Jack (The Kings of Mayhem MC Tennessee 1)

When my phone rings, I almost jump out of my skin. It’s the same number I’d rung earlier—the one belonging to the ‘thinking of you’ message.

I answer but say nothing. I wait for him to speak. Or heavy breathe. Or whatever the fuck he wants.

“Um, hello? Is anybody there?” Comes an unsure male voice.

I frown.

Either The Poet sounds like a confused teenager, or this isn’t the person who’s driven me toward insanity for the past four months.

“Who is this?” I ask, my tone curt.

“Um, I’m returning a missed call. I’m Matt, Matt Haner. Who’s this?”

“You sent me a message earlier. It said, thinking of you.”

“What are you talking…” There’s a pause. “Wait. I sent that message to a girl I met last night. Who are you?”

I close my eyes.

Are you kidding me?

Is this simply a wrong goddamn number?

After an awkward conversation with Matt Haner, where we establish he’s texted me by mistake and that the girl he was thinking about had purposely given him the wrong number, I hang up, feeling frustrated and foolish. And bad for poor Matt Haner.

Looking at the knife in my hand, I feel like a paranoid idiot and return it to the butcher’s block, stepping away from it like it’s poison. I lean my elbows on the counter and push my fingers through my hair.

This place is fucking with me. Being here. Being with Jack. It’s making me even crazier.

And that’s saying something.

My mind made up, I grab my clothes from Jack’s room and throw them in my bags and step outside, where I take them to my car. Opening the trunk, I ignore the rumble of the Harley as it pulls in behind me.

The plan was to be long gone by the time he got back to the clubhouse and realized I’d left. I am not usually one to run away from confrontation, I saved that for facing my fears or heartbreaks—but the whole Poet thing has me feeling a weakness I don’t know how to deal with.

I don’t want to see Jack.

“What are you doing, wildflower?” he growls behind me.

I don’t bother to look around. Instead, I shove my bags into the trunk and pray this will be over quickly. But when I say nothing, Jack comes up behind me, engulfing me in his scent and heat as he turns me around to face him. I can’t look at him, won’t look at him, but when he presses two fingers under my chin I have no choice. “Look at me.”

And there it is, that beautiful fucking face that makes my body hum with want.

My gaze meets the burning heat of his. “I’m going home.”

“You are home.” His voice is rough. His eyes dark.

My cheeks warm as images of last night and what we did replay in my mind. I can still taste him on my tongue. Can still feel how deeply he kissed me, almost bruising my lips with his urgency. I can still feel the warmth of his body blanketing mine and the thick hardness of him as he pushed in and out of my body with exquisite perfection. I can still hear my moans and cries of ecstasy as he had delivered one orgasm after another.

Damn him.

His dark brows draw in. “We should talk.”

“About what?”

“About why you’re running away.”

Turning away from him, I close the trunk. “It’s time for me to go.”

I don’t get two feet from him before he calls out, “I get it, I fucked up.” His words stop me, and when I turn around, he takes a step forward. “I freaked out like a fucking moron this morning. You don’t deserve that. But I need you to understand that I’m trying to wrap my fucking head around what’s happening. Eighteen years ago, you were the kid who lived next door who played with my brother. Now—”

“Now, what, Jack?” I ask, unable to keep the rejection out of my voice. “I’m a one-night stand you fucking regret?”

“Regret? Who said anything about—”

“You walked out this morning… your message was loud and clear.”

“I told you not to have that conversation in your head.”

“Hard not to when all I see is your back walking out the damn door.”

“I went for a ride to get my head straight, nothing to do with you and everything to do with me. I was trying to put things right in my head before we talked.”

“What exactly do you need to get right in your head? The fact you stuck your dick in me, or the fact you felt like you needed to run.”

Jack shakes his head. “Don’t do that, don’t dimmish it to that.”

“Why not? You did the moment you walked out that door.”

His eyes narrow as he stares into the distance then looks away. “One day you’re the kid in pigtails next door playing with my kid brother—”