There was only one thing that really scared Caine, and tonight was the second fucking time in the past five months that the Ravens had been forced to deal with it.
Fire.
That fear was a stupid fucking thing to feel when he’d arrived after the fire department had doused most of the flames. It hadn’t happened to him. And he wasn’t the one fighting it. Still, standing on the street outside of Ana Garcia’s downtown row house, Caine struggled to force away the memories that explained just why he hated fire so goddamn much.
Memories of a trapped little girl. Scorched skin. A two-story fall…
Sonofabitch.
Standing beside him, his brother Phoenix Creed shook his head. “This is fucking bullshit.”
Caine nodded, seething that this had happened right under their noses. On the Ravens’ watch. Breaking glass had alerted Ana that something was amiss, allowing her to call 9-1-1 and flee the house in plenty of time. And the close proximity of the downtown fire station meant that the responders had been able to get here fast and confine the worst of the damage to the front of the first floor. So Ana would eventually be able to live here again. In the meantime, she’d be safe living in one of the cabins on their compound—where Dare had already taken her about a half hour before, right after she’d finished talking to the sheriff.
So, as crises went, this one had turned out much better than it might’ve. Not that it made Caine feel one damn bit better.
“Question is, what are we going to do about it?” He arched a brow at Phoenix, whose expression was set in a dark scowl. One that Caine understood, not just because they both felt like they’d dropped the ball here. But also because Phoenix had been the one to bring Ana’s case to the Ravens months before, and he felt a certain investment in her situation as a result.
Phoenix’s eyes narrowed as he watched the firefighters walk through the burned-out first floor, and the anger he wore made the jagged scar he had from eye to ear look that much fiercer. “If this comes back as arson, like we think? Apparently, I’m going to hell, because I’m gonna take this fucking pastor down.”
“I’m a hundred percent sure I already have a reserved parking place down there, so consider me your right-hand man.” Caine clapped Phoenix on the shoulder, and the guy gave him a nod.
Though Caine considered the Raven Riders his family and absolutely knew each and every brother would have his back in a heartbeat, he’d never felt especially close to any of them. It wasn’t that he didn’t put in his time around the club. Hell, he’d served on the board for years now as sergeant-at-arms, so he spent more than a little time with the other board members, including Phoenix and Dare, their leader. But between Caine’s belief that he was safer keeping to himself and his gut-deep fucking fear that no one wanted him around—and that no one would like what they found if he ever let them get close, anyway, his walls remained up. Way up. Even with his brothers.
Except, recently, with Phoenix.
Which was maybe because of some shit that’d gone down at Dare’s house a few months before—and some things that he and Phoenix had had to make right. Together. And maybe it was also because several other members of the inner circle of the club’s board had gone and fallen for the women in their lives, which resulted in Phoenix and Caine spending more solo time hanging out than ever before. And maybe it was because the death of Phoenix’s only other living relative had given them yet something else in common—life had left them riding alone, whether they wanted to or not.
So what friendship Caine was capable of feeling, he felt for the guy.
They made for their Harleys, which they’d parked behind the firetrucks down by the intersection. Despite everything else going on, Caine couldn’t keep his gaze from stretching across to where he’d first met Emma. Emma Kerry, he’d learned by running an easy public-records search. He looked farther down the street, but couldn’t quite make out her house. And it made him fucking itch to go there, check her windows and doors again, maybe even knock on that door and make sure she was still okay.
None of which he was actually going to let himself do. Despite how many times he’d had to resist doing it the past three days.
“What’s that look for?” Phoenix asked.
Caine bit back a curse and blanked whatever expression had hit his ugly mug. “No look.”
Even pissed off as he was, Phoenix managed a you’re-full-of-shit grin. The fucker. “If you say so.”
“You going back to the clubhouse?” Caine asked, changing the subject.
“I don’t know. I’m fucking wired now. Wanna go to the Pit Stop and get a beer and some chili cheese fries? Or, hell, ride up to Mitzi’s?” Phoenix asked.
Neither the old biker bar nor the gentlemen’s club located up Maryland’s Interstate 70 held any interest for Caine. He wasn’t hungry, and he wasn’t looking for some cheap hook-up. Hell, he hadn’t even checked the message boards since he’d gotten home late on Saturday night. Or, more accurately, early on Sunday morning.
In other words, since he’d left Emma’s. And even though he didn’t want to examine that too closely, he was examining the fuck out of that. Because she kept invading his thoughts. For three days now, she’d been in his head when he worked, when he rode, when he tried to sleep. When he took himself in hand and groaned in the quiet of his room. And it was a fucking problem.
“Not tonight,” Caine said, reaching his bike first.
