“Is she your woman?” Swiss asked, a glint in his eye.
Something bubbled inside of me. It was white. Hot. Almost blinding. Something that had me very tempted to put my fist through my brother’s face. I had to stop myself from advancing on him.
It had not escaped me that Swiss was very interested in Freya. That he had been almost as single minded as me in wanting to track down the piece of shit who’d threatened her. Even Elden had seemed overly interested in this task, his expression rippling with fury as we recounted what happened at church.
Freya had made an impression. A quick one. A lasting one. And one that piqued at least two of my brothers’ interest. Normally, if one of my brothers had his eye on the same woman as me, I’d let them have her. Sometimes, if the woman was up for it and I was drunk enough, we shared her.
But the mere thought of anyone else’s hands on Freya’s skin ... it made me want to find another guy just so I could cut his fucking throat.
“You seem awfully interested in Freya,” I ground out.
Swiss was amused by my fury, his eyes twinkling in delight, his teeth bared in a brutal grin. This was his ideal fucking night, torturing a guy, watching him die then fucking with me.
“Of course, I’m interested in her,” he drawled. “She’s fucking gorgeous, hilarious, strong and unlike any woman I’ve ever met.”
I clenched my fists at my sides, my body shaking with the need to pummel this fucker.
Swiss saw it. Of course he saw it. He fucking loved it.
“But she isn’t interested in me, brother,” Swiss added. “Well, she is, at least a little, because she’s a hot-blooded woman.”
I cannot kill my brother.
“But,” he continued. “She’s a fuck of a lot more interested in the brooding enforcer who was willing to slit a throat for her.” He sighed dramatically. “Another one bites the dust.”
“You’re full of shit,” I sneered. “Nothing is going on with her. She’s an innocent who got caught up in this shit because of me, and I needed to make sure she’s not in any kind of danger before I leave her the fuck alone.”
Swiss’s eyes bugged out, and he let out a sound that was dangerously close to a snort.
“Yeah, right. And I can come in missionary without choking a bitch tied to my bed,” he quipped.
I flipped him the bird on my way up the stairs, toward her. For the last time.
FREYA
I didn’t get the name of the prospect who had spent the night chain smoking outside of my house since he roared off not long after I handed him a coffee. He took it gratefully, thanking me for the cookies and cocoa last night. This one was not as clean-cut as Anderson had been. He was covered in tattoos, including one on his upper eyebrow, looked like he ate steroids for breakfast and would’ve intimidated the fuck out of me had he not asked for the recipe for my cookies.
He hadn’t said anything else, other than the fact his name was Hawk—yes, Hawk—and that he had, “ to get going,” and that I was, “all good”, whatever that meant.
Even though it had only been two days of being tailed by men in the Sons of Templar, I suddenly felt vulnerable and exposed, being home alone with Sirius. I’d lived in plenty of different houses, in plenty of different states, in all kinds of different areas. There were times I’d felt uneasy, but I’d never felt unsafe before today. I’d loved the fact that I lived outside of town, on almost ten acres with sparse desert all around me as far as the eye could see. But now it felt isolated and much too far away from anyone who could hear me scream.
As ruthless and dangerous as the Sons of Templar were, I didn’t think they would just leave me if I was still in any kind of danger. Honestly, I was surprised they’d done all of this to begin with. The entire point of me driving to their clubhouse after the incident was to make sure I wasn’t murdered. I hadn’t intended it to tangle me up with Hades, for me to feel even more attracted to him.
The morning might have brought discomfort due to the Sons of Templar’s absence, but it also brought a heck of a lot of clarity. I would’ve had sex with Hades last night. Without question. And something told me it would’ve been earth-shattering. Without fucking question. But something also told me it would’ve ended in disaster.
I’d had a weak moment, that’s it. He held a strange power over me. Maybe it was the leather. Maybe after avoiding bad boys all of my adult life, I finally fell victim to the mystique. Maybe it was the jawline. The hair. The muscles. The stare. The tattoos. The way his voice cloaked over me like velvet. Or it could’ve been the leather cut, what it represented, and the feeling that he would take care of anything and everything that arose in his presence. That an asteroid could fall from the sky and I’d be okay. He’d take care of me.