Fresh from my shower, wrapped in a large white towel and under the impression that Hawk was still riddled with fever and half delirious, I’d stepped out of the bathroom and into the bedroom.

He wasn’t. He was wide awake, had managed to sit himself up some, and was sloppily guzzling water from the pitcher I’d left beside the bed.

Over the rim of the pitcher his eyes met mine, those unfathomably dark eyes growing even more opaque as he lowered his drink to focus on me.

“Hey,” he said, his voice hoarse and scratchy, then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Hawk’s voice, that lone word, caused icy-hot shivers to race along my skin, leaving trails of gooseflesh in their wake.

Feeling suddenly flustered and strangely embarrassed, I clutched my towel tighter around me and tried to smile. “Hey,” I said softly.

Glancing away from me and around the room, he cleared his throat. “Where are we?”

I surveyed the mostly barren room, containing only a bed, a nightstand, and the obligatory dresser. Cage and Tegen weren’t much for decorating or personal touches.

“Cage and Tegen’s,” I answered.

He nodded. “How long have I been out?”

I lifted my shoulder. “About four days. You had a pretty nasty infection. The doctor Deuce brought here had to open your leg back up and clean it out.”

Hawk’s gaze dropped to his bandaged leg. Propped atop several pillows, it was currently wrapped in an Aircast boot. Remembering the discolored skin, how severely infected the poorly stitched-up wound had become, I internally cringed. I had begged Deuce to take him to a hospital, but the man was exasperatingly adamant that Hawk would remain where he was. Thankfully for Hawk, the doctor had been legitimate.

“You should have a hard cast,” I continued. “But under the circumstances . . .” I trailed off, not knowing how to broach the subject of Hawk’s true identity. It still felt foreign to me, everything Deuce had told me and, although I knew it was the truth, it didn’t feel real to me. Hawk was, and to me always would be . . . Hawk.

This other life he’d once led, the son of a Russian mob boss who was gunned down, felt like some farfetched and contrived story, the stuff movies were made of, and not the former life of the man I shared a child with.

“Deuce didn’t think taking me to a hospital was a good idea,” he finished for me. “Bullet wounds tend to attract police. And if the police decide to dig . . .”

Hawk’s eyes were still downcast, glazed over, and looking past his leg at nothing. “Guess you probably got some questions for me,” he said quietly.

I did have questions for him, hundreds of them, yet standing here, looking at him, none seemed to come to mind. All that mattered for the moment was that he was home safe and he was healing from his injuries.

“They can wait,” I whispered. “You just need to get better.”

He let out a deep breath, and the lines creasing his face eased a bit. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought he was relieved, but the Hawk I knew didn’t much care what people thought of him.

Except this time, he seemed to care.

“I’m sorry I missed Christmas,” he said, lifting his eyes, stopping on my chest where the little heart pendant hung from the chain around my neck. My hand went immediately to it, my fingers curled around it, gripping it tightly until I could feel the sharp point of the heart digging into my palm.

Suddenly the pendant seemed to mean so much more than it had. As if it hadn’t just been a thoughtful gesture, hadn’t just been a father shopping for a gift for the mother of his child.

This little heart around my neck seemed to embody the man himself, full of secrets, hidden meanings, and so much more than met the eye.

“I never thought I’d see you or Christopher again,” he said quietly. “I never thought I’d be able to . . .”

He trailed off but kept his eyes on me. Locked on mine.

I didn’t say anything, didn’t know what to say. And it seemed to me that either did Hawk. He just continued to stare at me in that dark and assessing way of his, his shadowed eyes boring into me, holding me captive like a deer frozen in the face of blindingly bright headlights.

The world is full of untapped potential; everyone has experienced it. Glances across the room. Locked gazes. Secret smiles. Silent conversations. When it comes to lust, words are never needed. You feel something inside you stir, your body begins to warm, and you just know. You can feel something buried spring to life, and just like that a connection is born. You’re strangers, then suddenly you’re something more . . . kindred spirits, like-minded in your attraction for each other.

I’d had that with both Jase and Hawk.

But there was only one who could steal your soul, that untouchable, unreachable place inside you that existed only in your mind, that warmed and cooled, fluttered and shook without rhyme or reason, and make it theirs forever. Someone who could take your breath away with just one look, who makes all those past secret smiles and glances from afar pale in comparison to the way he looks at you.

