CHAPTER SEVEN
Cat
I STARED AT SMOKE, my heartbeat freakishly loud in my head.
Something was happening between us and it scared the shit out of me.
I knew as soon as I opened my big fat mouth and told him he didn’t get a say about Annie that I’d crossed a line. That I’d hurt him and hurt him deeply.
I had no excuse except that I was frightened, and that when I got frightened I got angry.
Had that been the thing that had changed the atmosphere between us?
Or had it been the night I’d stormed into the clubhouse and seen Smoke getting head, with his hands in another woman’s hair?
I didn’t know. But maybe it didn’t matter. Because right now it felt like I wasn’t looking into my friend’s eyes. It felt like I was looking into the eyes of a complete stranger.
And that stranger...
God, he was looking back at me like he wanted to eat me alive.
Like he looked at that woman in the hallway.
Shit.
Smoke made no move towards me. He simply stood there and put his hands in the pockets of his jeans, a relaxed kind of posture. But his gaze was black and there was fire in it—a heat I’d never imagined—not to mention challenge, too. Like he was daring me to do it.
I remembered that look. The first day I met him, after I’d watched him do tricks for a solid half-hour, he handed me his skateboard and dared me to try it. There had been many times after that when he’d pushed me to do something I didn’t want to do or was scared of. Skateboarding. Riding his motorcycle. Drinking bourbon neat. Going to the school dance. Telling my mother she had to quit heroin or else I’d move out. Applying for law school. Leaving Justin...
Some of those things I’d ended up failing at, and some of them were among the best experiences of my life. But this challenge—this was different. This felt like it could threaten the very fabric of our friendship.
Seriously? You’re acting like this is real and it’s not. It’s just pretend.
I drew in a shaky breath. Yeah, of course. Pretend. Which meant the way he was looking at me was pretend, too. He didn’t really want me—just like I didn’t really want him. Nothing would be threatened because we wouldn’t actually be together. We’d just have to make it look like we were. And that was fine. I could do that.
Smoke wasn’t wrong. No matter how much I didn’t want to go anywhere near the Knights, this did seem to be our only option to protect Annie.
Plus, after what I said to him, I owed him.
‘Okay.’ I took a step away from the wall, getting closer to him. ‘Show me, then.’
My voice sounded shaky and I couldn’t seem to get my heart rate under control.
It was just Smoke. Only Smoke.
He stared down at me and I was suddenly aware of the height difference between us—something I’d only been vaguely aware of before. But it hit me now how much taller he was. How much broader. How much more powerful and muscular.
I wanted to make a joke about his workout regimen, yet I’d never felt less like laughing in my entire life.
‘You’ll have to come closer than that.’
His voice was quiet, with a dark, husky quality to it which was another thing I’d never noticed before.
I was looking at him like he was some stranger, but he wasn’t. He was my friend.
I took another step towards him, trying to ignore my frantic heartbeat.
‘That’s better,’ he said.
We were only inches apart now, and I could feel the heat of his body from where I stood. He was like the engine of his bike, running hot, and it was difficult to hold his gaze. The darkness of it was like a black lake I could fall into, drown in.
‘So,’ I said inanely, on edge and hyperaware, as if the slightest sound or sudden movement would cause me to jump sky-high. ‘Are you going to?’
Smoke reached out and slid his arm around my waist, pulling me right up against his body. And everything I’d been going to say went straight out of my head.
I couldn’t get enough air to breathe because he was hot. And hard. Everywhere. The arm around me was an iron band, holding me firmly where I was, and instinctively, I put up my hands and pressed my palms to the wall of his chest, trying to keep some distance between us.
But there was no distance to be had.
He was right there, up against every inch of me—my thighs, my hips, my stomach, my breasts. So fucking hot. So fucking hard. I could feel the flex and release of his muscles beneath my palms and I couldn’t repress the shiver that went straight down my spine. The shiver of deep female appreciation for male strength. Insane when, after Justin, I knew what male strength could do to a woman.
