Page 10 of Slash
Nicole hoped she was right. As she watched Kayleigh finish cooking pancakes with Savannah, she realized she was already starting to think of this place as safe, and they’d only been here for an hour.
CHAPTER 4
SLASH
The "emergency" turned out to be nothing more than Rampage and Mad Dog getting into it over a pool match. Typical club bullshit that would have blown over in two minutes if left alone. Good natured ribbing. One had accidentally knocked over a chair.
Fuck.
Why had he bolted out of the kitchen like a gun had gone off? What was with the over reaction?
But Slash was grateful for the interruption, because it gave him a chance to get his head on straight.
Good girl.
The way Nicole had immediately submitted when he'd used his command voice had hit him like a fucking freight train. He'd given orders to plenty of people over the years. Soldiers, club prospects, civilians in crisis situations. But none of them had ever responded with that particular combination of trust and relief.
Like she'd been waiting her whole life for someone to take control.
That memory clung to him, stubborn as a shadow. Her eyes, wide but steady, her breath hitching, not in fear but in…surrender. Christ, it had been the kind of reaction a man didn’t just walk away from. His body was still humming with it, a raw current of need and responsibility tangled together. It was dangerous —she was dangerous— to him. A woman like Nicole could undo him if he let her.
Christ. He was in deep shit.
By the time he made it back to the kitchen, Nicole and Kayleigh were sitting at the small table, sharing a plate of slightly lopsided pancakes. Savannah was gone, probably giving them space to settle in.
"Everything okay?" Nicole asked, though her eyes were wary.
"Just brothers being idiots," Slash assured her, taking a seat across from them. "Nothing you need to worry about."
"I wasn't worried," Nicole said, but the way she relaxed at his words said otherwise. "These are really good pancakes, by the way."
"I helped!" Kayleigh announced around a mouthful of syrup. "Slash showed me how to make them perfect."
"I can see that," Nicole said, smiling at her daughter. The expression transformed her whole face, erasing the lines of stress and fear that seemed permanently etched there. "You're quite the chef."
"Slash is going to teach me more," Kayleigh said seriously. "He says cooking is important because it means you can take care of people you love."
Nicole's fork paused halfway to her mouth. "Did he now?"
Slash met her gaze across the table, not backing down from the challenge he saw there. "It's true. Taking care of people is the most important thing a person can do."
"And who takes care of you?" The question slipped out before Nicole seemed to realize she was asking it, color flooding her cheeks immediately after.
"Don't need taking care of," he said automatically.
The lie tasted bitter. He knew damn well he needed something, maybe not care the way civilians thought of it, but grounding, a place to set down the weight he carried. Trouble was, he’d stopped believing, a long time ago, that such a place existed. Until now, sitting across from a stubborn woman and her pancake-devouring kid.
"Everyone needs taking care of," Kayleigh piped up with the wisdom of a four-year-old. "Even big tough guys like Slash. Right, Mommy?"
Nicole's color deepened. "I... yes, baby. Everyone needs someone to care about them."
The moment stretched between them, loaded with things neither was ready to say. Slash found himself imagining what it might be like to come home to this every day. Nicole's soft smile, Kayleigh's chatter, the simple domestic peace of sharing a meal with people who mattered.
The thought landed hard. He’d lived in barracks, safehouses, clubhouses, bunked down in deserts and foreign cities where gunfire was more reliable than running water, but none of it had ever felt like home until he’d come to Colorado and found a brotherhood. A family. And now here he was, watching a little girl stack pancakes like building blocks, and damned if it didn’t feel closer to another type of home than anything in his life ever had. That scared the hell out of him more than bullets ever had.
Dangerous thinking for a man like him.
"So, what happens now?" Nicole asked, breaking the spell. "I mean, I can't stay here indefinitely. I have a job, Kayleigh starts kindergarten soon, l..."
