Page 73 of The Biker's Second Chance
“Why are you worried about what I eat,” Rumble says, patting his stomach. “You got something you want me to taste?" He waggles his eyebrows and she scoffs.
“As if you would know what to do with someone like me?” she fires back. “Sorry, amateur fucks aren't welcome." She walks off.
The room howls. He clutches his chest like he is mortally wounded. She rolls her eyes and shoves him. He pretends to stagger into a table, grabs a cookie off a paper plate, and bows. Their bickering hums like a happy generator in the background while the rest of us swim in the relief.
I smile, but my face heats. It is like the shame starts at my throat and floods upward. I thought Spike would sell us out. I thought he would sell them out. I thought he would stand in a room and shake hands with a man who used girls like parts. I feel my stomach twist. I am not dumb, but I was scared, and fear turns smart people into idiots.
I slip through the bodies. The women make space for me in that way people do when they know you have been carrying too much. A few grab my wrist and squeeze. I squeeze back. Someone presses a mug into my hand and I realize it is tea, not coffee. Lemon and honey. I sip and it tastes like the end of a long run.
It only takes me a moment to realize that Spike is not inside.
I set the mug down and head for the front. The door swings open with a soft groan and the night air slides over my skin, cool and a little wet. The bikes are lined up like sleeping beasts, chrome catching the security light.
He is there on the steps, one shoulder against the post, cigarette between his fingers. The smoke curls and vanishes into the dark like a secret. His hair is a mess. There is a smear of something dark along his jaw he did not bother to scrub all the way off. The leather of his kutte creaks when he shifts. He does not look at me right away. He tilts his head back and stares at the fat slice of moon like he is measuring it.
I slide up beside him and let my arm brush his. Electricity runs down my ribs.
“I am proud of you,” I say. My voice comes out soft and certain. No wobble. No apology. Just the truth. “All of it. The rescue. The plan. The finish. I am proud of you.”
He takes a last pull, taps ash with his thumb, and finally looks over. That smirk I know by heart sits on his mouth, but it is not cold. It is the kind that pulls low in my belly because it is pleased and tired and earned. He flicks the cigarette, grinds it out with his boot, and turns fully to me.
“Feels good,” he says, voice low enough that the word hums against my shoulder. “Not just that we won. That we fought for something. That it mattered. And that I got my woman back.”
My chest squeezes. “You always had me.”
He raises an eyebrow like he does not fully buy that. I swallow my pride with the night air.
“I was scared,” I admit. “ I should have trusted sooner.” I put my hand on his chest, right over the steady beat of his heart. “I am your woman. Always was. Always will be.”
The smirk softens. The muscles along his jaw relax. His hand slides around my waist and pulls me that last inch until our bodies line up and the heat passes straight through the denim and leather like the fabric isn't even there. He kisses me, slow and sure. No hurry. No demand. Just the press and seal of a promise we both recognize. His mouth tastes like smoke and mint.
When we break, I keep my forehead against his. He lets his palm flatten at the small of my back like he is pinning me to this exact spot so I do not float away.
“Come on, Jaynie,” he murmurs, a smile in it. “Let them see you with their hero.”
“You are insufferable,” I say, but I am smiling so hard it hurts a little. I lace my fingers with his. His knuckles are rough. The calluses scrape lightly along mine and it feels perfect.
We walk in hand in hand.
Noise crashes over us like surf. Laughter. Music turned up too loud. Plates clatter. Someone has started a chant at the back and then messed it up and now everyone is arguing about what the chant even was. Leo sees us and tips his chin. Lash lifts a bottle. Tella gives me a look that is almost a grin. I nod back at all of them. My chest gets tight again, but it is the good kind this time. The kind that happens when joy tries to fit into a space that used to be all jagged edges.
“Look who decided to grace us with her presence,” Rumble bellows, hopping onto a chair like a clown. “Our lady of blankets and bolt cutters. You done saving the whole damn world, or you need another hour?”
“Give me fifteen minutes and I'll get to work making wine out of water.” I shoot back. The room laughs.
I lean into Spike’s side and let the sound roll through me. The blood on the floor at the warehouse feels a thousand miles away. The cages feel like a bad dream that finally broke into morning. The girls here are not okay. Not yet. But some have color in their faces again. One is sleeping with her head on another’s shoulder. Someone braided someone’s hair. Someone else patched a tear in a sleeve with pink thread that does not match on purpose.
This is what peace feels like. Not silence. Not stillness. Noise with no panic under it. Work with no dread threading through it. Laughter that does not hide a flinch.
I breathe in Spike, leather and smoke and the clean edge of the soap he pretends he does not use. My shoulders drop. My mind stops running in circles. The world settles into a shape I can hold.
“Tomorrow,” I say into his shirt, “we write lists for the clinic. We make a schedule. We talk to the shelters again. We set up beds in the back room and put locks on the doors that only the women have keys to. We help make a safe space for everyone who needs it.”
“Tomorrow,” he agrees. He kisses the top of my head. “Tonight you eat something. Then you sleep. I will post prospects at the doors and no one gets within ten feet of you without answering to me.”
I smirk against his chest. “Possessive much.”
“Always.”
