Page 16 of Scorched King

“Fine. But I don’t need any more help right now. Go do whatever you need to do and let me be. I need some peace and quiet”

Hmmm. There were a lot of things I needed to do right now and none of them were what I should do. That kiss had left an imprint on me and I couldn’t get it out of my head. And the sass only made it worse.

She was the best candidate I’d ever met for a stint across my lap. Her bare ass would look incredible after I spanked the fuck out of her. It would bring a smile to my face to see her ass cheeks stained red from my hand.

I blew out a slow breath and tried to calm my racing heart. Just the idea of my hand on her heated bare flesh was enough to make me go insane.

Maybe I just needed to get laid—anything to get over this obsession with a woman half my age. I’d never denied what a sick fuck I could be, or how dirty I liked to fuck, but the idea of tainting her with that pissed me off.

She didn’t belong in my world. Or in the dark, filthy places my mind wanted to take her. It was my job to protect her from me. Not drag her down and pull her under.

If we continued like this, there were no guarantees I could stop myself. Unless I found an outlet somewhere else.

And yet…when was the last time I’d got lost in some nameless pussy?

As if I didn’t know the answer to that question too.

The first time I kissed her fucking ruined me. No matter how hard I tried to let it go, she was the only one I ever wanted. Which meant the probable only way to get past this bullshit was to fuck her out of my system and move on. Only, I’d held out against the desire because I’d watched her carefully for months before that night and I knew what kind of woman she was, and it wasn’t the kind you used just to get your dick wet.

She was looking for a family, and rightly so. And while the club could serve that role for her in their own way, I could not.

So, I’d done my best to put some distance between us and focused on maintaining a friendly boss/employee relationship with her instead. Which had worked for like two fucking seconds after I’d sampled her baking. In fact, my mouth watered now thinking about the morning rolls I used to get nearly every day until the accident.

The fact she’d preferred to cook them in my kitchen didn’t help. But apparently, my oven was better than the one in the clubhouse. I didn’t know whether to believe that or not, but If I’d been a smart man I would have yanked that bitch stove out of my kitchen and moved it somewhere else.

Instead, I’d gotten used to having her in my house, and I’d missed her while she was in the hospital. Now she was home.

While I stood there like a useless chump, eye-fucking her and ruminating over her effect on me, she’d taken my silence as acceptance and marched into my house. Part of me wanted to turn around and walk away. We both needed some space. I could head to the clubhouse and take care of business there. I had plenty to do. But there was also the investigation I was running from my home office that I wanted to look at.

No matter what went on with me and Sasha, I had a traitor to find and I couldn’t forget that.

I also wasn’t quite ready to leave her alone. I needed our friendly paramedic to get her ass in here and give her a once over so I could get the real scoop of what we were looking at. The hospital staff had not been forthcoming at all, citing their I wasn’t family bullshit. And with her long pants, long-sleeved shirt, and long hair, there weren’t a lot of visible damaged areas for me to assess myself. Although the angry red scar on the right side of her face along her hairline gave me a clue of what to expect.

Her long locks were gone, of course, but that meant nothing. I’d arranged for her regular hairdresser to take care of her in the hospital, and the new shorter hairstyle made her look like a gorgeous blonde sprite. As far as I was concerned, nothing could detract from her beauty. Not even a paper bag over her head was going to make a difference.

I followed her inside and forced myself not to go with her to the guest room. She’d been to the cabin enough to know her way around. I also wasn’t going to hover, or invade her space any more than I had to. We both needed to take a breath right now. I headed into the kitchen to ensure my instructions for stockingit had been followed. I had no idea when or if she would be in the mood to bake, but if she did then everything she wanted or needed would be available.

Assured that my directions had been followed to the letter, I headed into my office and booted up my computer so I could check for updates from Tel. He had set up a private server that only we had access to where he would post anything new that he found and vice versa. While I waited, I pulled the sliding doors open that covered the large wall sized white board where I was laying things out.

The first thing I had to do was find the pattern.

Unlike Tel, I was not a numbers and code kind of guy and instead preferred to see things visually. Looking at the pictures and the facts clustered together by any known connection helped me put the dots together. Axel’s woman did the same thing when she investigated, and I had half a mind to pull her into this one. But she wasn’t a disconnected third-party interest anymore and since her pregnancy was a little higher risk than most, Axel would cut my balls off in my sleep if I put her at any unnecessary risk or stress.

Was that what I was doing by bringing Sasha here too? I couldn’t help but ask myself that question. We definitely had a traitor in our club and if I continued to give even a whiff of interest in her, she could end up being used against me. Of course, kissing her in the truck had been a colossal mistake on that front.

Anyone could have come upon that scene. Although I was sure only Bear and Axel could have witnessed it and even then, they’d been gone from the truck before it happened.

Whatever the risks, I had to be more careful. After everything Sasha had been through, I would not put a bigger target on her back. Which meant more nights in the clubhouse for me, and more guards around the cabin when I couldn’t be here. Which reminded me that Bear and I needed to have a discussion about the security we needed to add.

My stomach twisted and it wasn’t because I couldn’t handle a little old school club living or a conversation with Bear. Although I did need to get one of the ladies over there to clean my room up. It was a dump compared to this place.

What had me in knots was the fact it couldn’t be me looking over Sasha every night. While I knew I could trust most of my people, I couldn’t be one hundred percent confident in every club brother and that fucking pissed me off.

Axel, Tel and Bear. Those were the only three I knew without a doubt couldn’t be involved. And since I wasn’t about to put Axel on security detail, that left only Tel and Bear who could stay here with her.

I examined Bear’s picture. I seriously couldn’t get the image of the two of them laying in her hospital bed together out of my head. It brought back a flood of memories that used to be good and now were tainted by blood.

Malia, the love of my life, had been in love with two men. Her husband and me. It had started so long ago and so effortlessly, I could hardly remember the details. At barely nineteen I’d already done a tour overseas when I met her and fell instantly in love. She was married to my best friend and I had no business giving her a second look. But Pops had seen the look in my eyes when I looked at his wife and asked if I wanted to kiss her.

---