Page 14 of Savage Heart

Stiffening, she turned her head over her shoulder and met Trouble’s gaze. The ice was gone. In its place was…regret?

Yeah, right.

The man regretted nothing.

Without a word, Trouble reached around her, his massive, hard chest pressing against her stiff back, as he grabbed a bottle of Advil from the clearly labelled pain meds shelf. Moving with grace a man his size shouldn’t have, he closed the closet door, and pulled his arm back. But he didn’t move back. He remained where he was, pressed against her body. His heat invading her flesh, searing her blood, scorching her nerves.

She couldn’t move, not without brushing more of her already pulled taut body against his.

“Please, take a step back,” she commanded, her voice just on this side of sass. She couldn’t let him know that his closeness was getting to her. If she let her sass fly, it was a red flag that she was feeling something, and usually that feeling was fiery anger. Also, she was well known for her sarcasm and cynicism. One became jaded and cynical when betrayed. She knew better than anyone. She’d been betrayed by the foster system long before she’d been betrayed by Trouble. However…the betrayal from the man she’d loved more than anything stung so much worse. But to show any of that to Trouble was a bad idea.

“I will in a minute,” he replied, much too fucking close to her ear. She couldn’t stop the shudder that vibrated through her. And from the way he tensed, then relaxed into her, he felt it, too.

Dammit!

“I don’t have a minute, Trouble, I have somewhere to be.” Like with their daughter. A daughter he didn’t know about and, hopefully, never would. She’d been careful about keeping her professional life and personal life separate, especially with the Savage Raiders MC. No one in the club or affiliated with the club knew she had a kid, and she wanted to keep it that way. It wasn’t any of their business. To them, she was their doctor. To her, they were just her patients. That was all it could be between them, because they’d shown her years ago that she was just as expendable as a used condom.

Trouble growled, the rumbling making her nerve endings zing. Good God, her nipples got hard! Fuck! She was wearing a silk blouse and an unpadded lace bra! Of all the times to get aroused, this was not it. This was not the man she should get aroused for.

Even though he ruined you for all other men?

Shit.

“I heard about your plans,” he rasped. “Hot date?”

She blinked, confused for a minute before she remembered he’d overheard her side of the conversation with her daughter.

“Yes. Hot date. Not that it’s any of your business,” she huffed, tucking locks of flyaway hair back into the once tight chignon she’d started the day with. Her hair was one of her best features—silky-smooth, thick, with a bit of a wave when loose. It was a pain in the ass to keep contained, though.

Annoyed and at the end of her patience, she pushed back against him with her shoulders, keeping her fat ass from moving back to hit his groin. He would never know that pleasure from her again.

Finally taking a step back, he crossed his arms and pinned her with a look that said their conversation was just getting started.

Nope.

Grabbing the handle on her rolling case, she tried to skirt around him to get to the door. He stopped her with a hand on her wrist.

“Don’t act like everything about you isn’t my business,” he growled, the sound moving through her from neck to toes. She shuddered once again. “And when you’re on that hot date with your boyfriend, remember who always made you feel good. Who always made you catch fire in his bed. Who’s cock you always begged for.”

Whatever arousal his nearness had sparked was immediately doused by his words.

Twisting her wrist from his grasp, she met his gaze with hers, pouring her hatred and anger into her eyes. Just this once, she would let him see what he’d made her.

“You made me feelgood?” she sneered. “Funny, I only remember how you made me feel like I was nothing to you. Like a piece of shit you stepped in, then scraped off once the stink got too much. I remembereverything, Trouble. And what I remember is that you didn’t give a fuck about me. I remember you were a lying, cheating, piece of shit who was too much of a goddamn coward to tell me to my face that I was nothing more than a piece of ass. You didn’t give a fuck then, so, please, continue not giving a fuck, because I willneverlet you make me feelgoodever again.”

With that, she hurried from the room, leaving a silent and fuming Trouble in her wake.

Shit, that had taken longer than she’d hoped. After leaving the compound and driving the forty minutes to the official offices of VIP Medical from which she worked, she’d spent far too long trying to figure out the clusterfuck her business partner—and less notably ex-boyfriend—Dr. Lyle Pace had made of their monthly expenses. She’d told him to hire an accredited accountant to do the books, but he’d been adamant about doing them himself, even though the man hadn’t a lick of finance experience. But she couldn’t complain. Because Lyle handled the admin of the clinic and the walk-in patients, that left her free to do the call out and concierge side of the business, which was much more flexible. She needed flexibility with a young child depending on her. It took another hour of dealing with that mess and getting nowhere before she gave up for the night, and headed to pick up Erika. That took another hour because Dolly was in a chatty mood—sharing the more interesting bits of gossip she’d pulled from other parents who picked up their kids before Liz.

It had taken another fifty minutes to get the pizza and breadsticks from the only pizza place in town worthy of the title, Gino’s—she refused to get pizza anywhere else and was willing to wait the long line for the privilege. Not only was the line out the door, but the phone was ringing off the hook. The place was old school, which meant no fancy online ordering or even delivery, and forget out apps like DoorDash or UberEats. If you wanted a Gino’s mushroom, olive, and pepperoni pie, you had to call in or come and get it your damn self. But, Lord, it was worth it.

The scents wafting from the boxes were making her mouth water, and she couldn’t wait to dig in, especially since she hadn’t taken time to eat lunch. Or breakfast, for that matter. Not that her ass or hips or thighs showed any signs of all the missed meals. Before she’d gotten pregnant with Erika, she’d been a slightly chubby size 12, but after Erika, she’d “blossomed” into a size 16 and hadn’t lost a pound sense—which was damn awful in the summer when the heat ratcheted up, and she got the worst cases of humidititties and thigh rub rash ever. Being a big girl in Vegas was a nightmare.

Liz tossed her keys in the basket on the foyer table and hurried into the kitchen to put the steaming pizza boxes on the granite island. Swearing under her breath at the ridiculous heat from the cardboard, she shook her hand to alleviate some of the pain.

“Mama, can I have two pieces? I’m really hungry,” Erika asked, her hopeful little face making Liz grin. God…she looked so much like her daddy. Same beautiful green eyes, same gold blonde hair, same smile—complete with dimples. If she hadn’t been there to push Erika out, she could swear someone else birthed her because there wasn’t a drop of Liz in Erika’s features. She didn’t mind, not really, because her daughter was beautiful—even if she was a constant, painful reminder of the man who’d fathered her.

The man she named their little girl after.

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