“Next time you’re out in the Pittsburgh area, maybe you and me can go shooting,” Brick suggested to Brooke as they stood in her garage. The two now unconscious Warriors had already been thrown into the back of a blacked-out SUV that looked like it had been swiped from the military.

“You’re a good shot?” Brooke asked.

Brick only smiled but Mercy and Ryder laughed.

“Sometimes he can hit a target,” Ryder said, clapping Brick on the back. He eyeballed the two Harleys. “Why does it have to be December and a three fucking hour trip back? I won’t see my fucking balls ‘til spring.”

“You can’t find your balls now,” Brick told him.

“Found his balls. They were in your mouth,” Mercy said to Brick.

Ryder grabbed his crotch. “Suck ‘em, bitch.” He glanced at the bikes again and shuddered. “Fuck. This ride’s gonna suck.”

“Sure fucking is,” Brick agreed. “Not sure what you bikers see in riding your sleds in fucking winter. Nobody can be that dedicated.”

Dex shrugged. “Ain’t a pussy. Unless there’s snow an’ ice on the roads, my ass is on my sled. That’s where it belongs, not in a damn cage.”

Brick stepped closer to Brooke and lowered his voice. “When you want a real man... One that’s almost as good a shot as you, and’s got more brains to know better than to ride a bike in December, then look me up next time you’re west of here. Yeah?”

Dex went solid, not only at Brick hitting on his woman, but because he moved to touch her cheek. Dex took a step forward to intervene, but as Brick reached out, Brooke stepped back out of range. He couldn’t help but grin at that.

Brooke raked her gaze over Brick. “You’re probably not as good as me,” she stated with arms crossed over her chest.

That got D’s crew laughing. Ryder and Brick mounted the Harleys, kicking them to life. Mercy gave Dex a two-finger salute and headed to the badass SUV he was driving.

“Thanks for takin’ out the trash,” Dex yelled as Mercy climbed into the driver’s seat.

“My pleasure,” Mercy yelled back over the roar of the sleds as they pulled out of the garage and down the road. Mercy followed right behind them.

If Dex had to be in a cage during winter, he wanted to drive whatever the fuck Mercy was driving. It was badass.

“What was funny? Are they misogynic assholes, too? They don’t believe women can be better than men at anything?”

“Brick’s a sniper. Or was,” Dex said, raking a hand through his hair. “Fuck. Probably still is.”

Brooke glanced in the direction the men went. “Oh.”

Dex tucked a finger under her chin and turned her face toward him until her blue eyes met his. “Yeah. Oh. Ain’t shootin’ with ‘im.”

“Well, that’s a given since I don’t plan on being in the Pittsburgh area anytime soon.”

“That ain’t why. But, babe, you’re headin’ back to Shadow Valley with me.”

“No,” she shook her head, pulling away from him. “I’m not. I have a business to run, a house to clean up and evidence of a shooting to get rid of. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Babe...”

“No, Dex. I’m not leaving.”

It was time for him to step up and take charge, whether she liked it or not. He was not going to give even a little on this point. “Babe.”

“Dex.”

He didn’t want to get into an argument about it. He needed to somehow convince her it was for her own good, but he needed do it in a way that didn’t get her hackles raised. “Just for a few days at least. ‘Til shit cools down.” There was no way Dex was leaving her here alone. Not when Mercy just drove off with the Shadow Warrior’s president. The man would never be seen again. However, that didn’t mean the remaining Warriors wouldn’t come looking for their leader.

If any of them had known Sandman and Crank’s plans, it would lead them right to Brooke.

He couldn’t leave her alone. Fuck no. He didn’t care how good of a shot she was. He didn’t give a shit if she had the most expensive alarm system in the fucking world. He was not leaving her behind.

And he didn’t belong here in Harrisburg. He needed to get back home. Z needed to call an Executive Committee meeting and Dex damn well needed to provide not only the evidence of the diary, but tell them what a down and dirty snake Pierce was.

Standing in her garage, he studied the woman before him. The woman who had flipped some sort of switch inside him. Showed him his true self.

He never thought that would ever happen.

His whole life, growing up in the club, growing up around bikers, he knew he wanted to follow in his uncle and grandfather’s footsteps. Hell, it was in his blood. Did he really have another choice?

Probably. Like Mitch and Axel, he could’ve just walked away. But he never felt that need to separate himself from his DAMC family, from his real family. The DAMC was his tribe. But becoming a prospect, and later being patched in, was all expected. And it wasn’t that he didn’t want it. He did. So he did it without hesitation.

But he was never like his “brothers.” Not quite. He had a good fucking life but something always felt off. Like a small part of him was missing. But he never could figure out what the fuck it was or why.