The way Hawk used to look at me. Stealing glances from across the room as he stood in the shadows, his gaze running up and down the length of me, deliberately slow, drinking me in.

The way he was looking at me now.

I’d forgotten how exposed and vulnerable that look had once made me feel, yet at the same time, how wanted. Needed. And excited.

How free.

Feeling emotion welling up inside me, I swallowed hard and whispered, “I never thought I’d see you again either.”

A lengthy silence followed my words as Hawk’s gaze bored into mine, and I dropped my gaze to my feet, suddenly unable to face him.

I didn’t know what I’d been thinking. After my blowout with Jase, I’d had it all worked out in my head that once Hawk was home again, I’d tell him how I felt, how I’d always felt. And somehow that would make things right again, that the ever-widening span of years that we’d kept our distance from each other would instantly close.

That wasn’t the case. If anything, now that he was here and conscious, I felt even more awkward than before. As if my realized feelings were new ones, instead of the old and buried ones they were, and I was afraid of what would happen if I let them blossom, let them grow. Would he return them, feeling the same? Or had too much time passed, and would he toss them away?

“I’m sorry, Dorothy,” Hawk said, breaking the silence.

Surprised, I lifted my eyes to find his expression had fallen further, and his features were creased with pain.

“What I did,” he said, “fuckin’ with you, takin’ what wasn’t mine, that was wrong. I never said I was sorry ’cause I thought feelin’ sorry for what I did meant I felt sorry that we had our boy, but I know that ain’t true now. And I am sorry. Most of all, I’m sorry I left. If I never would have left, you wouldn’t have been shot. I would have been there and you would have been safe.”

I stared at him, speechless. Hawk had always been a man of very few words.

“I pushed you away,” I eventually said. “I don’t blame for you leaving.”

“We both made mistakes,” he said.

A small, nervous laugh escaped me. What was he trying to say? That he didn’t regret Christopher, but everything else? That he regretted me and us?

“I thought you didn’t believe in mistakes,” I said, hating the tremor in my voice that betrayed my feelings.

“I’m forty-five years old.” He lifted one brow. “Got a kid of my own too. It’s about time I took responsibility for my own actions, don’t you think?”

I pressed my lips together, willing my tears not to betray me now. Staring at Hawk, I shook my head. “I don’t understand, what are you trying to say?”

His eyes narrowed, his brow drew together, causing his forehead to furrow even more. “I’m sayin’ that I’m sorry, that’s—”

“Stop it,” I cried out, unable to hold it in another second.

It was all too much. Not knowing what had become of him, then learning who he truly was. The agonizing wait to find out his fate, and the realization of my feelings for him. Then seeing him beaten, bloody, and broken, and all the while I was caring for him, envisioning the moment when I would tell him the truth. And now this, an apology from him, telling me he regretted what we’d done, it was all too much and released a torrential downpour of emotions that I was powerless to stop.

It seemed that the floodgates of emotion that Jase had forced open, had yet to fully close.

“You never showed up!” I shouted, swiping at the tears on my cheeks. “You never showed up and I kept calling and I called Eva and then Deuce called me back but he wouldn’t tell me anything, no one would tell me anything and then I had to find somewhere for Christopher to stay and then my flights were canceled and I had to drive all the way home in a snowstorm and Deuce told me about you and who you are and I just . . . I just, I didn’t know what to think, none of it seemed real, and then I thought Preacher wasn’t going to help but he did and then I beat up Jase and I told him I loved you and then he left and then Deuce left and they brought you back and I was here when the doctor came, and Hawk, oh my God, your leg, it was so bad, really infected, and you were so sick and you looked so bad, you were so beat up, and I thought you were going to die, even though everyone kept telling me you weren’t going to die, and I couldn’t understand anything you were saying and I was so scared that I was going to lose you again, that I wasn’t going to have the chance to make things right and I couldn’t . . . I didn’t . . .”

• • •

Dorothy kept going and going and fucking going, flinging word after word at him like a pitching machine. Like one of those dolls with the strings and after one too many pulls, the string snaps off and the doll just keeps fucking talking and talking and talking . . .

She’d always fucking talked too much, especially when she was upset. Hawk could recall countless nights when he’d been forced to listen to her ramble on about Jase, forced to watch her cry, emotionally beating herself up over and over again for reasons he’d early on stopped trying to comprehend. He’d simply fucked her to shut her up and it had worked . . . for a while.

