Admittedly, it was not the smartest move I’d ever made.

I realized that in retrospect. But when I’d called Roni up, I thought she’d take me to the latest hot little bar where we’d drink martinis, and then maybe we’d find a gay bar with hot music where we could dance the rest of the night away and I could forget my troubles for a while. Or at least pretend they weren’t there.

That was really more my speed these days, and more of what I was accustomed to when I went out with my girlfriends.

Instead, she’d brought me here. To a house with barred windows, hidden in the trees up a dead-end road on the mountainside in North Vancouver; a road that was lined with Harleys, and a house that was packed full of bikers, the friends and associates of bikers, and women who were looking to screw bikers. Or who were screwing bikers, like right out on the dining room table, which one particularly ambitious young woman was doing, right now.

I supposed when I said I wanted to party, Roni and I had a really different idea of what that meant.

I knew she was into bikers when we were teenagers. I knew she’d dated one of the Kings back then, a friend of Piper’s, on and off.

I knew she’d had a couple of guys in Sinners jackets back to her place the other night for a three-way.

Still.

I did not expect this.

While she got cozy with the blond guy I’d met at her place the other night, I excused myself to find a ladies’ room. Which ended up being a bathroom no one was currently fucking in, where there was vomit in the toilet and a sink clogged with a wad of bloody toilet paper.

“Shit, Roni, seriously,” I muttered as I locked myself inside.

Then I called Jude.

“Hey,” I said, relieved when I got him on the second ring. “Tell me something. If I was at a party with a bunch of guys in motorcycle leathers that say Sinners on their vests, should I be worried?”

I got silence. For about ten seconds.

Then, “Say that again?”

“Um… I’m at a house party with a bunch of bikers. Most of them are wearing Sinners stuff. Is that bad?”

“How many guys?” he asked. “How many bikes?”

“Maybe… eight bikes or so. About twenty, twenty-five guys. I counted six of them wearing Sinners stuff. And… there’s a guy with a Bastards jacket, too.”

He didn’t even have to tell me that wasn’t good. The Bloody Bastards were yet another motorcycle club, of the outlaw variety, who’d been all over the news the last few years down in L.A., making all kinds of grief for law enforcement.

Why there would be one at a Sinners party I didn’t know, didn’t care, and didn’t want to stick around to find out. I just wanted to leave. And preferably not on my own, wandering the mountainous roads in my high heels, waiting on a cab to find me.

“Let me guess,” he said after another silence. “Roni.”

“I don’t want to be here, Jude.”

“Where are you? Give me the address.”

“I don’t know the address. I’m in North Van. I can use the GPS on my phone to send directions.”

I did that. Then I lingered in the bathroom, wondering how the fuck I’d gotten myself into this—and pondering the irony that if I’d been sixteen I probably would’ve been thrilled for Roni to bring me to a party this crazy—until a couple of girls started pounding the door down and I had to move on.

I hung out in the vicinity of the front door, more uncomfortable with the idea of heading outside into the dark, alone, or maybe not so alone, than staying right where I was. Roni was nowhere to be seen. But it wasn’t like I didn’t have company.

A particularly friendly guy with a tattoo on his arm of what appeared to be a rabid wolf eating the Easter bunny alive made conversation with me while I waited. I had no idea if he was one of the Sinners or what, and I didn’t care to know. I told him I was just waiting for my friends, but he didn’t seem interested in that detail. Thankfully, I had good friends, and it didn’t take long for them to show up.

I saw Piper first. He was standing just inside the back door talking to a couple of other bikers. He was wearing his Kings vest and seemed to know these guys, thank God. Though their conversation didn’t look all that friendly.

All the more reason to get the hell out of here.

Then I saw Jude. He was coming out of a back hallway… followed closely by Brody. They must’ve been looking for me.

“Oh, there’re my friends,” I said casually to the guy standing over me. “I should go. Nice talking to you.”

I didn’t wait to find out what he thought of that. I beelined for Jude and Brody, past the dining room table where yet another young woman was sharing her talents with a couple of guys. Jude just gave me a steady look and a nod, and I walked right on past him, taking the hand Brody offered and following him straight out the back door. My heart was thudding. I didn’t like the feeling of not really knowing if I was in danger, or not knowing if that guy would’ve taken no for an answer if he decided I needed a go on the dining room table.

I didn’t like it at all.

I held tight to Brody’s hand as he led me around the house without a word, down the driveway and onto the street… past the line of Harleys and toward where I saw his bike parked, next to a couple of others I could only assume belonged to Jude and Piper.

As we left the property, Brody let go of my hand.

I’d had a few drinks, just a few, but I couldn’t keep up in my high-heeled boots and was afraid I’d slip on the slanted street.

