Page 6 of Hard Ride
I decide to ignore both it and Lucas as I turn back to Tate. “Again,” I say, attempting the same dry tone. “While I’d love to go over old times and reminisce, that’s a no, thank you.”
Tate’s smile flashes, white in the darkness of his beard, but it’s not a pleasant smile. “I wasn’t asking.”
My body shivers at the flat note in his voice. It’s a familiar feeling. I used to feel it back when we were together when he’d ask me to get him something or do something in a certain tone. I used to react badly to those orders— and theywereorders — because I hated that shiver and how it seemed to reach something deep inside me. A part of me that liked it. But that part is gone now, so there’s no reason for me to be shivering like a wet dog simply because he said something.
“Too fucking bad,” I say, not caring how rude I sound.
Tate doesn’t react, only glancing over my shoulder at his friend standing behind me. “Give us a moment, Luc.”
Immediately, the feeling of pressure at my back disappears.
“Katherine,” Tate says in the same authoritative tone. “Sit.”
I’m fully intending to tell him to fuck off, so I’m barely aware that I’m doing exactly what he says until I find myself sitting on the black leather sectional that lines the alcove. Shit. How did that happen?
Tate sits opposite me, a tumbler on the coffee table in front of him. It’s half full of a clear liquid. Seems he still likes vodka, though I bet it’s a more expensive brand these days.
His eyes gleam, but he says nothing immediately, which is infuriating.
“All right,” I say, crossing one leg over the other, trying to act as if I sat down of my own accord and not in response to him. “So, you want to talk.”
“And you want to obey.” He says it conversationally, without any emphasis at all, yet I feel each word echo inside of me like the tolling of a bell, which is actually insane.
My cheeks heat, and it’s pretty fucking annoying, because of course, he’ll be able to see even in the dim lighting in the alcove. “Jesus, Tate,” I say. “That’s quite the conversation opener after ten years.”
“But that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” He regards me, eyes glittering. “In this club. On newbie night.”
Seriously? He’s leading with this? No ‘hi, how are you’ or ‘what have you been doing in the decade since we last met’ or even ‘God, what areyoudoing here?’ No, it’s straight into what presumably is Dom bullshit.
And you obeyed without even thinking about it.
No, I didn’t. I was going to sit down anyway. It’s timing, that’s all.
Anyway, it’s unsurprising that he should be intense like this. He was back in high school when I first met him. I’d dropped my lunch tray in the school cafeteria, and he’d helped me clean it up, and the moment his eyes met mine, I was lost. Real lightning bolt, love at first sight stuff. Then, he’d directed that intensity at everyone and everything, his shitty home life giving him an angry edge.
Now, though, I can sense the change in him. I can see it. His intensity is still there, but it’s been concentrated, controlled, directed. He’s fully in charge of it now, and totally in command, and that angry edge has gone.
He’s just as mesmerizing as he was back then, maybe even more so now, and my stupid heartbeat is working overtime with joy at seeing him. Traitor.
I’m not falling into that murky, confusing, awful place I got into with him again, though. I loved him, but I couldn’t handle him. I couldn’t handle his wild moods, his darkness, his anger, and neither could he. We were bad for each other, and that wasn’t even counting my feelings for Lucas, too. So, I left. I had to. But leaving them both ripped my heart out, and I’m not going to put myself in that position again. I learn from my mistakes.
“Shouldn’t we be having a civilized conversation first?” I ask, meeting his gaze head-on, letting him know he can’t browbeat me. “I mean, we haven’t seen each other for?—”
“Ten years, I know.” He tilts his head, studying me intently. “I always meant to find you again, Katherine.”
My mouth dries. “What?”
“I’ve never forgotten you.” His tone level, his voice deep and dark, and I know from the blaze in his eyes that he’s telling me the truth. “I always knew you’d come back to me somehow, and here you are.”
I feel like a tuning fork being struck; every part of me is vibrating. But with shock. I don’t even know what to say.
Ten years and apparently, he hasn’t forgotten me.
You haven’t forgotten him, either.
I wish I could still lie to myself and say I had, yet sitting opposite him, his presence pulling at me like the moon pulls at the tides, it’s too late for happy little lies.
Of course, I haven’t forgotten him. How could I? He came into my life all those years ago, blazing like a comet, and I was dazzled. I was the good girl with the perfect grades, trying to be better than my alcoholic mother. Trying not to let her hold me back. I obeyed the rules. I was never out after curfew.
