Page 31 of Old Flame

Pepper slapped her hand, palm down, on the counter in front of me. “Her husband is dead.” The fury in her voice as she said the four words made me think she’d point a gun at my head if she had one handy. “The night she came here for the first time, it was to drink his favorite beer on the one-year anniversary of his death. I don’t give a shit what went down with the two of you all those years ago. She doesn’t deserve your cruel words. She’s not from your world, and she’s not a club skank.”

My fire sizzled out as quickly as it had been ignited. I blew out a breath and stared down at my glass as I released the ironclad hold I’d had on it.

Fuck. Dead. Jesus.

The pang was no longer a slight prick that made me uncomfortable. It had morphed into a burning pulse that went beyond painful.

“Why was she here?” My voice sounded void of the turmoil eating at me.

“Because I invited her to come in on Monday evenings. I told her the MC wouldn’t be here. I meant you, but she’s not opened up to me about you, so I wasn’t specific. I like her. She is lost and lonely. You know how I am about needing to save people. She needs help finding her way more than anyone I’ve ever met.”

She hadn’t been much different all those years ago either. Lost and lonely. Searching for a place to fit. So goddamn beautiful that it hurt, yet clueless and wanting me. The one bastard who should have never touched her. But I had. I’d touched her and been so addicted that I was crazed with it.

“You and your fucking strays,” I muttered, then winced.

Mom would have hated to know she was alone again. But she was the one who told me to let her go. She’d been right. I would have destroyed Salem.

She’d fallen in love again. She had loved someone else. Even if she’d lost him, she’d had that.

Someone else had had her love, her heart. That knowledge wasn’t supposed to slice through me, but it did. That hadn’t just been mine once; it had been mine first.

Twenty-One Years Ago

My phone alerted me of a text, but I had oil on my hands as I worked on a bike.

Shana had come by early and sat, waiting on me to finish up. We were going to a party at a friend of hers tonight. Going to her uppity friend’s house was the last thing I wanted to do, but sincewe’d started officially dating, she’d been pushing for more. I was putting up with it because she would let me fuck her anywhere. The girl was a nympho. I’d already decided I was bending her over in the stockroom here before we left. She had shown up with a skirt that barely covered her ass.

I glanced over at her. “Get my phone and see who it is. My back right pocket.”

She sauntered over and smiled at me as she slid her hand into my pocket and pulled it out.

“It’s your mom,” she said.

Mom didn’t text often. She normally called. Even with the new phone she’d gotten herself last month, which was one of the best on the market. I grabbed my hand towel and wiped off the oil, then took my phone from Shana.

“I think it’s a picture,” she said, her eyes following my phone.

Opening it up, I stared down at the photo, then enlarged it so I could see it better. Mom might as well have driven her ass down here and taken a hammer and hit me in the chest with it. Inhaling oxygen literally burned me as Salem smiled at the camera. She had already been the most beautiful girl I’d ever laid my eyes on, but, holy fuck, what did Mom have her wearing?

Jesus.

Then there was the child television star looking at her as if she were his and he owned her. She wasn’t his. Was she? Had she done things with him? Had she finally kissed someone?

The wrench in my hand began to bite into my palm; I was gripping it so tightly. I wanted to hurl it through the wall. Roar like a goddamn animal because I wanted her. Me. I wanted Salem so bad that it consumed me.

But I had walked away. Only went to Mom’s twice a week at most, and Shana was always with me. It wasn’t fair to Shana, but she was my buffer. My insurance policy that I wouldn’t push Salem into the nearest closet and feast on her glossy pink lips.

What if he’d taken her virginity? Girls got attached and shit when guys did that. Was she like that with him now?

Rage became my pulse. I wasn’t going to be able to stand back and let this happen.

She’d wanted me. It was all over that gorgeous face. Those eyes had almost been my undoing. I guessed they still were. Because looking down at this photo, I knew I was going to get back what had been mine for the taking.

Shoving the phone back into my pocket, I dropped the towel in the dirty clothes hamper and barely glanced at Shana. “Can’t go tonight. I got some shit I need to handle.”

“What?” she asked in a higher-pitched voice than normal, which hinted that she was about to pitch a fit.

“You heard me,” I replied. “Go on so I can lock up.”

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