Page 42 of Cruel Savior

“It’s a little late for that don’t you think?” I tipped my head to indicate the almost modest wrap around her. “I’ve already seen every inch of you. EVERY inch,” I emphasized thinking about having her legs spread wide for me on the bed or her ass cheeks parted in the living room. There wasn’t a place I could go in this cabin that wouldn’t remind me of today.

She tightened the blanket and shrugged. I guessed that was all the response I was going to get.

“It will only take me a few minutes to get dressed, as soon as I find my clothes…”

I thought about those booty shorts I’d ripped off of her. “Not what you had on earlier. If anyone else sees you in those fucking short shorts, I’ll have to gouge their eyeballs out.”

She stopped short and turned to look at me. “That was oddly descriptive. And a little creepy under the circumstances. And I didn’t mean those. I left my duffel in the bathroom with my regular clothes in it.”

“Good,” I said, scowling in the direction of the still pounding on my door.

“For God’s sake. Why are they pounding like that?”

“I don’t fucking know, but itison my last nerve. Get dressed, and after I figure out what the hell is going on, we can talk about what’s next.”

She opened her mouth like she wanted to say something and then immediately closed it again. Whatever it was she decided it could wait. Good thing. Because I wasn't ready for another argument if that's where she wanted to go. Instead, she headed for the bathroom and I went for the door. I passed the couch, scooped up her shorts and panties, and shoved them under a pillow until I could retrieve them later.

I didn’t care if a single one of my brothers knew what we’d done in here, but that didn’t mean I wanted her to be embarrassed by it.

I had to admit I had a fondness for those shorts, as long as I was the only one who got to see her wearing them. I wasn't normally this insane about how any woman dressed, but there was something about her that made me a little bit crazy.

And that was very different from ten years ago. I didn't remember feeling quite the same back then. I guess I'd been more focused on the fun and less on the future. Even after hearing about the baby. I remember feeling very divided over what my future looked like. Then I'd been so focused on becoming a prospect that it had been hard to see anything beyond that.

And if I was honest, I'd been angry as hell when she left, but that had fueled my ambition and motivations with the club for a very long time. If not for the incessant banging driving me fucking mad, I might have tried to work through some of the murky thoughts now plaguing me. But—

“I’m coming." I crossed to the door, my view completely hazed with the need to murder someone. "Stop your fucking pounding before I pound your fucking fa— “

I jerked open the door to find a fucking committee. JD, Tell, and Zook were all standing there looking all grim and shit, with Tel's arm still in mid-air from where he'd been using it to pound the thick wood. Good. I hope his hand was god damned sore from that bullshit.

“About god damned time we've been out here for fucking ever," JD growled.

I smirked."You could have called."

"We did. For two hours. You didn't answer, and now this can't wait."

I tried to remember where the hell I had left my phone and why I hadn't heard a peep out of it, but I'd been a little busy to keep track of it. I had it in the kitchen... I jerked my head in the direction of the island to find it still sitting there from earlier. Hell.

"Come in," I said gruffly, leaving the door open while I moved to the kitchen to retrieve said phone. Sure enough, even before I got it unlocked I could see the blow up of notifications waiting for me.

"What's so important it can't wait?" I asked absently, holding up my phone for face ID to unlock it.

"What's so god damned important here that you can't answer your phone, or open your god damned door in a timely manner?” I didn’t have long to work my way around JD’s obvious anger before the reason I’d been unavailable sing-songed her way into the living room, ineffectively hiding the blush tinging her cheeks.

“Afternoon.”

All three men turned and stared at her, studying her as if they’d never seen her before.

“Hey,” JD responded, uncharacteristically monosyllabic. Tel and Zook followed suit. If they hadn’t already guessed why I’d been unreachable before, they were certainly putting the pieces together now.

“Houston called. When you didn’t answer your phone or respond to any of his messages, he called me.”

Mandy’s blush deepened at JD’s announcement, which wasn’t helped by the insinuating glances he kept throwing in both of our directions. For now, I chose to ignore the tension that caused. There was a reason JD was here, and I wanted to get to the bottom of that. I could see there were several missed calls and voice mails from Houston.

JD didn't have to explain anything about Houston to Mandy. She knew it all. From the three of them growing up together, to him leaving the club for the military, all the way to him getting involved with a crime boss’s daughter and the subsequent fallout . Somehow, despite the distance between her and the club, she'd managed to be there for every milestone along the way.

That made me give her a hard look. I still didn't believe in coincidences, which made it difficult for me to believe that she'd landed back in our lives by accident or that the killer in question now wasn't somehow connected to all of us. The back of my neck skipped the itching phase and went to straight up burn. The answer was right in front of our faces.

"And?" I finally asked corralling some of my thoughts and tabling them until after this discussion. Houston obviously had news.

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