“Dude, you are not leaving me hanging.”
Straddling the bike, Caine smirked. “You don’t need a wingman, Creed. The women love you.”
He pulled a face that held none of the anger from moments before. “Well, yeah. But that’s not the point.” There was the return of Ravens’ favorite playboy smartass.
Caine’s Harley came to life on a low growl.
“You suck at wingmanning,” he said.
“I suck at reassuring.”
“No kidding…”
Jesus. Enough already. “I am shit for people skills. You just figuring this out?”
Phoenix chuckled and held out a hand. “Fine.” Caine clasped palms with the guy, and Phoenix held on for an extra beat and nailed him with a stare. “‘Night, brother.”
Caine nodded, appreciating the sentiment. “Now get the fuck out of here.” He strapped on his helmet, tugged the black neck-warmer and mouth mask into place, and slid on his gloves.
Laughing, Phoenix made for his Harley. They pulled U-eys together, but parted ways at the intersection—Phoenix turning toward the Pit Stop, and Caine going straight.
Past Emma’s.
Without really meaning to, he slowed down. The house was dark except for the lit tree in her living room window, and he wondered if those lights being on meant that she was still awake. Then he asked himself why he cared. And if he was truly stupid enough to believe that some sweet kindergarten teacher would want anything to do with a guy like him.
Right. He revved the bike and took off like a shot down the street.
Because he didn’t have an answer for those questions. At least, no answers that he fucking liked.
* * * *
Emma pulled back her bedroom curtain…too late to know if the biker who’d ridden by her house was the one about whom she couldn’t stop thinking.
She’d been up since the sirens had woken her over an hour ago, since realizing that a house just down the street had been on fire. She’d lived in this house nearly her whole life and hadn’t experienced as much excitement in all that time as she had during the past few days. Not that excitement was the right word. Excitement didn’t give you nightmares, and it didn’t leave you gasping awake, sure that you’d heard something, and surely it didn’t have you deciding you must’ve imagined it because your dog lay perfectly calm.
Sipping the hot tea she’d made, she sat on the edge of her bed and thought for the hundredth time about what Catalin had said. Why shouldn’t she try to get in touch with Caine?
Besides the fact that he was a member of a biker club and that was potentially a little…intimidating.
And besides the fact that he hadn’t tried to get in touch with her?
And besides the fact that she might put herself out there only to learn for sure that he’d not given her his number for a reason?
“Yeah, except for all of that,” she whispered to the quiet room. Chewy lifted and cocked his little head, making her smile.
She finished the last of her tea and crawled back under the covers.
In the darkness, she saw Caine straddling his bike. Those long legs spread wide. Beat-up boots scuffing the ground. His club cut-off jacket hanging off those broad shoulders, as intriguing as it was menacing. Those strange pale eyes flashing in the dimness. The fullness of his lips the only thing that looked soft on his whole body.
Heat rolled through Emma’s blood, pooling sensation low in her belly. Okay, maybe there was one thing that qualified as excitement the past few days…because thoughts of Caine had been setting off these reactions within her since the man had been in her house five days before.
Emma squeezed her thighs together, the friction good but not nearly enough. It was too soft, too timid, too…tame. Everything she imagined Caine wouldn’t be.
Would his hands grasp her roughly? Would those full lips be hard or soft against her mouth, her throat, her breasts? Was the tattooed body beneath his clothes as lean and masculine as it looked? Would his hips move with fevered urgency or in a slow, teasing grind, and would his words be sweet or dirty against her skin?
Those were the imaginings that had her hand slipping down her body and threading under the waistband of her panties to where she was already wet. Just from thoughts of a man she’d met for only a few hours but who’d somehow invaded her mind.
Her fingers moved in slick, fast circles, and her hips strained upward into her own touch. It took almost no time at all until she was holding her breath and coming, a little cry spilling out of her into the quiet of her room, her body shaking against the bed.
“Jesus, Caine, what did you do to me?” she whispered, pulse racing, heart pounding.
That was the moment she knew she was going to try to find him. Because if she didn’t try, she’d always wonder. Always regret. And having lost so many people she cared about during her life, regret was the emotion she most despised. Because Emma had learned first-hand that life was finite, and none of us were replaceable, and death was capricious and sudden.
So, regret? She didn’t have time for that.
Emma turned on her side and curled into a ball, and Chewy came closer, relocating himself into a little ball against the crook of her knees. And in the peaceful, satisfied quiet, she knew exactly what to do.
Dutch’s.
She’d go talk to the baker woman. Haven. Caine had said she was the club president’s fiancée, so she’d have to know him. Right?
The moment the plan cemented in her mind, sleep finally took over, real and deep, for the first time in days.