Page 22 of Treachery

She furrowed her brow, her gaze boring into his, searching for the true meaning behind his words; he couldn’t mean what he was saying. Right?

He bent down, burrowing his face into her neck, making her tense and gasp.

“If I lost you….” The words were warm against her flesh, spoken so softly, with such ragged intensity, Nadia could swear it was dragged up from the depths of his soul. His large body shuddered against her, then he dragged in a deep, long, chest heaving breath.

Pulling back slowly, his biceps flexing, tensing, as though putting space between them pained him, he gazed down into her face, his blue eyes darkening.

“Tell me what happened, baby,” he demanded, his voice just this side of human—like an animal was snarling in his belly, desperate to get out and protect its mate.

Is that what I am?No, she mentally shook her head. She meant nothing to him; she was just a target of him and his MC. Just like she was a target with Joe…and then Dana, two people who targeted her because they’d heard about her windfall. Locust wasn’t after her money, but he’d still targeted her for what he thought she could give him; her step-brother.

So why did he come when he thought you were in danger? That man just kissed you like he needed you to survive!

Sucking in a breath, she forced the words out past the lump of confusion in her throat. “I saw it last night…the closet was a mess….”

At the wordslast night, something happened….

Nadia watched as the fear on his face, the vulnerability that had been there when he kissed her, when he murmured against her neck, seeped from his features, his shoulders, his frame, and then the steel of the biker badass filled him. It was like a switch was flipped, and a totally different man was standing there. A man she’d never met before.

Sothisis the real Locust….This was the man who’d happily invaded her life, lying about who he really was, his interest in her, making her fall in love with him. This was the man who didn’t give a second thought to following his president’s orders to seduce and use an innocent woman. This was the man who’d faked the smiles, the laughter, the contentment, the arousal, the sexual interest.

…when I get desperate enough…but I got to be real drunk first….

Her heart clenched, tears burning behind her eyes. He’d actually said that…about her, about what they’d shared together. While she’d been building castles in the sky, dreaming about a future, about a lifetime of intimacy and pleasure with the man she loved, he was calculating how many beers he needed to get hard without getting whiskey dick.

But he seems sincereright now, maybe?—

No! She wasn’t going to fall for his bullshit again. Obviously, someone had rifled through her closet, and if it wasn’t someone from the Unchained, she had an issue.

Focus on that.

As if sensing the trail of her thoughts, and the resulting anguish, he sighed. “Talk to me, Nadia. I need to know what’s going on.”

She pursed her lips, then nodded. She was well aware that she was out of her depth. Sure, she could call the cops, but what could they do really other than file a report and tell her to lock her doors!

“I came home last night, got your text and the food, then I…I don’t know…felt like something was off. I thought it was you, watching through the windows….”

His lips pinched at that, his expression guarded.

Huh.

“I went to get ready for bed, and when opened the closet door to get pajamas, I noticed….” She couldn’t finish without swallowing down the bile. Shaking her head, she finished, “It was a wreck. Some-someone trashed it.” She turned her head to look over her shoulder at the offending closet door, behind it her own personal nightmare. “At first, I was shocked, you know—I hadn’t left it like that. Then…I was angry; someone had gone through and trashed my stuff. I thought…,” she shrugged, “I thought it was you,rightfully so. Because I didn’t…want to deal with you again, I just figured I’d leave it until this morning. Deal with it when I hadn’t already been going all day. But then I called you….” And when she’d called him, him standing in the middle of her bedroom less than thirty minutes later was not the outcome she expected.

Yeah, you expected him to laugh and admit it was him, but it wasn’t. I was a stranger….

Immediately, fear and frustration embroidered themselves together, thin threads, tied in knots, to form the image of an overwhelmed woman.

“I honestly thought it was you, Locust, but if it wasn’t….” She swallowed hard, her heart racing.

His expression hardened, his shoulders straightened, and it seemed like the whole of him became a marble statue—Greek, of course. His fierce, chiseled beauty remained, but the glint in his eyes now was all business.

Gripping her forearms, he squeezed, the callouses on his hands from working on bikes abrading her skin, making her shiver—for a wholly different reason. In that moment, she wasn’t feeling fear or anger, she was all sorts of aroused.

Goddamn sexy bikers!

She remembered, too well, what it felt like to have those same hands on her naked breasts, kneading them, between her thighs, spreading them, caressing them on their way up to her drenched, aching pussy, on her ass, pulling her into his hard, pounding thrusts….

Thankfully, Locust wasn’t looking at her, his gaze was pinned over her shoulder, otherwise he’d curl his lips in that knowing smirk of his, and she’d have to rummage through the pile on the closet floor for another pair of panties.

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