Page 14 of Cipher

She cocked her head. “I noticed.”

“You call me before anyone else,” I clarified, just to make sure there was no question.

“Why?”

My brow furrowed as I realized that the walls had fallen completely and there was no putting them back up. So I told her the truth. “Because you’re mine.”

A blush moved over her cheeks while she slid the phone into her bag. “You’re very sure of yourself for a man who spent three weeks pretending I didn’t exist.”

“Pretending required more effort than expected.”

The answer stopped her for half a heartbeat, and the warmth that entered her expression sent desire racing through my body. I contained the urge to drag her closer before it became visible to her father, but just barely.

Since I’d ridden my bike, I guided her toward Raines’s SUV with my palm at the base of her spine. Bex leaned into the touch instead of pulling away, and the quiet acceptance made the decision to move her into my home feel like the correction of a mistake I should never have made.

I followed them home on my Harley while two Black Crowns vehicles took separate routes behind us. The property sat on several wooded acres west of town, private enough for the sheriff to value it and exposed enough to irritate me now that someone had already photographed Bex outside. Breach and Trigger arrived before we did, while two prospects took positions along the rear boundary and another brother drove past twice to check whether anyone had followed the convoy.

After a quick recon, I made a note that while Raines’s cameras covered the driveway, porch, and detached garage, the north side of the house had a blind spot between an oak and the guest-room windows. One contact sensor was old enough to hesitate before reporting, the backup battery in the exterior panel had begun losing capacity, and the side gate could be reached from the neighboring fire road without crossing the front camera.

Breach handed me a kit, and I corrected what I could with portable sensors, tied the temporary feeds into the Black Castle mirror, and set a silent alert around every approach before trusting the setup enough to let Bex out of my sight for more than a minute.

When I entered the house, she was just emerging from the hallway in soft gray lounge pants and a faded college shirt that slipped off one shoulder. My cock hardened at the sight of her bare skin and the gentle sway of her tits beneath the thin cotton, while my mind supplied an image of that shirt on the floor of my bedroom and Bex spread naked across the black sheets I had never shared with anyone. Tomorrow she would be sleeping there.

Her gaze moved toward Trigger on the porch outside the front window, then returned to me with a softness she made no effort to hide. “You’re acting less like a security consultant and more like someone who thinks my safety belongs to him.”

“It does.” The answer left my mouth without hesitation.

Bex looked down, gathering whatever she needed before meeting my eyes again, and the pleased light there told me the claim had landed exactly where I intended.

My phone vibrated before I could close the distance between us, and I dug it out to see a message from my prez.

Stryker

Office. Twenty minutes. Extra men are five out. Bex’ll be covered while you’re gone.

I disliked every part of leaving except the fact that Stryker would not have called unless the threat had moved beyond my personal response and into club territory. Headlights swept across the front windows as Ghost arrived with two more brothers, filling the approaches with enough Black Crowns firepower to make anyone watching reconsider every decision that had led him here.

“Gotta go to the compound for a bit.” My hand closed around her nape when concern flickered across her expression, bringing her close enough for her breath to touch my mouth. “Stay inside. Don’t open a door, step onto the porch, or even change rooms without one of the brothers knowing.”

Bex rolled her eyes. “That last one feels excessive.”

“I’m fine with excessive.”

“So I noticed.” She placed her palm against my chest, and the contact made every nerve in my body light up. “You’re coming back?”

“Soon as I can.”

“Then I’ll be here.”

It took everything I had, but I resisted the pull toward her lips. Kissing her now would end three weeks of restraint in her kitchen with half my club outside, and the possibility of her father walking in on us at any moment. The fact that I seriously considered it proved logic was in a battle to the death.

I brushed my thumb along the side of her neck, memorizing the shiver that followed before forcing myself to step back. When I opened the front door, I found Raines standing on the porch.

“All these boys have licenses for the weapons they’re carrying, right?”

I paused, then asked, “You really want to know?”

He glared at me, then sighed and muttered, “No.”