Page 6 of My Protective Biker

I pick up a wrench and then set it down again, check the torque on a bolt I already checked twice this afternoon. Stand there looking at the engine and seeing dark green eyes instead of the cam shaft that needs my attention.

This is tactical stupidity and I know it.

I've kept my world deliberately small for twenty years, just Zoe and the club and the work, no one else to worry about and no one else to protect and no new vulnerabilities to manage.

The Marrow situation has been escalating for months now and Victor Crane is getting more aggressive, more personal, targeting families in ways he didn't used to.

Perry got beaten because of who his brother is, Ray ended up in the hospital because of Diesel, and the women are targets now in a way they weren't when I was twenty-two and stupid enough to think the club could stay separate from the rest of life.

Anyone I care about becomes a potential leverage point, and I've understood this for twenty years and acted accordingly.

Built a life that functions precisely because I don't give Marrow or anyone else additional pressure points to exploit.

And now I'm standing in my garage thinking about a woman with gentle hands and a calm voice who stayed steady even when Zoe was panicking, and the wanting is immediate enough and visceral enough that I can't categorize it or dismiss it or file it away under things that don't matter.

I force myself to actually pick up the wrench and use it this time, working through the next steps of the rebuild with deliberate focus and refusing to let my attention drift. It works for maybe twenty minutes before I'm thinking about the way she looked at me when I asked if she did strays often, the brief flicker of something in her eyes before she answered.

Not defensiveness or pride, just honesty delivered plain. Often enough.

Like she's been doing this for a while and doesn't need credit for it, just does what needs doing because it needs doing.

I work until ten-thirty and accomplish almost nothing useful, finally admitting defeat and putting the tools away.

Wipe down the workbench and head inside, the house quiet now with Zoe's light off and her door fully closed.

I shower, standing under water hot enough to loosen the tension in my shoulders but not hot enough to stop me from thinking.

Get out and pull on clean boxers, head to the kitchen for a beer I don't actually want, and end up in the living room instead, sitting on the couch in the dark with the unopened bottle in my hand, staring at nothing while my brain works through what tomorrow means.

Carina coming here, to this house, to the space I've built for Zoe where I've kept her safe for twenty years and where everything is exactly the way it needs to be to function. And I want her here, that's the part I can't get around.

I want to see her in my kitchen and watch her interact with Zoe in a context that isn't professional and find out if the attraction I felt in that clinic was real or just some kind of momentary chemical reaction that won't survive a second encounter.

Except I already know it was real.

I felt it when our fingers touched, saw it in her eyes when she looked at me and I could read the awareness she was trying not to show.

She felt it too, which makes this more complicated instead of less because it means I'm not imagining things or projecting what I want to see.

The smart move would be to maintain distance tomorrow night.

Be polite, let Zoe have her dinner, make sure Carina knows I appreciate what she did for the cat, and then let it end there.

Don't pursue it, don't create the vulnerability, don't give Marrow another person to target if things continue going the direction they're going.

The problem is I don't want to make the smart move. I want to see what happens if I don't, and that wanting after twenty years of not wanting anything for myself that wasn't directly related to Zoe or the club is dangerous enough that I should be paying closer attention to it.

Should be, but I'm not.

I'm sitting here in the dark thinking about tomorrow and knowing that when she walks through my door, I'm not going to keep my distance.

I'm going to let whatever this is play out and deal with the consequences after, because I've been alone for twenty years and I'm tired of it in a way I didn't realize until I saw her standing in that clinic with gentle hands and soft eyes and a body I couldn't stop noticing.

I set the beer down unopened and head to bed, lie there staring at the ceiling while the house settles around me and the cicadas scream outside.

Thinking about the way she looked at me with that mixture of caution and interest, about the moment when our fingers touched and I saw everything she was trying not to feel written clear across her face.

Thinking about tomorrow, about her being here in my space, about what I'm going to do when I see her again and the attraction is still there and I have to decide whether to act on it or let it pass.