycle again. His Evie deserved better.
Better than Zane.
“No.” All the anger and passion drained out of her and she sagged against the wall, his hand on her wrist seeming to be the only thing that held her up. Evie? Backing down from a fight? Emotion welled up in his chest, an unfamiliar, uncomfortable sensation. He didn’t do emotion. He didn’t do feelings. He’d locked up that side of himself long ago when he became a Sinner and channeled all his energy into the club.
“Evie?”
“Let me go.” Her words were barely a whisper and his anger faded beneath a wave of concern when she tilted her face to look up at him, her eyes pleading. Maybe if he kissed her, the emotions would go away. He would know that there was nothing left between them. He would feel it in his bones. He might even taste Mark on her lips. Then he would finally be able to move on.
Still holding her hand against the door, he gently traced the bow of her mouth with his thumb. As a teenager, he’d dreamed about her ripe, sensual mouth, and when he’d finally kissed her that night by the creek, her lips were softer and sweeter than he had ever imagined.
Her lips parted and she pressed her free hand against his chest, then bunched his shirt in her fist, as if undecided whether she wanted to pull him forward or push him away. Zane took advantage of her indecision to lean closer. She smelled of jasmine and the warm summer nights when they lay in the grass and looked up at the stars. The world faded beneath the pounding of his heart and the raging desire to taste her again.
“Zane. Please…”
But he was already moving, his head dipping down, his body unable to resist the pull of yearning … And then she stiffened and shoved him away.
“Behind you! It’s Axle. He’s got a gun!”
“Leave her alone, Sinner,” Axle shouted. “She’s not yours to take.”
Fucking Axle.
“
It’s okay, Axle,” Evie said. “He’s a friend.”
What the fuck?
Axle’s bitter laughter rang out around them. “Not to me, and definitely not to Viper.”
“Don’t move until I turn around.” Zane slid his free hand beneath his cut. “Then get the hell out of here. That your car parked out front?”
Her eyes darted over his shoulder, and then she nodded. “But what about you?”
“I’ll be cleaning up the mess.” His hand closed over the weapon holstered at his side, and he loosened his grip on her wrist. “Ready?”
“Ready. But … you can’t kill him, Zane. He’s not here to … You’re not a…” She choked on the last word, and he knew right then why she hadn’t waited for him. She thought what all of Stanton thought. Zane was nothing. He’d come from nothing. Worthless. No good. And a killer.
Her lack of trust was a sledgehammer to his gut, and the heat between them gave way to a chill that froze his heart.
“Go. I don’t know what the hell is going on with you and the Jacks, but Axle betrayed the Sinners and killed one of my brothers. His life is forfeit and we’ve been after him a long time.”
He spun and fired, covering her escape around the side of the building, but Axle had anticipated his move. He dove behind the shed and returned fire. Unprotected, with nowhere to take cover, Zane pulled the trigger again and again, dodging Axle’s return fire. Bullets pinged off the concrete beside him as he reached for the door. Finally, he felt the smooth surface of the handle beneath his palm. Wrenching the door open, he stepped inside and leaned against the wall to catch his breath.
“You’re going down, Zane!” Axle shouted. “I know you were the one who held the torch that burned off my tat, and you were the one who fucking shot me in the leg up at Whitefish last year. You don’t know whose girl you’re messing with.”
Zane peered out from behind the wall and pumped bullets at the shed. Dammit. Axle had more lives than one hundred frickin’ cats. They’d kicked him out of the club, beaten him, taken his bike, burned off his tat, wounded him in a gunfight, and hunted him relentlessly for over a year all to avenge the disrespect he had done to the Sinners. And he just came back, again and again, first as a thieving contractor, then as a member of the Jacks, and now …
Now he had some kind of mark on Evie.
Mark. If not for the bullets flying at his head, he might have pondered the irony. Instead, he shoved a new magazine in his gun. He couldn’t get rid of Mark, but he sure as hell could get rid of Axle.
* * *
“So … when is your date with old Vipe?” Connie leaned against her car, a red Pontiac G6 convertible that she had financed to the hilt. She’d promised Ty a ride home from summer camp in style and that didn’t mean chugging through Conundrum in Evie’s beat-up Ford Focus.
Evie waved to one of the mums waiting in the school parking lot for the camp bus. “Don’t call him Vipe. His name is Viper.”
“That can’t be his real name. His momma didn’t pick him up from the cradle all bundled in a blue teddy bear blankie and say, ‘He’s so cute. Let’s name him Viper.’”
Evie’s cheeks heated and she twirled a strand of hair around her fingers. “It never came up. Bill brought him around to the shop and introduced him as Viper, said he wanted some detail work and that was it. He never told me any other name and after our second date, I was too embarrassed to ask.”
Still, she couldn’t deny her attraction to the president of the Black Jacks. Tall, with a barrel chest, two full sleeves of tats, and a cut worn and heavy with patches, Viper screamed danger with every stride of his long legs. Although he was almost twenty years older than her, hardened by life on the street, and striking rather than handsome with his long black hair fading to gray, and a broad scarred face, weathered and worn, he dominated every room with the force of his presence alone. And when he focused all that power on her, Evangeline Monroe, single mom and custom painter, he was difficult to resist.