Brody paused and turned, waiting for me to catch up. He looked past me, back up at the house between the trees, where the thump of music emanated into the night.

He stared at me a minute, then scanned the lineup of bikes along the road. And I knew. I knew how it looked. I also knew how fast Brody and the others had dropped what they were doing to race up here to get me.

“It’s just a party, Brody,” I said lamely.

“Yeah? You know what kind of party that was?”

I shrugged, hugging myself. “Roni had friends there.”

“Friends. Yeah.”

“It’s not like that. I just came with her.”

“Yeah? And where was she when that guy was breathing down your neck? Because she sure as fuck wasn’t there between the two of you. In case you didn’t know, she was in a bedroom in the middle of her latest fuck-for-all. With the door open for any-fucking-one to see.”

“That’s Roni’s business,” I said.

“Not when she leaves the door wide open, it’s fucking not.”

“Nothing was going on, Brody. I just needed to blow off some steam.”

“Yeah?” He got in my face. “Blow off some steam on the first guy you happened to stumble across? Or were you gonna let him blow off on you, like you let me do last night?”

I blinked at him, appalled. “Don’t turn what we did into something dirty when you don’t even—”

“I know what kind of party that was, and what a girl goes to that kind of party for.”

“So that’s it? Last night I’m a princess because I spread my legs for you, and tonight I’m a whore because I talked to another guy at a party?”

“Hey, princess.” A young guy in a Sinners vest materialized out of the shadows between a couple of the Harleys, smoking a cigarette. “When you two’re finished having your little domestic out here, come on back to the party. We’ll take care of ya.” He smirked at me. Then he looked Brody up and down, sizing him up. Then he made a kissy face. At Brody. And smirked some more.

Brody took me by the arm and hauled me down the street to his bike. I didn’t fight him.

“Get on the bike, Jessa. We can talk about this when we get home.” He was using his I’m not fucking around voice, which I knew well.

I didn’t care.

Anger was rising through me, hot and fast, fueled by the combined humiliation and hurt—that he actually thought I came here to hook up with some random guy less than twenty-four hours after having sex with him.

Intimate, intense, incredible sex.

At least, it was for me.

“Why? You’ve already made up your mind about the way it is,” I said. “You’ve always been the bloody judge, jury, and executioner. But you don’t know shit, Brody. You said so yourself. You don’t know me anymore. I am not your princess. I never was.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m pretty fucking aware of that.”

“I never asked you to put me on a pedestal. No one can live up to that. Do you know how much fucking pressure that is?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You said it yourself. You saw me on the internet in my underwear when you had your dick in your hand. If that’s what you want from me, for me to be that girl, that fucking fantasy you’ve had since you were fifteen and you saw my boobs for the first time, you can go screw yourself. I am not that girl.”

He stood there, grinding his jaw, and for a horrible moment I thought he might get on his bike and just leave me there.

“First of all,” he said slowly, “you were ten years old, and I did not see you that way. You were a fucking kid. You were sweet and you were a funny little shit, but I did not have a hard-on for you when you were ten, so don’t make me into that guy. I had a crush on you when you were thirteen and I was eighteen, and fuck me if that makes me a pervert or something in your books, but I never acted on it, Jessa. You looked older than you were, and sue me if I thought you were beautiful. You fucking were. I only kissed you when you were fifteen because you were going to parties a lot like this one and I knew someone was gonna get their hands on you first, and it was killing me. I told you I’d wait for you and I fucking meant it. I didn’t want you getting hurt, by me or anyone else. So fuck me if I cared about you. As for having you on a pedestal, sweetheart, I am more than fully fucking aware of how perfect you are not.”

I blinked back the hot sting of tears brought on by his words.

Shit. Just shit.

Why the hell was I always doing this? Why was I always getting into fights with him that neither of us could possibly win?

“I just want to go home. Can you take me home now, please?”

He swung a leg over his bike and settled on the seat.

“Get on,” he said, when I just stood there, hugging myself.

“I mean, home to my brother’s,” I told him. “I think… I want to stay there a while.”

* * *

I wrapped my arms tight around Brody’s waist, spreading my thighs wide to accommodate his big body. And as we tore down the street, it was like we’d driven right back in time.

I’d always felt so safe at Brody’s back.

I savored the feeling of being there again, the wind in my face, moving as one, leaning with him when he leaned, holding on tighter when he accelerated, not even letting go when he stopped at a light. Just trusting him. My life, literally in his hands.

I’d never been on the back of anyone else’s bike, and that was fine with me.

As we got closer to my brother’s place, I held on tighter. Brody had grown stronger, more solid than when he was younger. I was all wrapped up in the woodsy smell of him, his leather jacket, his hair… and the warmth of him between my legs. The familiar growl of the machine, the power of it, the vibrations…

Too soon, we pulled into my brother’s driveway. The front of the house lit up as we set off the motion sensor lights. Reluctantly I let go and climbed off, knowing I had to apologize. He’d said some hurtful things too, but I’d had the entire ride here to stew in my regret over the way I’d behaved—after he’d come to my rescue, no less.

