Page 66 of That Girl is Trouble

I take the overgrown path down from the side of the road and under the graffiti-littered bridge. My boots crunch on broken glass and crushed beer cans as I follow the river towards the light glowing up ahead.

The thick brush makes for a slow trek through the wood, but after a couple minutes, I hit a well-lit clearing. It’s packed with bodies circling a large fire. Gotta be a couple dozen people in this place—drinking, smoking, and by the sounds coming from the tree cover to my right, fucking. There’s a dude doing blow off some chick’s tits, her head tipped back, and for a second, when I note her long, dark hair and leather boots, I think it might be Kat.

For that second, everything slows, and I reach for the blade secured to my hip. I wrap my hand around it, eyes focused on the woman, on the man who’s gonna die if it’s Kat’s tits he’s got his face all over.

But then she laughs, and the tension in my shoulders immediately unwinds. Not Kat’s laugh. Not her body. Not her tits. I let my grip around the hilt of my knife loosen.

“Is that…?” comes from a few feet away.

“Yeah,” someone whispers back. “What’s he doing out here?”

A hush washes over the crowd as more people note who’s crashing their party. Eyes dart away, people step back. I get it. This may be my town, but showing up at a pit party and bumping shoulders with types like this? Not really an Axe Donovan kind of move.

Ignoring the sudden quiet that’s fallen over the clearing, I continue my search for Kat.

Twenty feet away or so, I spot her. Eyes on her phone, beer bottle in hand, nodding her head absentmindedly at the guy who’s got his hand a little too low on her hip.

Clenching my fists, I stalk towards her. The asshole touching her notices me before she does and stumbles back. Kat jerks her head up, and her lips part in surprise. And then she smiles. A smile that sends a twitch to my dick. Because it’s the same one she gave me when she was on her knees. Wet. Naked. My cock disappearing between her lips.

I let my anger show as I approach, just a little. So she knows how much shit she’s in. It only makes her smile grow.

“Let’s go,” I grit.

She opens her mouth and sucks in a breath like she might argue, but when she lets it out, ready to protest, I quickly interject. “Don’t think I won’t cause a scene, Kat. I follow you out or I carry you out. You pick.”

There’s a flex in her jaw, the light from the fire pit illuminating the red blotches flushing over her cheeks. More whispers, and Kat shifts, her eyes darting around the clearing.

Silence stretches between us for a long moment, and then she downs her beer and pushes the empty into the chest of the gawking asshole standing next to her. Shoving past me, she throws me a scathing look and then starts the trek back through the forest to the bridge. I’m hot on her heels, but silent, and she says nothing to me as we walk back to my bike.

Once I’m settled on the seat, I give her my helmet and motion for her to get behind me. Without a word, she complies, her hands settling loosely at my sides as I kick my bike to life and take off.

Could take her back to her sister, where she should be. Could take her to the clubhouse, where I know she definitely shouldn’t be.

Instead, I drive past the road that leads to both those places and gun it down a straight stretch towards the edge of town. She slips her hands around my abdomen, holding me tighter, her thighs sliding taut to mine as I hit my throttle and fly down the road. The wind slams against my face, the air biting into my skin and cooling my temper. Mostly cooling my temper. Only one thing will do that tonight, and it’s not liquor or a fight or a damn ride.

After another minute or so, I slow and turn onto a hidden driveway. It’s a long, narrow laneway, but I’ve been in here so often the last few weeks that the dark shrouding us does nothing to impede me as I weave around the bumps of the uneven dirt road.

When I kill the engine and the rumble of my bike quiets, we’re thrown into darkness. The only light is the moon above, half-hidden by clouds.

“Why are we here?” she asks, a note of discomfort in her voice.

I ignore her and push off my bike, giving her my back and letting the silence sit. Letting her squirm under the weight of it.

She slides off the seat. “Axe?”

I sigh, my hand twitching to touch her. I don’t look at her when I speak. “Turn around and bend over my bike.”

“Why?”

Because I’m pissed. Because I want to see that little ass of hers as red as those sweet cherry lips. Because I didn’t like seeing another man’s hands on her. Again.

“You know why,” I say, finally turning to her. I can’t make out all the details of her face in the dark, but the mix of fear and curiosity is obvious. So is the hunger. Same look I caught in her eyes in my shower. At the Slam. Every time she’s fucking looked at me since she showed up at my door.

“And if I don’t?”

I shrug. “Guess we’ll find out.”

Kat tilts her head, sizing me up, as if trying to decide how far she can push me. Eventually, she nods and turns around, pressing her palms flat to my bike. Advancing, I grip her waist and flip her over the machine, pulling a yelp from her when she loses her footing and her ass arches up. Perfect angle. Perfect ass.

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