He knew it wasn’t that he wanted to go to college or have some fancy career. He didn’t have any desire to be some rich fucker. To wear suits. Have a nine to five. He was happy with how he lived. He didn’t mind working hard. Even if he had to work for Ace and, in turn, the club and not himself. He was fine with that.

But again, there was always a piece of him that was left unsatisfied. A craving for something he couldn’t identify. An unscratchable itch.

No woman—hell, even multiple women in his bed at the same time—ever satisfied him completely. He could bust a nut until he was drained dry, but once he rolled off whoever was beneath him, he felt empty, but in a different way.

He’d gone through pussy like water. Fuck, more like watered-down beer.

But the woman standing before him wasn’t beer. Wasn’t even Jack Daniels. Fuck no. She was like a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue. And that quality sip of whiskey was worth every fucking cent.

She stirred something in him that he couldn’t get elsewhere. And he didn’t want to even try, because he knew it was impossible.

This woman got him. She understood what he needed. How she fucking did it, he didn’t have a fucking clue.

She was what he needed. The satisfying scratch to that unfulfilled itch.

Because of that, there was no fucking way he was leaving her behind. No way he was leaving her vulnerable to the Warriors.

For if they had raped her earlier this morning...

If they had injured her in any way...

If they came back and tried it again... Even if it wasn’t for Pierce this time, but for revenge on taking out their prez...

His nostrils flared and his chest tightened.

No. Just fucking no. She was just going to have to let him be in charge right now. Let him make the decisions that were best for her.

He just didn’t know how to go about it without pissing in her Cheerios.

“Babe,” he began, stepping up to her in the cold garage, cupping her cheek and running his thumb over her soft skin.

She shook her head, breaking the contact, her eyes unreadable. “Please don’t declare some sort of affection for me right now.”

His head jerked back and he dropped his hand like it had been burned.

“I see it on your face, Dex. I see you struggling with something. I just... I just can’t right now. Not now.”

Dex heard her unspoken words in his head: maybe not ever.

She waved her hand toward the direction Mercy and his men went. “This shit is not my life. It’s yours.”

He dropped his head and stared at his boots for a moment, trying to slow his racing heart, his racing thoughts.

After a moment, he lifted his head to face her head-on. “Babe, I didn’t bring you into this life, you did. The minute you stepped into Shadow Valley. Actually, the fuckin’ second you decided to find your father. An’ when you walked into the pawn shop, you walked into my life.”

Her brows furrowed as she stared at him. “I had no idea about any of this. About what that diary would lead me to. I didn’t even realize what my mother’s words really meant until after I was in Shadow Valley. I had read it, yes, but I refused to really see through the words to their true meaning. I wish I never found that fucking diary.”

Dex closed his eyes at the hurt in her voice and curled his fingers into his palms. If she hadn’t found that diary, read those cryptic words, he never would have met her. He’d still be feeling unsatisfied, still be searching for what he had no idea he was looking for. Something he’d never find in random snatch.

That needed to end. Here and now.

“Brooke,” he began again.

“No, Dex. I can’t do this with you. I have a very successful business here. I own a house here. In Harrisburg. Our lives couldn’t be more different. Just because we connected,” she waved a hand around, “sexually doesn’t mean we should be together.”

No way in hell was this all about the sex. “Didn’t fuckin’ say—”

She stopped him with a raised palm. “You don’t need to say it. I see it written across your face. Even in the small amount of time we’ve spent together, I’ve learned to read you.”

That’s because he allowed her that. He never would have permitted that with anyone but her. He was himself around her. Open. Not worried about judgement.

He never in his fucking life felt that around anyone else. Even his family. His brothers.

That was one reason why he’d always kept his nipple rings a secret and had even forced the sweet butts to keep their traps shut about it.

Brooke continued, “I understand why you’re feeling the way you do. I do. I...” Her words drifted off and she turned to avoid meeting his gaze.

Dex lost his breath as he watched her shoulders curve, almost as if in defeat. This strong fucking woman. The strongest one he ever met next to Bella. And all the DAMC women were as strong as fuck. But to see her shoulders round and her head drop into her hands twisted his gut.

Not once had she broken down with the threat of rape, the threat of death, the threat of two fucking Warriors with guns in her home. But this? This defeated her somehow?

This connection between them?

Dex considered this only the beginning. They were only finding each other now. If he left and headed home while she stayed here...

That connection could be broken. And what scared him the most was that it could be severed permanently. Once he was out of her life, away from her, she could shut that damn door and lock it.

Because who in their right mind wanted to deal with the shit the DAMC was dealing with?

D’s crew might take their president out, cut the head off the snake but the Warriors still had the rest of the body, even if it was getting thin. And then there was Pierce.

A man who raped her mother. A man whose blood ran through her veins. The man who unknowingly fathered Kelsea. The man who framed Z for selfish reasons. The man who sent Dex’s sister, Ivy, into a situation that could have ended in disaster.

