Page 21 of Hawk

“They saw us together, and they’re not stupid. They saw that we were, um, kinda flirting,” she says as she blushes profusely.

“I was flirting shamelessly,” I state with a laugh. “If you think it was ‘kinda,’ I wasn’t doing a very good job of it.”

“What happens now?” she asks. My next thought is to kiss her again, but a knock at the front door stops that cold. No way a Jackal would be bold enough to waltz up to Etain’s front door.

“Yo, it’s Drifter,” comes from the other side. Reluctantly, I let Etain go, but I take her hand and bring her with me to open the door.

Based on Drifter’s expression, it was a member of the Jackals, and he’s not impressed with the audacity of them strutting through our town like they own it. Twice in one day is an aggressive statement. Jake’s and Etain’s today; not good.

“Got a second, Prez?” Drifter asks, looking at Etain, then back to me. He doesn’t want to speak in front of her, probably so as not to upset her.

I turn to Etain and caress her cheek. “Baby, get our coffees, yeah? I’ll be right out front.”

She nods and looks back at Drifter. “I’ll pour you a cup too.”

“No need?—”

“You’re always welcome here, and I have cookies,” she interrupts.

Drifter snickers. “Can’t refuse cookies.” Etain giggles, and Drifter and I go out onto the porch.

Drifter looks around, then turns to me. “Gunner sent a man to watch Etain. His guy out front was his tracker. Made a couple of calls and found out Gunner’s been talking about a pretty redhead he’s looking forward to sinking his dick into.”

“Fucking fucker!” I curse.

“He’s stalking his prey.”

“I’ll cut off his dick if he touches her.”

“Shit, you’ve got it bad.” He laughs. Then he becomes serious. “Look, we all like Etain. If she’s yours, then she’s part of the Riders. We’ll take care of her.”

“I don’t want her out on the streets on her own. Until we finish this with the Jackals next week, Etain has a man on her at all times.”

“No argument here,” Drifter replies. “Are you going to call Gunner out on his shit?”

“It’ll only make him think he’s gotten under my skin.”

“He has.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t need confirmation of that,” I say. “We need to finish our business with the Jackals.”

“That doesn’t guarantee Gunner isn’t going to cause more problems.”

“He won’t be around, if everything goes as planned,” I say with steely determination.

“We’re going in for the kill, then?”

“Absolutely. Stalking my woman just cost Gunner his life.” Gunner has been a thorn in my side from day one. The situation between the two clubs has been escalating for years, and when they turned our man Meteor against us, I knew we were headed for war. When shit went down with Phantom, we began preparing for battle, but stalking my woman has earned him a coffin.

TEN

Ethan Hawke-Volpe

ETAIN

While Hawk and Drifter move their conversation outside, the severity of what’s happened in the last forty-eight hours makes my head spin. My life has been completely turned upside down and inside out, and I must be crazy because I’m still smiling. Not about the stalking thing or the Robert part, but because Hawk makes me feel safe and happy.

Finding out Robert was cheating stung. It was a betrayal, but it also made me come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t in love with him like I thought I was. I loved him, but wasn’tinlove with him. Still, it hurt that someone I trusted threw what we had away in the blink of an eye. We could have stayed friends or at least remained civil. He could have told me his feelings had changed, and we might have been able to salvage part of what we had together. Then again, maybe not, but I would have felt like we made the decision together.

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