“So you call him Viper? How’s that gonna go down in the sack? Give it to me hard, Viper? Lick me there, Viper? Although snakes do have forked tongues…” Connie pushed up her enormous sunglasses, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the bright sunshine glaring off the asphalt. “Come to think of it, Viper does have a bit of a badass ring to it.”
“I don’t know if it will get that far,” Evie said, blushing. “I’m not sure where things are going with him anymore.”
A grin split Connie’s face. “’Cause of the ex of sex? Mr. Deep, Dark, and Delicious? You gonna get back together?” Connie knew all about Evie’s recent encounter with Zane and their past together. She was the sister Evie always wished she had, although with a bigger mouth and a sharper tongue.
“No. Definitely not.” Evie sipped her second iced coffee of the day. She needed at least three cups of caffeine to keep going; four if she didn’t get a good night’s sleep, which was basically every night for the last four nights since she’d seen Zane.
Alone in the darkness with nothing to occupy her thoughts, the emotions she’d bottled up over the years, the hopes and dreams that had shattered when she realized he wasn’t coming back, came spilling out. Every night she tossed and turned. And she thought about him.
She slid her hand into her purse, her finger stroking over the edge of the picture frame Zane had given her all those years ago. On impulse, she’d grabbed it this morning and put it in her purse, with half a mind to talk to Ty about the man in the picture who so closely resembled him.
Damn Zane looked good. No. Not good. Breathtaking. Older, yes, but age had just made him sexier His tall, lean frame was now filled out with solid muscle; his face hard and weathered; and his jaw rugged and rough with a five o’clock shadow. Only his eyes hadn’t changed, and his dark, piercing gaze still sent a delicious shiver through her body.
But who did he think he was, showing up after all those years and thinking they’d pick up where they left off? That slap should have showed him she wasn’t the same girl he left behind—the girl who waited by her window all night after her dad sent him away, and for another three years because her heart couldn’t believe what all of Stanton believed to be true.
She tucked the picture away and zipped up her purse. Eight years ago she laughed and ran, climbed trees and took risks simply because she knew Zane would be there to catch her. Now she had her life together, and she knew better than to trust a handsome face.
Which was one of the reasons she’d agreed to go out with Viper. No chance of losing her heart to a man who looked so fierce and feral it was hard to believe he was as articulate, entertaining, and well-mannered as he had been with her—albeit, his sexual restraint was somewhat disappointing.
“What about Ty?” Connie asked. Connie and Ty were very close and she had already expressed her concern that Zane might not want to have anything to do with his son.
“I’m not sure yet. I need to give it some thought.” Her hand hovered over her purse again. “He has a right to know about his son, and I need to know the truth of what happened that night. But I don’t want Ty to get hurt if Zane’s not interested in being part of his life. Zane didn’t come looking for me. If he hadn’t been chasing Axle, he would have been content to spend his life not knowing or caring where I was.”
“Well, you probably don’t have to worry about it.” Connie ran her fingers through her hair. She’d added blue and red streaks after Ty’s favorite superhero character as a welcome home-from-camp surprise. “Sounds like you slapped some sense into him and now that he’s got Axle, he has no reason to come back.” She paused and frowned. “What’s Vipe gonna think about man getting shot by your ex at your shop? What if he thinks you’re involved?”
“I’m not. And I’m definitely not interested in getting it on with a man who would shoot someone in cold blood.”
“’Cause Vipe’s such a saint, is that right?”
“You’re very irritating.” Evie huffed. “Did I ever tell you that? And I haven’t seen any evi
dence that Viper is a bloodthirsty killer. He’s a biker is all.”
Connie laughed. “I call ’em as I see ’em, and right now I see you still got feelings for Zane ’cause it’s only eleven o’clock and you’re on your second coffee of the day, which means you can’t sleep. Not only that, you’re already having second thoughts about the first guy who’s caught your interest since I’ve known you. Not that I’m in Vipe’s corner, but so far he’s treated you good and you were all excited when Axle showed up to set up the next date.”
“Maybe he’s too old for me.” Evie lowered her voice when she spotted one of Ty’s friend’s moms headed in their direction.
“Didn’t seem to bother you until you laid eyes on the same version—intense outlaw biker, leather cut, kick-ass bike—but twenty years younger.” Connie mused. “I sense a little age discrimination going on. Lookit those fifty-plus movie stars getting hitched to women twenty or thirty years younger. You don’t hear those women whining that their man is too old.”
“That’s true. But when I think of Viper in bed as compared to … oh, I don’t know … maybe Zane, there really is no contest.” She glanced at Connie, blushed. “Of course I’ve never slept with Viper and only once with Zane, and that was in a forest on some scratchy leaves and cold grass with rocks digging into my ass, so it’s not really a fair comparison—more of a thought comparison—but, my God, you should see the pipes on Zane now, and that chest…”
“I’m not wearing pink to your wedding,” Connie said. “I have a closet full of pink frothy bridesmaid dresses. I want something slick and chic. Maybe black leather if you’re getting hitched to a biker.”
The school bus door opened and the crowd surged forward taking Connie and Evie with them. “Nice to see you’re already getting me married off,” Evie braced herself against the stampede. “If the day ever comes, I won’t want a wedding. So no need to worry that I’ll deck you out in flamingo pink.” She waved when Ty appeared at the top of the stairs.
The Sinner’s Tribe Motorcycle Club, Books 1-3 Page 69