But she’d chosen Jase over him, and then she’d been shot, and the silence that had followed had been fucking deafening.

And, fuck, after all these years of the cold shoulder, barely speaking to each other, feeling like strangers in the same room, he hadn’t realized just how much he’d missed her. Not just being with her, but her. All of her. Even this, her nonsensical rambling, her inability to express absolutely anything without being so motherfucking emotional. And even then, it was still a garbled mess. He’d missed every damn inch, all five foot nothing of her, the never-ending tears and all the baggage she’d always clung to, insisted on dragging along behind her.

Christ, they were both a disaster. Her with her heart exposed for all the world to see, and him with his locked up so tight, it had taken a random drunken fuck, some blackmail, a pregnancy, a gunshot wound to the head, years of emptiness, a kidnapping, and a few more gunshots for him to sort his fucking shit out.

What a goddamn waste.

The silver lining? She’d said she loved him. Last night and again just now, in between something about beating up Jase and Deuce leaving, she’d sure as shit had said she’d loved him, as well as admitting her fear of losing him again. It was a surprising and not so surprising revelation. There had been times that he’d suspected her feelings had run deeper than she’d let on, but she’d never admitted it and so he hadn’t either.

But none of that shit mattered anymore. He was sick of living in the past, of living in a future going nowhere. And he didn’t want to look back anymore.

“Dorothy.”

She just kept talking.

“Dorothy!”

Still, she kept talking. And, goddamn it, if he didn’t love the shit out of this woman, he would most certainly kill her.

“DOROTHY!” His hand flew to his throat as he instantly regretting yelling. Although it seemed to do the trick; she was no longer babbling but instead staring at him.

“For fuck’s sake,” he rasped, rubbing his throat. “Shut up.”

“Shut up,” she whispered, her face crumpling. “Shut up? You’re seriously going to talk to me like—”

“Yes,” he gritted out, cutting her off. “I’m seriously goin’ to tell you to shut up and get your ass over here.” He attempted moving himself, wincing when the pain in his leg intensified, and decided to hold out his arm to her instead. “Just come here,” he said, gesturing with his hand. “Just shut up and come here.”

A long pause followed, and then she stammered, “I should get dressed.”

“No!” he yelled, growing increasingly frustrated with her and the fact that he couldn’t get off the damn bed to go get her himself. “Get the fuck over here!”

It was slow going, but eventually she put one foot in front of the other. He waited with his arm outstretched as she moved toward him at a snail’s pace, trying to maintain patience when he felt anything but.

She paused at the edge of the bed, her face still flushed and red from crying as she gripped the towel to her chest. Her gaze skittered up and down his body, then across the bed and even farther, toward the window as she looked anywhere but directly at him.

Realizing what was happening, that Dorothy was being her own worst enemy, he released a heavy sigh and let his arm drop to the mattress.

“Woman,” he said softly. “Stop fuckin’ thinkin’ so damn much.”

Her gaze lifted, meeting his, and they stared at each other, her green eyes filling with tears, his body itching with the need to bring her close to feel her against him.

And also with the need to pee. Christ, he had to piss. Great fucking timing too. He’d waited twenty years for her to admit she had feelings for him, and for almost eight just for the chance to touch her again, and he wasn’t going to let an untimely bodily function fuck this all up.

“I thought I was going to lose you,” she whispered tearfully. “I thought I’d never get another chance.”

“Thought you woulda figured this shit out by now,” he said. “That as long as I’m breathin’, I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

“I know that you were there . . . for Christopher,” she said, her voice small, unsure.

“For both of you,” he corrected her, dropping his gaze to the necklace. “I’ve always been there for both of you.”

With one hand still clutching her towel, she reached up with the other and again clutched the tiny pendant that hung from her neck.

Remembering Christopher’s attempts at trying to convince him that what she really wanted for Christmas was a new video game console, Hawk almost smiled. Almost. But knowing Dorothy, she would misconstrue his smile for something else entirely.

“I screwed up,” she said, shaking her head. “I was scared and I made the wrong choice. I’ll never forget the way you looked at me that night . . . like I’d betrayed you.”