And who knows what other shit Pierce had done throughout the many years he was an Angel. These were only the things that were coming to light. Dex wondered what still remained in the dark.

“Need to get back, Brooke, but can’t leave you here,” he said softly. “Need to go deal with Pierce.”

At her father’s name, her head shot up and he could see her visibly take a deep breath.

He waited for her to say she wasn’t going. That he could fuck off. That she was capable of taking care of herself.

He was floored when she didn’t.

Instead, she turned her head and glanced over her shoulder at him as she pressed the button for the automatic garage door. “I’ll go. For a few days. That’s all. Then I’m coming back here.”

Relief washed over him. That at least gave him some time.

Not just time to keep her safe, but time to figure out what he wanted with her and how he was going to get it. Maybe it’d give him time to convince her to give him a fucking shot.

She opened the door that separated the garage from the house. “It’ll give me an opportunity to face Pierce.”

Ah fuck.

She had let herself feel something for the man who laid beneath her. Something she’d never felt before. Brooke wasn’t sure if she liked that feeling because she was never one to be emotionally clingy.

And if she was going to be, she wasn’t sure if Dex was the right man to cling to. Though, at the moment, she was riding his cock in a room at the Shadow Valley Motor Inn, so she wasn’t quite “clinging.”

His fingers dug into the flesh of her hips as she rose and fell at a slow pace. She was purposely drawing out both her release as well as his. Why? Because their time was coming to an end soon. She had only agreed to come back to his hometown to face Pierce. To look that man in the eyes and see if he held any regret for changing her mother’s life in only one night. That was all it took to change everything for her mother. Hell, not even one night. Probably not even ten minutes.

So, here she was savoring her own minutes with a man she wanted to be with. Maybe not forever, but for at least this moment.

A man who was much more complex on the inside than what his outside showed the rest of the world. Beneath his biker exterior, there were more levels to Dex than most people could see.

She had peeled away a few of those layers from him during those days they spend together the last time she was in Shadow Valley. In those two nights at her home in Harrisburg, she had also uncovered a few more. Away from everything he knew, he had opened up, whether he realized it or not. He could drop the badass biker persona and show Brooke who Dexter Dougherty really was.

She didn’t quite like the fact that he had to hide the real Dex away. But real or not, he looked right sitting on the bike he rode in the bitter-cold weather for three hours on their trip back to town. She had followed him in her car with her heat blasting, as if in some way that would help keep him warm.

“Babe,” he murmured.

She opened her eyes, not even realizing she had closed them, and met his dark gaze.

“Where d’you go?”

“Nowhere. I’m here,” she whispered. Her pace had come to almost a complete halt. She began again.

“You okay?” he asked, apparently not believing her.

“Yes,” she answered. “I’m fine.”

He still didn’t believe her. Like she told him in her garage, she had somehow learned to read him. She’d never had that connection with a man before.

Or maybe she just never wanted to.

But why him? What was it about this man that made her feel differently?

Maybe it was because he wasn’t anything like the typical man she’d dated in the past. Not that Dex and her were dating. The only label that could be put on what they were doing was... screwing.

That was it.

She paused, planting her palms on his chest and leaning forward until her mouth hovered over his. “We’re screwing.”

His lips twitched. “Yeah.”

She hadn’t tied him up this time. Sadly, her rope and both sets of cuffs had disappeared with those Warriors. And she didn’t pack any of her toys because she wasn’t planning on staying long.

Just long enough to confront Pierce. To spend a few more fleeting moments with Dex. Even if they ended up being vanilla moments.

However, she wasn’t picking up her life and moving it here to Shadow Valley to have some fantasy fairytale happily-ever-after with this biker. He wasn’t picking up his, either, to move closer to her.

Things like that didn’t happen in real life. Books? Movies? Songs? Yes.

But not in real life.

Real life was way more complicated than that.

As she pressed her lips softly to his, he inhaled her breath and then gave it back. She accepted it, closing her eyes, appreciating something she wasn’t used to.

It wasn’t normal for her. Probably not for him, either.

Tenderness.

Right now, she had no urge to bite his lip, scratch his flesh, leave her marks over his skin.

No. She felt no need for that right now.

Right now, it was just him and her. Their breath intermingling, their tongues touching, their lips melding. She couldn’t ignore how he filled her. How deep he was inside her. Not just his cock. But him.

Dex.

Brooke pushed up and away to stare down at him, her heart beating furiously in her chest. She tried to swallow the little bit of panic that bubbled up. Just as she tried to beat down the warm feeling that swirled around her, pulling her deeper. Drowning her.

She had left Shadow Valley the first time because she was afraid of losing herself.

But maybe that wasn’t it at all.

Maybe...

Just maybe...

She was afraid of finding herself instead.