Page 78 of Lamb

“Because of Lamb?”

A voice cackled, and I spun to see Jax returning through the door. Mint cut him a seething glare, but the tattooed cowboyjust shrugged, mouthing a petulant “What?”back at his younger brother.

“No,” a different voice answered.

I looked away from Jax now, my eyes eating up the familiar figure leaning against the doorframe.

Lamb ran a hand through his blond, wet hair, slicking it back from his face. A tear of water slid down the sharp edge of his jaw, down his long, slender neck, soaking into the collar of his grey, unbuttoned Henley. Purpling skin mirrored my own, stretching wide around his throat, finger marks clear and distinct. “It’s not because of me.”

Mint frowned. “But—”

Lamb stalked into the room with purpose, stopping a mere foot away from the edge of the bed. From me.

I could smell him. It was woodsy and earthy, and surrounded me in a thick, tingling aura, sending hot shivers over my skin. Lured like a moth to a flame, my eyes found his face.

It had felt longer than a day since I had seen those eyes. As waves washed over the shore, a warmth began to beat out of my core. It grew in intensity, and I was shocked by their effect. My muscles relaxed, my lips parted, and my gaze softened. But worse of all, the pure, calming scent of him nearby blurred my protests.

Damn that Ivan Pavlov.

He reached forward, and I fought not to nuzzle into the feeling of his fingers as they found my jaw, skimming along the bone and down towards my neck. I did not flinch as his fingers feathered around the purpling bruises. It had barely been two days since his hand had wrapped around my throat and he’d held my life suspended in the balance, helpless to his whim. Though it seemed I was not the only one.

“Are you scared of me?” Lamb’s voice was softer than I had ever heard it before. His eyes bore into mine in a way that erasedeveryone else from the world, and only he and I stood in the bedroom, his question for me and my ears alone.

“No,” I breathed, the question leaving me not without thought, but without hesitation. “I am not scared of you.”

“Are you an idiot?” Mint’s voice jutted through my trance. “He nearly killed you.”

I shook my head, not leaving Lamb’s eyes that were simmering with warmth and calculation. Behind the cold, metal exterior, something had begun to move beneath the surface. Something new. Something different.

A soft sigh slipped from Lamb’s lips, his fingers parting from my skin, and my body grieved their absence. Cold seeped under where he had touched me, and I yearned for his warmth.

“You should be,” Lamb said, dropping his hand limply by his side. With that, he turned once again and vanished from the room, leaving both me and his two brothers bewildered by the abrupt interaction.

We stared for a long moment at the empty doorway, each of us having something to process.

“Never seen him like that before,” Jax grumbled, dark brows woven into a puzzled frown. He shuffled on his feet and readjusted his arms, as if comfort escaped him.

“You’ve known him longer than me, man.” Mint shrugged, shaking away his confusion as he stood from the bed, collecting his medical box.

“Yeah, but …” Jax’s mouth floundered, half words and half thoughts spinning in circles over his face and expression. “Lamb’s never really got things the same way we do.” Unlike other club members, Jax wore his emotions on his sleeve, and his face was often an easy read, except in moments like these, when neither he nor I knew what he was thinking.

“He’s not an idiot,” Mint grunted.

“Not like that.” Jax frowned, rubbing the sole of his shoe into the carpeted floor, receding into his mind. “I mean the emotional stuff.” He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. “He gets it, but he’s never likegot it got it,ya know?”

Mint frowned. “I don’t think I’m following.”

I know.

I had seen it. Not from when we had first met, but if you looked at him long enough, you could see it. A glimpse here and there. If the light struck right, or the conversation flowed the right way, you would notice something there, hiding. It was subtle at first, but once you saw it, you couldn’t unsee it.

In those fractions of a second, where people had already reacted, spoken, and moved, he would hesitate. He would wait. Think. Then act. What was second nature to us, would be third or fourth to him. The behaviour we considered innate, to him, was learned.

The urge to defend and explain him caught in my throat. I did not want to admit what I knew. Doing so would confess far more about my interest in Lamb than I was willing to share. Knowing what others assumed to have just been a few days of watching each other, had, in fact, started a lot longer ago.

“Whatever.” Jax righted himself, stretching back to his full height. “Wolf can explain it better. They’ve been together since their prospecting days.”

“No shit?” Mint said.

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