Chapter Three
MATT
IT’S NOT HER. FLICK GOT it wrong. It was just someone who looked like her. How many damn times had I thought the same thing? How many goddamn times had I seen her walking down Main Street, only to realize the next minute that it was someone else? Rory was gone, and she wasn’t ever coming back.
When Jet and Flick had stopped by the clubhouse, it had taken Flick telling me twice that she had seen Rory at the grocery store before my brain could comprehend what she was saying.
Rory. Back. No fucking way.
But even as I tried to tell myself that Flick was mistaken, hope flickered to life deep in my chest. She was here; I could feel in it my bones. Rory was back.
For the first time in my life, I was nervous as fuck over the possibility of seeing a girl. Three goddamn years was too long to go without the girl who owned my fucking soul. I had gone a little crazy when she left, had done some things I wasn’t exactly proud of, things I would never willingly tell her about. But the past didn’t matter.
She was back.
I sat down the street from the mayor’s house, watching the window that I knew was her bedroom. Her light had come on thirty minutes ago, and like the stalker I suddenly had turned into, I watched her silhouette as she walked past it every now and then. Each time I saw it, my heart would double in speed, and it would be hard to breathe for a few seconds. My palms would sweat, and my cock would press a little harder into the zipper of my jeans.
Easy. I had to take this easy. I couldn’t just run in there and take back what had been stolen from me, even if that was what I ached to do. I had to play this with a cool head. Three years was a long time away from each other. Rory might not even feel the same way about me as she once had. She had been more or less a kid back then, which was the major reason why I had wanted to wait for her eighteenth birthday before we had sex. I didn’t want her to suddenly realize she didn’t even like me, let alone love me. If that had happened, it would have destroyed me—even more so than her leaving had done.
Headlights coming up behind me had me sinking a little lower in my seat, but the driver didn’t even seem to notice me as she pulled into the mayor’s driveway. She honked the horn of her prissy sports car that I knew I remembered but couldn’t place. A minute later, Rory came outside. The floodlights around the house made it easy to see her perfectly.
Her hair was a little longer and bounced when she walked. She was wearing a short-ass dress that showed off way too much skin and a pair of heels that made her a few inches taller. As I watched her walk, the air got trapped in my lungs. I sat there in a daze, drinking in the sight of her for the first time in too goddamn long.
Rory gave the driver a halfhearted smile and waved as she walked around the front of the car and climbed into the front passenger seat. As the door closed behind her, my stupor lifted and I started my truck. My cast—a present I had gotten from a fight at the bar—made it impossible to drive my motorcycle, so I was stuck in this damn cage. Not that I could complain too much. The bike would have given me away too easily, and knowing the fucking prick mayor, he would have found a reason to arrest me for just being on his street.
I kept a few cars between me and the one Rory was in, but I kept them in sight at all times. It didn’t take long to guess they were headed toward campus, and I figured they were on their way to one of the frat houses. Jealousy began to eat at me, and my casted hand balled into a fist, making the plaster bite into my knuckles.
Maybe she had moved on.
Maybe I’m going to kill a motherfucker tonight.
The stupid sports car stopped outside a row of houses. The driver and Rory got out, and then another girl climbed out of the back. I left my truck on for a few minutes as I watched them go into a house where every light was on and rap music was playing so loudly, it was making the houses around it shake.
I counted down from one hundred in my head, my eyes following Rory as she followed the other two girls into the house. I backed up and found a place to park before heading inside after her.
There were people outside smoking, and I gave them a chin nod as I passed, pretending like I belonged with this crowd. I’d left my cut back at the clubhouse, so I was dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and a hoodie with the hood pulled up over my head. No one questioned me as I climbed the front steps and walked into the frat house.
The music was pure shit, and the volume made it impossible for anyone to hear themselves talk unless they were right in each other’s ears. There were more dudes than females, so it was easy to spot the three who had just come in. Rory’s glossy hair shone in the overhead lighting, and I eased my way through the crowd, keeping a few feet between us at all times.
For the next hour, I watched her, stalked her. Her friend gave her a red Solo cup of keg beer, and she sipped at it, making faces every time she swallowed. Her friends stayed close for a little while, but when a couple guys came up to their group, the other two females left with them, leaving Rory all alone.
But not for long. Some frat boy came over and tried to talk to her, but she kept her eyes on her drink and only nodded at whatever he was saying, giving him tight smiles that never seemed to reach her beautiful eyes. My jealousy doubled, and I clenched my hands into fists at my sides as I watched him touch her cheek.
