Page 18 of Drift
Silence crackled on the other end before he answered, completely unbothered by my accusation. “I’m making sure you’re safe, whether you like it or not.”
Then the line went dead.
I stared at my phone, stunned, waiting for the screen to light up again. It didn’t.
We hadn’t been disconnected. He had hung up on me.
My pulse pounded so hard it felt like my heartbeat had moved to my throat. I was furious, but under the heat of my reaction, something else stirred. An ache that had nothing to do with anger.
“Infuriating. Arrogant.” I glared at the blank screen. “And the hottest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
With a frustrated sound that landed somewhere between a growl and a sigh, I tossed the phone onto the couch and stalked to the window.
The SUV sat there, gleaming in the sunlight like a smug promise I hadn’t asked for—and couldn’t ignore.
Despite myself, the corners of my mouth twitched.
“I was supposed to be building a new life here,” I muttered, crossing my arms. “Not losing my mind over a man who makes breaking and entering seem romantic.”
7
DRIFT
The next day, I was working in my office.
Pretending to, anyway.
The stack of numbers on the screen in front of me hadn’t moved in an hour. The cursor on the laptop blinked against a half-read report of stats from the past few underground races that The Redliners and Redline Zero had raced in. They were Kane’s underground teams that I managed. I’d read the same sentence five times and couldn’t remember a word of it.
The office sat at the back of the clubhouse. It was sparse—one window, a few pictures from races I’d won, and a sturdy metal desk. The low hum of compressors and the occasional echo of a wrench hitting concrete bled through the walls, steady and familiar. Normally, those sounds grounded me. Today, they grated on my nerves.
Because every time I tried to focus, all I could see washer.
The way Alanna had looked at me last night—wide-eyed, skin flushed pink, lips swollen, and hair tangled from my hands. The sound she made when I pushed her over the edge was still ringing in my ears. That soft, broken moan that hit right in thecenter of my fucking chest and tore something loose I didn’t even know I had.
I could still taste her on my tongue.
Fuck.
It didn’t matter how many times I blinked, she was still there. Pressed against that wall, breathing my name in her soft, husky voice. My real name.Chance.
I leaned back in the chair, the leather creaking under my weight. Dragging a hand down my face, my fingers brushed my jaw, rough with a day’s growth, then settled over my eyes like that might be enough to block the memory. It wasn’t.
Every detail hit me in flashes. The scent of her hair. The heat of her body when I lifted her. The way her pulse jumped against my tongue. The trust in her eyes right before I lost control.
That last one fucking wrecked me.
She’d looked at me like she believed I’d never hurt her. As though she didn’t know what I was truly capable of.
The rational part of me—the side that lived by the club’s code and had seen what losing control could cost—knew it had to stop. But the rest of me wanted to go back and do it again. And again.
Slower. Harder. Longer.
The craving for a cigarette clawed at me, raw and abrasive. I flipped my old lighter open and shut, the soft click echoing off the walls. Once. Twice. Each time, the flame hissed, flared, then died.
The smoke I didn’t have filled my head anyway, but the scent was different. It smelled like…her.
Shit!
