Page 30 of Axle
Mason’s nostrils flared as I reached up to grip his biceps.
“They want you?” His voice was so low it almost wasn’t sound at all, just a vibration in the air between us. He leaned in until the heat of his breath brushed my cheek. “They’ll have to go through me. Through all of us.”
The raw certainty in his voice stole my breath, leaving no room for doubt. It wasn’t just a promise. It was a vow that I knew he meant to keep.
But belief didn’t erase what I’d seen on that page. My name in print. The neat, sterile list of my height, weight, and hair color. The number that meant someone thought my life had a price.
I’d been hiding for weeks, wondering when someone might try to invade the Redline Kings compound to get to me. But knowing that someone had put out a hit on me was different.
Mason could stand in front of me. The club could close ranks around me. And still, that kill order meant the danger wasn’t just circling anymore.
It was aimed right at me.
I sat back, trying to breathe past the weight of that knowledge, and Mason’s jaw flexed again before he straightened to his full height.
“Not happening, angel,” he said, as though he could see every dark thought in my head.
And the thing was…I trusted Mason enough to believe that if anyone could keep me alive with a bounty on my head, it was him.
12
AXLE
Nitro’s cooking wasn’t half bad. He took over the range like a man who liked to set things on fire for fun, a dish towel flung over one shoulder. The kitchen smelled like garlic, and something smoky curled through the air. The man had made a ton of food—seared steak, blistered peppers, and cast-iron corn with scallions and a squeeze of lime.
Brothers drifted in and out, loading plates, leaning on counters, filling the long tables, talking and laughing low. TVs murmured from the common room, the rumble of someone’s bike came and went outside, and the compound pulsed with that familiar night heartbeat that said we were safe because we made it so.
Yeah, the bastard could cook.
It killed me to admit it. Mostly because Ashlynn had been leaning forward over the kitchen island the past ten minutes, fork in one hand, smiling up at him like he was some culinary savior who’d just fed her after a week in the desert.
My jaw was tight enough to crack a molar.
Ashlynn was perched on one of the barstools in my extra cut, a black tee—one of my softer ones, stretched over her tits in away that tested my patience—and a pair of my black sweatpants rolled at the waist. Her legs were crossed at the knee, one foot swinging lazily. Her hair was down tonight, and every time she tucked it behind her ear, I watched the move like I’d never seen a woman touch her own hair before.
“Seriously, this is incredible.” She licked a drop of sauce off her lip, and my eyes zeroed in on the glossy spot as if I hadn’t been staring at her mouth since we sat down. “I don’t even like peppers half the time, and I’m going to dream about these.”
She shifted in her seat, smiling at Nitro again. I caught the way his eyes flicked to me in a quick, silent check—as though he was asking if he was about to die.
Maybe.
Nitro tried to play it off with a shrug. “It’s just citrus and smoke, sweetheart.”
“It’s not ‘just’ anything.” She widened those storm-gray eyes and took another bite, closing them with a hum that did something filthy to my head. My hands clenched so hard my knuckles cracked. Those sounds were for my ears only.
She smiled at him again. The real kind, where her eyes softened and the corner of her mouth tugged higher on the left. “Thank you for cooking.”
A dark, entirely unreasonable heat crawled up my spine. Jealousy wasn’t a thing I’d ever entertained in my life. It’d been a long time since a woman had sparked a speck of interest in me. But even before that, I’d never been into one-night stands. However, I wouldn’t call what I had relationships either. Back then, women came and went. I treated them well while they were around, and I slept fine when they weren’t. Possessiveness didn’t live in my wiring.
Until her.
That smile didn’t belong to anyone else. I didn’t want her flirting, and she wasn’t. I also didn’t want Nitro flirting, and hewasn’t either. None of it mattered, though. My chest got tight anyway, and I had to fight the need to put my body between her and everyone else like a dog guarding a bone.
I forced my jaw to relax and slid in behind her, palms pressed against the counter on either side of her plate, close enough that my chest brushed her back. “Angel.”
She tipped her head and aimed her smile my way, like she’d saved the best part for me. Some of the tightness let go.
I stole her fork, stabbed a piece of steak, and fed her. She went still—surprised—and then her lips closed over the bite. I nearly groaned at the way her throat worked when she swallowed.
