“I’m sorry,” Lily says softly.
“Don’t be. I had a great childhood growing up in that trailer with my old man. He did his best and gave his best, and I never wanted for anything.”
“Are you still close?”
“He died a few months after I finished medical school. Lung cancer. Did your mom get sick?”
“No, she shot herself.”
Her words startle me.
“Hell, I’m sorry.”
“Well, that’s the story anyway. I’m not sure I believe it. But as a thirteen-year-old, I believed whatever Max told me, but now—” Realizing she’s said too much, she abruptly ends the conversation. “We should get back to Odin.” Turning, she heads for the door.
“Hey…” I say, and she turns back to me. “Does this mean we’re friends?”
She lifts an eyebrow, and a mischievous smile pulls at the corner of her mouth. “It means, I’ll drop the ‘he’s a douchebag biker with his head up his ass’ if you lose the ‘she’s a spoiled club princess who is going to poison me with imaginary death pills because her daddy told her to.’”
I can’t help but grin.
Or help notice the fire in her penetrating eyes.
My dick twitches.
I don’t want it to, but I like her fire.
I like her.
“It’s a deal,” I finally say.
She licks her lips, and again my dick salutes in appreciation. Obviously, my body needs a release, so I mentally make an appointment with my hand at the next available opportunity.
Which isn’t going to be anytime soon given my predicament.
LILY
I’m relieved we called a truce. It will make it easier to get out of here alive if we work together instead of fighting against each other all the time.
Not that I like Doc’s plan.
Max isn’t lying when he says the Inferno are sharpshooters. Every man, woman, and child are taught how to shoot and to shoot well. I don’t doubt Doc’s ability to overpower Max and take him as his hostage, but I’m not sure he’ll be able to get away without one of the Inferno marksmen planting a bullet in him.
But he can’t be swayed.
And I’m learning fast that he can be a stubborn ass.
Although, his plan does have its merits. As well as giving him a weapon, it is also the only plan that will allow me to escape with him. I can’t run because of a previous knee injury, so if he takes Max hostage, we can both walk out the door and take one of the vehicles parked outside.
We sit in the kitchen, and Doc makes us one of his fancy coffees.
For a while, we pass the time with small talk and innocuous topics like our favorite books to read, who we think is going to take out the Super Bowl this year, the difference between a wriggle and a wiggle, and how I broke my knee stumbling home intoxicated after a night out with my friends when we graduated from nursing school.
We swap patient stories and share some of the more interesting cases we’ve seen in our careers—like the time I had to extract six yams from inside a patient because she had inserted them into her vagina as a form of contraception.
“I had a patient who presented with symptoms consistent with vertigo,” Doc says, finishing his coffee and then placing the cup on the table in front of him. “When I gave her my diagnosis, she told me I was wrong. I admit, I was a little perplexed by her reaction, but she was adamant. I was wrong, and that was that. When I finally gave in and asked her why she was being so insistent, she told me she wasn’t a Virgo. She was a Pisces.” He smiles and looks away, apparently remembering her with fondness. “Mrs. Pennebaker. Almost eighty years old and full of spirit. I ended up treating her for three more years after that, and she was the sweetest thing.”
I like the affection in his tone.
And the way his smile softens his strong face.
As the hours stretch on and the fatigue in our bodies takes over, our tongues grow looser, and we start to discuss things I’ve never shared with anyone.
Like leaving the Inferno for nursing school and how the new world opened my eyes to how insane life inside the notorious Inferno MC really was, and how returning to live under Max’s reign was no longer an option.
I also tell him about James, my boyfriend of three years, and how I walked in on him and our neighbor, a busty redhead called Bambi. How I came home early from a late shift one night and found him with his face buried between her legs as she moaned and writhed about the bed wearing my lingerie. How I threw a vase at them both. How I moved out of the apartment that very night despite his pleas that she meant nothing and was “just some crazy bitch who wanted his cock.”