I felt it, though. It made my mouth dry with want.
I was trembling and I couldn’t stop. I felt like I was being slowly stripped down, taken apart like a gun or an engine, and all my pieces laid out so he could see how I was put together.
Don’t be stupid. Pretend, remember?
Yeah. That’s right. Pretend. Get a grip, Cat. Get a fucking grip.
I tilted my head back and looked up at him, because if this was a challenge, then I wanted to show him I could do it. I always wanted to show him I could do it.
The light behind him threw his face into shadow, but I could see his expression. It was taut, fierce, his gaze focusing on me with frightening intensity.
My heartbeat refused to slow down.
He lifted his other hand and, with careful deliberation, slid his fingers into my hair so they curved around my skull, cupping the back of my head in his palm. Then he curled his fingers up tight and I sucked in a startled breath as my hair was caught in his fist.
It didn’t hurt, but I realised with a sudden crashing awareness that he was now holding me fast. That I couldn’t pull away even if I wanted to.
And that he was going to kiss me.
‘Smoke—’ I began, to stop him...encourage him... I had no idea. I never got the chance.
His mouth was on mine before I knew what was happening.
I froze in shock, going rigid, my mind utterly blank.
Then heat erupted along the entire length of my body. So much heat. It was like one of those arc welders applied directly to my skin, lighting me up from the inside out.
Frightened for reasons I didn’t understand, I pushed against his chest, wanting to get away, to put distance between us, between me and that all-consuming, terrifying heat.
But he didn’t let me go. In fact the arm around my waist only tightened further, leaving me in no doubt about who was in charge of this. He was. In every way.
I shivered, feeling small and feminine, vulnerable and utterly at his mercy. Panic shifted inside me and something else—something that wasn’t panic at all. Something that I very much feared was...excitement.
Then, before I could work out what the tangle of feelings were, slowly and deliberately Smoke continued to kiss me.
His lips were both hard and soft at the same time, brushing mine, a gentle tease. Then he ran his tongue along the seam of my lips, encouraging me to open and let him in.
I did and, oh, God, I tasted him. Raw, alcoholic, with a touch of sweetness like the kick of a really good bourbon. It made me tremble. Then his tongue slid into my mouth, exploring me, and I trembled even harder.
It had been so long since anyone had touched me like this, held me like this. So long since I’d been kissed. And now my best friend was kissing me and it felt like...
Jesus, it felt like a piece of a puzzle had clicked into place.
So wrong. This is your friend. This is pretend.
I tried to open my mouth to speak, to remind him or something—I didn’t know. But he wouldn’t let me do that either.
His fingers in my hair pulled tighter, urging my head further back, and his tongue pushed deeper into my mouth, the kiss turning hotter, wetter. More demanding. Taking all my words away and giving me heat and that sweet kick of bourbon instead, the raw, addictive taste of him.
My heartbeat was raging and I felt dizzy. Like I was drunk. On him. On this kiss. His heat was blinding and he was everywhere—his rock-hard chest against my aching breasts, his arms around me, holding me tight against him. His mouth was on mine, tasting me as I was tasting him. Kissing me as if he couldn’t get enough. As if he wanted to eat me alive.
But, no. He couldn’t want that. This was pretend, remember?
Yet my fingers curled into the warm cotton of his T-shirt, gripping on for dear life, and it was hard to hold on to that thought. He knew what he was doing and it was so good.
I couldn’t help myself. I began to respond. Blindly touching his tongue with mine, kissing him back, hungry for more of that terrifying heat. More of that kiss.
More of him.
My nipples hardened against his chest and there was a heavy, pulsing ache between my legs. My skin felt tight, like I wanted to burst right out of it.