I owed him an apology, and I owed him a thank you.

He turned off the bike and got off, and when he turned to me he looked just as pissed as when he got on half an hour ago. “You running again?” he said. “Tell me if you are, so I can cancel that ‘Welcome Home, Jessa’ banner I ordered for the party.”

And that warm, safe, regretful feeling dropped away, leaving me cold.

God, he could be such an asshole.

“I don’t know how long I’m going to stay,” I said. “I’m just taking it day by day.”

He stared at me. “Day by day,” he repeated.

“Yes.”

“Any chance you wanna give me a little more than that? Call me fucking crazy, but ‘give me all of you, Brody’ gave me the idea that maybe you’d want all of me again sometime before you vanish. Or is that just what you say to every guy when his dick is in your hand?”

I turned on my heel and walked away.

“Perfect. Walk away. What you’re best at.”

I whirled on him. “Why would I stay? What is there here for me, besides one guilt trip after another?”

We stared at each other and when I couldn’t take the anger, the accusation in his blue eyes anymore, I turned away again. I heard him coming, his boots pounding, scraping on the concrete. He grabbed me and spun me around.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

Then he kissed me.

He walked me back into the wall of my brother’s house and kissed me like he wanted to tear me apart.

When he stopped to get air, he said, “How many times do I have to do that to get through that thick, bullheaded skull of yours?”

“Brody—”

He kissed me again, roughly and thoroughly.

Then he put his forehead to mine, panting softly. “Do you need me to say it? Because I fucking will. Do not leave me again. If you go across the fucking world again and I can’t see you… touch you… and you’re gonna freeze me out and pretend I don’t exist, I will not be able to handle it, Jessa.” He cupped my face in his hands. “Promise me you aren’t gonna do that again.”

I breathed into the silence. I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. I couldn’t promise him something I didn’t know how to do.

All I knew how to do was run.

He pulled back and stared at me. My mouth was open. I was trying to speak, I was, but no words were coming.

His hands dropped away. “Is it Seth?”

“No.” I shook my head. “No.”

“Jesus.” Brody stepped back, way back, and clawed his hands through his hair. “You always chose him, didn’t you? It was always him.”

“I didn’t—”

“Like hell you didn’t.”

Panicking, I hurled back at him, “When did you ever choose me? We both know you hooked up with Christy again after you said you’d wait for me.”

“When weren’t you sneaking around with Seth?” he fired back.

I shut my mouth.

“I was never gonna force you to be with me, Jessa. You were sixteen, and you were reeling after your mom died. I felt you slipping away, and yeah, I fucking saw you with Seth, and it gutted me. I wasn’t gonna be the asshole who gave you an ultimatum and made you choose. If you loved me, you would’ve been mine. But you weren’t ever mine. If you were mine, you would’ve given a shit about what I wanted. You did not give one shit, Jessa.”

“That’s not true—”

“I didn’t give a shit if you were a model or driving a fucking garbage truck for a living. Whatever made you happy. But you were not happy, and I begged you to stay with the band. I fucking begged you. I was not gonna beg you to love me.”

Tears were forming in my eyes, fast. “I did love you, Brody.”

He stared at me for a long moment as that sunk in.

Then he shook his head and took a step toward me. “Fuck this. Fuck waiting, and fuck being the good guy. You’ve got one choice to make and you need to make it now. Once and for all. Him or me.”

“Brody—”

“Him or me.”

I was speechless. I had no idea how to right all the wrongs between us that I had caused. He really thought I chose Seth?

Over him?

When I didn’t speak, he drew back. His face was hardening in that way it did just before he shut down.

I really wasn’t the only one who knew how to walk away.

“Tell me one thing,” he said tightly, as lights started coming on in my brother’s house. “Were you fucking him? All that time, behind my back? Right under my nose?”

I was stunned. Still speechless.

“You think he didn’t tell me? Because that’s sure as fuck what he said about it. And since you never say a goddamn thing, I’m starting to wonder what else you’re fucking hiding.”

I said nothing.

It wouldn’t have mattered. Brody had already made up his mind.

Judge, jury, and executioner.

He took another step back and seemed to resolve himself to some unspoken truth as he looked at me.

“I’m done,” he said. “I’m so fucking done with you.”

Then he got on his bike and roared away, just as the front door opened and my brother stuck his head out.

“What the fuck?” He was shirtless, doing up his pants, his hair all mussed up. He took one look at me and came out to gather me up. “Was that Brody?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

I dissolved into tears in my brother’s arms.