Wretched Love

Which, along with my lack of bra—and the air conditioning inside the gas station—was likely why the biker approached me.

It had occurred to me I still hadn’t said a word to him, and for the life of me, I had no idea what to say.

He didn’t seem bothered by my stunned silence, his grin only widened, showing straight, white teeth.

“We’re having a party,” he said, nodding outward.

My eyes followed the jerk of his head. There were three other men sitting on Harleys by the gas pumps. All were wearing the same leather vests, all were muscled, menacing and devastatingly handsome.

My gaze stuttered on the one in the middle. His arms were exposed, muscles rippling in the sunlight, his ebony skin flawless and glistening in the sun. I stared at the column of his neck, the way he held himself on the bike. He had a bald head, only serving to make his masculine features all the more striking, even from this distance.

“Our clubhouse is about two miles away,” the man continued.

I jerked my head back, the back of my neck suddenly hot.

“Follow the main road out of town, you can’t miss it,” he explained.

I blinked rapidly, digesting all of this.

“Pretty lady like you shouldn’t be drinkin’ alone,” he said, nodding to my beers.

I narrowed my eyes. “How do you know I’m drinking alone?” I asked, finally finding my voice and a bite to my tone I didn’t know I was capable of.

His grin didn’t falter a bit at my tone. “Lucky guess,” he replied, voice deep and teasing. “I can promise you a good time and a night you’ll never forget.”

My stomach dipped at his words, at the pure sex in them.

“Hope to see you there,” he winked, then he turned on his motorcycle boot and walked out.

I stood there staring as he mounted his bike and all of them turned on with a roar that vibrated in my bones.

My eyes found the man in the middle once more, then the patch on the back.

The Sons of Templar MC.

A motorcycle gang.

Yeah, that was the last thing I needed to get wrapped up in.

I’d done the sensible thing, paid for my beer, got in my car and drove back to the quiet, cheap and clean pay-by-the-week motel I’d found.

But once I’d let myself in my room, opened a beer and sat on the bed, that was when the loneliness set in.

The quiet.

I hadn’t noticed it until that very moment. Before then, I’d been moving. Busy. Discovering things about myself. Which side of the bed I liked to sleep on—the middle. What TV shows I liked—I tended toward anything magical or anything with a woman getting revenge. What kind of food I enjoyed—the junk food was short lived, and I longed for a kitchen to cook my own food once more.

Shoot, I had only just figured out the way I liked to do my makeup. I was relearning everything about being an adult woman. It was a full-time job. Beyond that, I’d been in fight-or-flight mode at every new motel I landed in. Looking over my shoulder, half expecting Preston to find me and drag me back by my hair.

But something had changed here, in this town.

I wasn’t an overly spiritual person—because Preston’s family were good Christians who went to church every Sunday and shunned away anything alternative to that—but I felt like something had pulled me here. I felt as if I was meant to be here. Something in my soul relaxed here.

But with that relaxation came the quiet. Came the realization that I had no one. Absolutely no one.

No friends.

No family.

No one to help me.

And that reality was an unbearable roar in the quiet room.

So I’d downed my beer, thankful for the way it lightened things ever so slightly. And with that buzz came the wild hair that had me pulling on a pair of heeled wedges, spritzing some perfume, swiping on some light pink lipstick, and getting in my car in search of the Sons of Templar MC ‘clubhouse.’