Page 56 of Gunner

There are great locks on the doors and the windows are bulletproof glass. Tyrant and Raiden weren’t messing around with the club’s safety. The men who have old ladies and kids planned on bringing them here. The ring of trees hides this place, but that could work both for and against safety. The place is also monitored by Wizard, but it’s a damn long hike from Hart all the way up here should anything go wrong.

I only thought about Wizard after I was in the shower with Diletta. I know he would have killed the cameras the second we pulled up, giving us our privacy. I’m ninety-nine percent sure of that. The one percent makes me want to go into full blown psychopathic mode and perform some kind of brain surgery that would eliminate his memory.

Diletta was so happy this afternoon as she challenged herself to make something edible out of what she found in the fridge and cabinets. The renovations on the interior were justfinished, but officially, Ella and Raiden opened it up last month. They brought a bunch of nonperishable food items. I guess it was my fault for not stopping en route for things like vegetables, fruits, and milk. The freezer might be full, but most of it is meat.

Diletta still did something with potatoes and the steaks she thawed out that had me just about groaning as I sat down with her to eat.

I could almost imagine we were a regular couple.

Her, on the back of my bike. My old lady. Out here, enjoying a few days that are solely ours, away from our stresses and worries. It didn’t feel carefree—I’m too firmly rooted in reality for that—but it felt like the end of something and the start of something new.

I’m no longer just the secret creep in the shadows.

I’m no longer a man who doesn’t have a clue what it feels like to be wanted.

I’m not just the biker or a human wall of ice that people are afraid to get close to, better left alone.

Tonight, I was the lucky prick who got all of Diletta’s smiles, laughter, and easy conversation. There was nothing guarded or black or stormy about our time together. I was the man who made her come in the shower, then showed her all around the cabin and explained all of the modern and not so modern crap that Tyrant and Mason took so long to decide on and assemble. Even I helped out with the building of this place and then the heavy labor of lugging in fridges, stoves, and furniture. Diletta was so keen to hear everything I had to say.

When I talk to Diletta, she listens. She sees me. Maybe too much of me. I wanted so very badly to be a part of her life. Icraved her. She was more than an addiction, she was life itself. I never thought this would be a reality.

“Christ on a cracker, I don’t know what’s louder. Your thoughts or the thunder outside.”

My lips flick up in amusement. It’s so easy to do that with her. Smile. Laugh. Want to be someone better than I currently am and believe that this could be our time, that would be a match.

She shifts to look up at me, tilting her face from the crook of my arm. She keeps her hand on my chest, caressing my abs and my scars. “You can’t sleep?”

“It’s not so much of a can’t situation.”

“Ahh.”

“During the day. A lot of guys at the club keep the same hours. Night is when most of the shit goes down. If we do a run during the day or have business, I generally haven’t slept the night before, or the one before that. I’m not like other people. You get trained into wakefulness and then it becomes something you don’t even think about.”

The cabin’s main bedroom with the king bed, the red and black plaid flannel sheets and patchwork quilt, and the massive sliding door that opens up to a deck and a hot tub, is cozy and warm. It faces part of the grassy clearing that Tyrant has plans to landscape this summer, and beyond that, the woods.

The total blackness of the wilderness is offset by flashes of lightning cutting through the downpour. When it rains out here, it’s different than it is in the city. This close to the mountains, the weather is probably much more unpredictable, the storms fresher and cleaner. Maybe I’m making that up.

In here, the dark is pierced by the most absurd lava lamp. It’s the only one in the room, overlooking the large space from its home on the antique secretary desk across from the bed.

Diletta traces my line of sight. “Are you watching that lamp?”

“No.”

“You are! The pink and purple blobs are so awesome. Who picked that out anyway?”

“Tyrant’s old lady, I think. She has a thing for antiques and far from telling her no, I think he does too. He picked most of the furniture.”

Diletta giggles. “When I was little, I used to see lava lamps in movies. I always kind of wanted one, but I never asked for anything. I was always an experiences versus things person, even as a kid. I know my father was rich and could have given me anything, but I never wanted crap. I just wanted my parents.”

I hate the way her face crumples with sadness. She blinks so hard, a little warrior, but a silvery tear tracks from her eyes and dribbles over her nose. Her mom is dead, and she hasn’t seen her father in years.

She grasps my face, scooting up so that we’re nose to nose, sharing the pillow. “Don’t do that.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

A flash of lightning illuminates the whole room for the briefest instant. Thunder cracks almost immediately. We’ve been in the heart of the storm for a good twenty minutes. It’s not moving anywhere, just hovering right overtop this place.

“You feel guilty. Don’t. Anything we need to figure out, we do it together. This is about going forward, not back. You’ve been there to protect me for the past five years of my life.” She moves her hand up and sets it right above my heart. “You’ll always be here. You’ll always come after me. And now? We’re a team, Ronan. It goes both ways. You try and leave, I’ll hunt you down and haunt your ass. You don’t have to punish yourself for the past. That wasn’t your doing. It stops now.”

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