Smoke growled—a low animal sound that vibrated through me—then he slid one large warm hand over the curve of my butt, pulling me harder against him. I nearly gasped as I felt the hard ridge of his cock press against the zipper of my jeans, causing jolts of intense pleasure as the zipper hit my clit.
I groaned, shifting my hips against his, helplessly chasing that friction. I felt like I’d been starved and he was tempting me with all my favourite foods, holding them out to me, giving me a taste, making me so fucking hungry...
Then suddenly his arms around me were gone; that hot, demanding mouth vanished, and I was stumbling forward, off balance, breathing fast and hard like I’d run ten marathons in a row.
I blinked, somehow finding my feet, trying like hell to get my breathing under control.
Smoke had pulled back and was standing there with his arms folded. The expression on his face was unreadable. He was watching me with a detached kind of focus. As if that whole kiss had merely been an experiment he wanted to see the effects of.
He hadn’t felt it like I had, obviously.
Something fell away inside me—something that I refused to call disappointment. Because there was nothing disappointing about him not feeling that kiss. In fact it was reassuring. Clearly the intensity of it had been all in my head—a product of going too long without sex and nothing to do with chemistry at all.
Anyway, it made sense that he didn’t feel it. Because he’d been pretending, too.
Sure, and maybe his cock had been pretending, as well.
Yeah, but guys got hard at the drop of a hat, didn’t they? It wasn’t me. It was merely the presence of a female body—that was all.
I sucked in a steadying breath, hiding my hardened nipples behind my folded arms, mirroring his posture.
‘So?’ I couldn’t keep the husky edge from my voice. Dammit. ‘That convincing enough for you?’
‘It’ll do.’ His voice, in contrast, sounded completely normal, the asshole.
My heart raced and the heavy, nagging ache between my legs just wouldn’t let up. Perhaps if I didn’t think about it, it would go away.
‘Good. So, how do we do this? I mean, do you simply tell them I’m your old lady and that’s it? What?’
He hadn’t moved. He was standing there like a statue, all tall and dark and radiating menace, not to mention a fair amount of distance.
He hadn’t forgiven me for what I’d said to him.
If you break this friendship, it’ll be your own fault. Don’t forget you pretty much break everything you touch...
Panic turned over in my gut before I managed to shove the poisonous thought away. No, shit. Wherever that had come from, it was wrong. Sure, there were things in my life that hadn’t gone to plan—but that was life, wasn’t it? Shitty, shitty life.
I had Annie and I had Smoke—my two constants. I wouldn’t lose my daughter and I wouldn’t break my friendship with Smoke. I just wouldn’t.
‘You going to do this, then?’ he asked.
As if I had a choice.
‘For Annie, yeah. I will.’
He gave a slow nod and I got the feeling that I’d agreed to something I didn’t know anything about.
Panic gripped me again, but I forced it away. Being Smoke’s pretend old lady... Really, how bad could it be?
A memory filtered through my consciousness of the night Annie had been taken, when I’d stormed through the Knights’ clubhouse. All those men with all those women, having sex right out there in public, for everyone to see.
That was pretty bad.
‘We...uh...we wouldn’t have to do any...public stuff, would we?’ I hated the quiver in my voice. ‘Because, straight up, I’m not doing that.’
That distant look was still on Smoke’s face, and it was like he was pulling away from me, even though he hadn’t moved an inch. I wanted to reach out and grab his arm, pull him back.
‘Don’t worry.’ Even his voice sounded remote. ‘We wouldn’t.’
‘Okay, then.’ I hesitated, then realised what I was doing.
I’d never hesitated in talking to Smoke before. Never, ever.
My throat closed. Things were different. Something had changed.
‘Are we good?’ I had to force myself to say it.
‘Sure, kitten. We’re good.’
But I didn’t miss his own hesitation, and it slid like a sliver of glass under my skin. I opened my mouth to say something, but he’d already turned, jerking his head in the direction of the kerb, where I saw the gleam of chrome in the darkness. His Harley.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you the plan while I take you home.’