Chapter 3

Molly

The throbbing headache is anticipated when I open my eyes to the sunlight streaming in. What’s shocking is the sight of Briar standing in my open doorway. Hands tucked in his jeans pockets and shoulder leaning against the jamb, he’s the sexiest man I’ve ever laid eyes on.

I don’t know whether I should be embarrassed by what I did last night, or excited that he’s here. I cried myself to sleep after I let Zoe drag me from the back hallway, afraid he’d head to Florida without telling me goodbye. Something is off about this trip, but none of the guys are talking. I don’t know everything about the inner workings of the club, but there are whispers of the tension between Ravens Ruin and the cartels in Florida, and knowing that my brothers and Briar are heading down there leaves my skin itchy and hypersensitive.

“You’re brave being here.” I sit up on the bed.

His eyes dart to my mouth and down the column of my neck before briefly pausing on my chest. My favorite sleep tank is thin, threadbare from being worn and washed so frequently. I know he can see the outline of my dark nipples. Any other day I’d lift my blanket to my chin. My shyness would be the winning emotion, but today I just can’t seem to be bothered with it. Not after that decadent brush of his tongue against mine. Whether he wants to admit it or not, things changed between us last night.

“Can you,” he pauses, clearing his throat, “cover yourself?”

“Why are you here, Briar? Lynch will lose his shit if he finds you hovering in my doorway while I’m so indecent.” I lean back against my headboard, chest jutting out another desperate inch or so. My nipples furl tighter, straining against the thin cotton.

“If the noises coming from his room are any indication, he’ll be busy for a little while.”

“Come here,” I plead, patting the bed beside me.

“Not gonna happen, Mols.” His head is shaking violently, but it’s his refusal to look at me that cuts like a knife.

In a bid to get him to look back at me, I grasp the edge of my comforter and tuck it under my chin.

“I’m sorry I kissed you last night,” I whisper.

He huffs a humorless laugh. “No, you’re not.”

“I went looking for someone like you,” I confess, finally drawing his eyes back to me. “That night. My last night at school.”

His hands clench, turning white at his knuckles from the effort.

“You thought you’d find someone like me in a shitty, rundown frat-house filled with popped-collar douchebags? We didn’t send you to Andover Academy for you to go slumming with low-life pieces of shit.” There’s bitterness in his voice, and I can’t tell if he’s angry at me, or if he’s pissed at the guys who almost took advantage of me.

“He rode a bike,” I say with a shrug.

We haven’t talked about that night, but I know Lynch told him. Briar and TJ took off a while back, and when Briar got home, the look in his eyes had changed. I know what happened. Three guys don’t get chopped up in a frat-house while a party rages downstairs without it making the evening news. The fourth guy claims he was knocked unconscious, and he later confessed to the arson of the first frat-house. That was a way to cover Zoe’s ass. She lit that place up like the 4th of July when she found me on that bed and realized what they were about to do to me.

“If you want a man on a bike—” His jaw clenches shut.

“Finish your fucking sentence,” I demand.

“I can’t.” He looks resigned, his eyes searching mine for understanding, but I won’t let him off the hook so easily.

“You won’t,” I correct.

“I fucking can’t!”

My eyes dart to my open bedroom door, afraid that Lynch will hear him. He paces at the end of my bed, his hands tugging at his gorgeous dark hair.

“You can stand up to him,” I urge.

“He’ll kill me.”

“Am I not worth dying for?” It’s a low fucking blow, but he’s ripping my heart out right now.

He freezes in the middle of my room and doesn’t pull his eyes from mine. The stare is soul deep.

“Who will love you if I’m gone?”

Tears sting my eyes. He’s making this seem so impossible. He’s not even willing to consider the options. Surely, there’s more that can be done than choosing between nothing and death.

“You love me?” It takes me a long moment for my brain to register what he’s said.

“You know what I mean,” he murmurs as his feet begin to move, carrying him across my room near the foot of my king-sized bed. “We’re like family.”

Ouch.

“If you tell me you think of me like a little sister, I’ll never freaking speak to you again.”

“You’re eleven years younger than me, Molly. Even if dating was an option, I’m too damn old for you.”

“What are you trying to say? Spell it out, Briar. Wouldn’t want me to get confused seeing as how I’m so young and immature and all.”

He continues traveling across my room and back again, over and over so many times he’s making me dizzy. His hands work through his hair and then slide into the front pockets of his jeans. He repeats the pattern over and over so many times, I almost lie back down and take a nap.

“Are you saying we can never be together?” I prompt. “If that’s how you feel, you need to be able to say the actual words.”

“You know better than to even ask that question, Molly. The two of us together will never be an option.”

“So, you’re going to be alone forever?” I lick at my dry lips. I’ve never seen him with another woman. I’ve always assumed he was waiting for me to grow up.

“I don’t know,” he mumbles.

“You’ve been celibate waiting for me—”

“What?” He spins around to face me.

“You’ve been waiting for me.” I know it as sure I know the sun will set tonight and give way to the moon.

“I haven’t,” he argues.

He must see the confusion on my face because he places his hands on the end of my bed and leans closer. He’s still too far away to touch, but his undivided attention is what I’ve needed since he walked in here, and I didn’t have it until right now.

“I’ve been celibate for ten years, Molly. That would’ve made you eight. I’m not a fucking pedophile.” He shakes his head as if he’s disgusted by the mere thought. “I was celibate before I joined the club.”

It makes sense now, but I didn’t know he’d gone without sex for that long. I just know I was fourteen when I realized he was the most handsome man I’d ever seen in my life, and I’d never seen him with a woman before or after. His eyes didn’t follow me then the way they do now. As much as I wanted him to notice me, he’d always been polite, but it’s like I didn’t even activate his radar back then.

“Why are you celibate then?” I mean if we’re talking about it, I might as well know all the details.

“That’s not your business.”

“You were hard against me last night,” I remind him.

A haunting laugh erupts from his throat. “I don’t know why everyone thinks that celibacy and asexuality go hand in hand. Any girl grinding on my cock would make it hard.”

Any?

And I thought my heart was broken before. Maybe I am too young to fully understand what’s going on. Maybe that kiss meant nothing to him. His body only responded to external stimuli last night. It had nothing to do with the fact that it was me.

“Why are you here?” If he’s not in my room to pick up where we left off after getting interrupted last night, he needs to get to the point. My nose burns with the effort to not begin sobbing right now, and I’d like to do that in private.

“Fuck.” His hands work back over the top of his dark hair again, and his legs move him back and forth across my room, picking up the pattern right where he left off. “Can you not do that?”

“Do what?”

“Acting distant, treating me like I’m just some biker.”

“But aren’t you?” I challenge. “You’re my brother’s best friend, his VP. I’m just his little sister. We’re nothing more than that.”

That stings like a bitch to admit out loud, but it’s also cathartic, healing in a way.

“Right.” His pacing doesn’t stop, and he doesn’t seem inclined to leave anytime soon either. “That’s why I came up.”

I wait silently for him to get the words out. His mouth opens and closes several times like he’s unsure of how to word his thoughts, or like he’s pained with the task.

“You need to find another guy, Mols. I’m not the one for you.”

I wasn’t expecting that.

“Someone else?” He nods but won’t look in my direction.

He’s a fucking coward, and one hundred percent correct. I deserve better than someone who won’t stand up for what he wants. I tip my nose in the air and stiffen my back. I refuse to let the thread of doubt, the one that is always telling me he really doesn’t have feelings for me other than familial, tie up my heart.

“I may just do that.”

He nods again before walking out of my room without so much as a goodbye.