“I screwed up,” he snapped, growing angry in the face of her infamous self-loathing, the one thing about her that he didn’t miss. “Me, Dorothy, get that through your thick head. I took somethin’ that wasn’t mine to take and expected . . . aw, fuck!”

He clenched his fists and his breathing grew heavy. “I don’t know what I expected,” he gritted out. “But none of that shit matters anymore. You said you loved me, you know I love you, so I’m not seein’ what the problem is and why you’re not gettin’ your ass over here so I can fuckin’ touch you.”

More tears, goddamn her never-ending tears, filled her eyes and overflowed.

“You still love me?” she whispered.

Jesus Christ, this woman, this silly fucking woman . . .

“Dorothy,” he said. “Yeah, I fuckin’ love you. Didn’t think I needed to say it. Figured you already knew.”

Once again she averted her eyes, and he knew she was doing what she did best. The wheels were spinning, she was overthinking every fucking thing, talking herself out of anything that could potentially serve to make her happy.

“It’s been so long,” she said with a shaky sigh. “We don’t even really know each other anymore.”

He wanted to laugh at her, maybe smack her a few times, or grab her by her foot and hang her upside down and shake all that fucking self-doubt straight out of her. Instead, he schooled his expression, maintaining the facade of calm that Dorothy had always needed from him when she was emotionally flailing.

“What’s there to know,” he said with a carefree shrug that caused every inch of the ravaged skin and injured muscle in his arms and chest to flare with pain. “My name is James Alexander Young. I was born and raised in New York. I was—”

He stopped talking the moment she started smiling.

“But that’s not who you are,” she said softly. “Not really.”

“Come here,” he said, crooking his finger and for once, surprising the shit out of him, she actually listened. Leaning down, using her hand to steady herself, she bent over the side of the bed. Still she was too far away, forcing him lean to the side, which caused him ungodly amounts of pain. And yet he persisted, keeping his struggle silent as he strained his body in her direction. When their heads nearly touched, he reached up and slid his hand over the smooth skin of her cheek and into her hair.

“Luca Polachev died a long fuckin’ time ago,” he said. “I am James Young, a member of the Hell’s Horsemen, one of Deuce’s boys, and the proud father of Christopher Kelley. That is who I am now, and those are the only parts that matter.”

Pressing her cheek into his hand, she gave him one of her sweet smiles, the same smile that had drawn her to him in the first place. It had made him want to take all that innocence, that inherent goodness that was Dorothy, and make it his own.

“You need a bath,” she whispered, wrinkling her nose.

“Yeah,” he whispered back. He needed a bath, a haircut, and a shave, as well as a couple dozen rounds with a toothbrush. He could probably use a new leg while he was at it, but most of all he needed to take a fucking piss.

But before any of that would happen, before she could say another goddamn word, he leaned as far as he possibly could without screaming out in pain, and laid waste to the remaining inch between them.

“You know what I always regretted?” he whispered. “Never puttin’ you on the back of my bike. Just me and you, out in the sun. No more fuckin’ hidin’.”

Dorothy had just enough time to suck in a small, surprised breath.

Then Hawk, despite feeling like anything he said or did could potentially break the tenuous connection between them, decided, Fuck it, and kissed her. Because when it came to Dorothy, he figured he didn’t have anything left to lose.

For the first time in almost eight long years, he kissed his woman.

She was shaking, her lips quivering, but she didn’t turn away or try to stop him. And he didn’t waste any time, he wasn’t going to waste any more time, not in a world where there were no guarantees.

They both fumbled a little at first, unused to each other. Then something clicked between them, and their eagerness for each other began to supersede any awkwardness. Her body instantly softened and she leaned forward, into his body and melting against him. One hand found his chest, her other reaching up into his hair, running through it before cupping the back of his neck.

And then, as if no time had passed, as if nothing had ever come between them, as if no tragedies had pushed them apart, she kissed him with fervor, touching him with sure hands, and he gripped her tightly, her mouth and body feeling again as natural to him as they once had.

• • •

Gently, I pulled a blanket up over Hawk’s torso, tucking it under his chin. He stirred in his sleep, mumbled something incoherent, and then was quickly snoring again. Looking him over, I grimaced. He had a lot of healing left to do. He couldn’t go more than an hour or two without needing more pain medication, and he was still unable to use the bathroom on his own.

But he was home, he was safe, and he was mine.

Mine.

And this time I was determined not to screw it up.