Page 79 of Rocky Top

The minute he sensed me, he stilled.

Didn’t look.

Didn’t move.

Just let the tension stretch.

I stopped three feet from him. “You got a minute?”

He turned, slow, cue stick in hand, and gave me a look that could’ve stripped paint off a Harley. “Always.”

I gestured toward the back hall. “Somewhere private?”

His jaw ticked, but he nodded and led the way.

We ended up in the back room behind the bar, where the club held church. The long table, worn from years of whiskey glasses and bloodstained decisions, loomed between us like a damn altar.

“I’m not here to yell,” I said before he could speak.

He didn’t answer, just leaned back against the wall, arms crossed.

“I’m… trying,” I admitted, clutching the strap of my purse like a lifeline. “But I don’t know how to be okay with this.”

His brows pulled together. “You don’t gotta be okay with it today.”

“But I don’t know if I ever will be,” I snapped. Then softer, “You didn’t give me a choice, Rocky.”

“I gave you a life,” he said quietly. “And I’d do it again.”

Silence stretched thick between us.

“You feel different, don’t you?” he asked after a beat. “Smell things you couldn’t before. Hear better. Skin itchin’ like somethin’ underneath wants out.”

I blinked. “How do you know that?”

He huffed a dry laugh. “Because I remember what it’s like. Before my first shift. Before I understood what was happenin’. It ain’t easy, Birdie. And I’m sorry as hell that you got dragged into this. But you ain’t alone.”

I stared at him, at the tightness in his jaw, the way his fists clenched like he wanted to punch something or maybe just grab me and never let go.

And that was the problem.

I didn’t know what I wanted him to do either.

I took a shaky breath. “I don’t know if I’m mad because you bit me… or mad because I still want you.”

That broke his expression. Just a flicker. A crack in the wall.

“I ain’t gonna lie,” he said, stepping closer. “Wantin’ you ain’t never been a problem for me. But I’ll be damned if I touch you again without you wantin’ it too.”

I stared up at him. My heart beat a little faster. My hands trembled.

“I don’t trust myself,” I whispered.

He reached out, slow and careful, until his fingers brushed mine. “Then I’ll hold the line for both of us.”

God help me.

I let him touch me.

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