Page 37 of Fallen Dove
The door rattled behind us.
We jerked apart, both of us breathing like we’d run miles.I shoved my hair back from my face with my chest heaving, and Mason ran a hand down his beard.His eyes were wild but already cooling into that stoic mask he wore so well.
The door didn’t open.Whoever it was had moved on.
We stood there, silence stretching.
“I should get back inside,” I whispered, my voice shaking.
“Yeah,” he said, but his eyes stayed on me, dark and hungry, like he was memorizing the moment in case it was the last.
I forced myself to turn first, to grab the door handle and slip back inside.
The noise of the bar slammed into me, but it barely registered.My lips were still tingling, and my body still humming.
Jesus.
Mason was going to ruin me.
Chapter Eighteen
Mason
The hum of the Social Club on a Thursday night was steady, not quite at the Friday or Saturday level, but enough to keep the bar alive.Pool balls cracked against each other.The smell of fried food hung thick in the air, and I could hear Thorn laughing it up with a couple of girls down by the dartboards.All of it washed over me like background noise.None of it mattered.
What mattered was the blonde weaving through tables with her tray balanced in her hand, and a smile flashing at customers like she hadn’t been grinding for hours.
Adley.
I’d broken every damn rule I swore I’d live by the second I kissed her.I’d told myself to keep my distance, keep her at arm’s length, but every night she was here, that promise got weaker.Tonight was no different.My eyes kept dragging back to her, tracing the way her jeans hugged her curves, and the bounce of her hair when she laughed with Penny.
Jesus Christ.
I dragged a hand over my jaw and forced myself to look at the register.Numbers.Receipts.Inventory.Anything but the woman who’d been haunting me for fourteen years.
Didn’t work.My gaze flicked back.
She bent slightly to set down a basket of wings and three beers at a table full of regulars.They laughed, said something to her, and she threw her head back and smiled like the sun had come out in the middle of the damn Social Club.
My chest squeezed tight.
I couldn’t keep going like this.Watching her, wanting her, and pretending like I wasn’t two seconds from pulling her into the nearest dark corner.
And that was the problem.I didn’t want a dark corner with Adley.I wanted all of her.But I was a coward, still clinging to the excuse of her father, the club, the cameras, fuck, everything but the truth.The truth was that I wanted her so bad I couldn’t think straight.
She moved past the hallway to my office with her empty tray.My body reacted before my brain could catch up.
“Adley,” I called.
She stopped, turned her head, and those green eyes locked on mine.My pulse jumped.
“Yeah?”she asked.
I stepped into the hallway.“Got a second?”
Her brow furrowed, but she nodded.She slipped inside my office with me, and I shut the door behind her.I flipped the lock with a soft click that felt louder than a gunshot.
The room shrank around us instantly.Four walls, a desk, shelves of files, and the two of us.