Rory jerked back from the contact, stepping away from the guy with a glare and a shake of her head. “Go away, asshole!” I saw her lips move rather than actually heard her, but that was all I needed to know she wasn’t happy.
I moved like lightning and stepped between her and the frat boy, wanting to tear him apart for even breathing the same air as she was. I didn’t because I didn’t want her to be scared of me. I had never given her a reason to fear me in the past, and I sure as fuck wasn’t about to give her one now.
I grasped her wrist with my undamaged hand and pulled her body up against my own. Her eyes widened in surprise, fear, and pure happiness. Goddamn it! Had I scared her, after all? I didn’t like the sight of the fear, but seeing the happiness in her eyes eased something tight in my chest.
“Hey, I was talking to her, dickhead!” The frat boy tried to step between me and Rory.
He put a hand on my shoulder, and I shrugged it off, too lost in my girl’s eyes to look away from her. “Fuck off,” I growled, but he didn’t hear me.
“I said, she’s with me,” the other guy said, trying to jerk me around to face him.
The fear darkened Rory’s green eyes and only enraged me. Turning, I smashed my casted fist into his face, knocking him on his ass. Everyone was either too drunk or high to worry about the idiot, and other than a few people laughing at him, no one else seemed to care. Tightening my hold on Rory’s wrist, I pulled her through the house and out through the exit in the kitchen.
The air was chilly, and I felt Rory shiver as I turned us in the direction of my truck. I stopped and released her wrist to pull my hoodie over my head and tuck her into it. As I smoothed it down over her, I saw her chin tremble.
“Baby,” I groaned. “No tears. Please, I’m close enough to killing someone as it is.”
Her arms went around my waist as she buried her face in my chest. “I missed you,” she sobbed. “Oh God, Matt. I missed you so damn much.”
The hand with the cast went to her back, the other to the back of her head, holding her against me as I kissed the top of her sweet-smelling hair. As I inhaled deeply, everything felt right in that moment. She was back, she was in my arms, and she was telling me she missed me. That was all that mattered. Everything else in the world could go to hell for all I cared right then.
“Don’t cry,” I pleaded, my voice choked from the euphoria of having her in my arms again.
She stiffened and pulled away from me. Stepping back, she put several feet between us, her beautiful face paling. “You can’t be here,” she whispered, shaking her head frantically as she glanced around like she expected some fucking SWAT team to ambush us suddenly. “You have to go. I can’t be near you.”
“Girl, you’re out of your mind if you think I’m going to walk away from you now. I just got you back. I’m not about to give you up willingly.” I caught her hand and tried to tug her back against me, but she resisted.
“No! Matt, you don’t understand. My father will have you arrested if he catches us together.”
“Rory—”
“I’m serious.” Her voice shook, tears glazing her pretty eyes all over again. “He told me he would charge you with rape if I ever saw you again. I-I can’t let that happen.”
“He can kiss my ass. I’m not going to let you go a second time.”
“P-please,” she sobbed. “You have to stay away from me.”
I snorted and lifted her into my arms, tossing her over my shoulder as I headed for my truck. “Yeah, that’s not gonna happen. That motherfucker isn’t going to keep us apart a second time.”
I opened the driver’s door and placed her on the seat. She scooted away, and I climbed in beside her, not letting her get farther than the middle of the seat before pulling her back toward me.
“Matt—”
“Rory,” I teased and kissed her forehead before starting the truck. “Relax. Your father didn’t have shit on me three years ago, any more than he would now. He can’t touch me for those rape allegations, and he fucking knows it.”
“R-really?” she breathed, but I saw the hope flare in her eyes.
“Fucking really, babe.” I tucked her in close and then pulled out onto the road.
“But…”
“Hey, do you trust me?”
“Always,” she answered without hesitation.
“Good. Now, are you hungry?” I stopped at the stop sign at the end of the street and let my eyes scan over her. “You look like you haven’t eaten in a year, baby.”
“Oh, please,” she laughed with a roll of her eyes. “I’ve gained like ten pounds since the last time I saw you.”
“Don’t give me that shit. What do you want to eat?”
I got another eye roll at my authoritarian tone, but she was still smiling. “Can we get something from Aggie’s and go somewhere we can be alone?”
“Hell yeah, babe. Whatever you want.” I touched my lips to her forehead again, my eyes closing as I took a minute to take in the fact that she was really sitting beside me.