Ride Hard (Raven Riders 1)

She seemed shaky on her feet, and Dare leaned down and put his mouth near her ear so she could hear him over the deluge. “Are you okay?”

A quick nod. “Yes,” she said, though he just barely heard her. A fantastic explosion of thunder kept him from hearing her next words at all. She shrieked in fright and buried her face against his chest.

The contact shocked him, and it wasn’t often that that happened. She’d given some pretty good cues earlier that she didn’t want to be touched, and Dare had been around enough people with bad histories to know to respect their boundaries. Yet Haven touched him, taking shelter against his body.

Another clap of thunder had her pressing harder against him. One hand clutched at the edge of his cut.

Probably made him an asshole, but something about the way her hand fisted around the denim shot heat through him. Not that she’d meant to do it, of course. Not that she was probably even aware.

Shaking away the whole train of thought, Dare debated and then finally put an arm around her shoulders. When she showed no signs of minding the contact, he hugged her in tighter. God, she was a slender little thing in his arms. “Come on,” he said, his lips against her ear. Keeping his arm around her, he guided her into the kitchen.

Inside, he secured the door and hit the kitchen lights.

Her shoulders sagged like she’d just been freed of a great weight. “Thanks,” she said, hugging herself. “It’s stupid, but I’m afraid of thunderstorms.”

Dare looked at her, at the way her eyes skated away on the admission. Another story right there, no doubt. “We’re all scared of something, Haven.”

“Even you?” she asked, that electric-blue gaze filled with what looked like hope.

He gave a tight nod. “Even me.”

HAVEN WAS COLD, wet, and embarrassed for freaking out in front of Dare. Again. Waking to a dark figure looming over her, she’d been sure her father had found her, would drag her back to a life she’d hated, would never let her go.

But her fear had given way to curiosity—about what a man like Dare could possibly fear. She was dying to know . . . but she chickened out of asking, and then he was heading toward the mess hall door.

“You heading up?” he asked, turning to peer at her over his shoulder.

The way he paused there perfectly highlighted the square edge of his jaw and had Haven thinking back to Cora’s assessment earlier in the evening. Dare was hot. And his kindness made him even hotter, though he still intimidated the heck out of her. “Uh, yeah,” she said. “In a minute. I need to get something to drink first.”

With a nod, he disappeared through the door. Haven released a long breath and sagged into one of the chairs at the table. Something occurred to her in the quiet stillness. She’d burrowed against Dare’s chest. She could still smell his scent, all leather and warm skin. And he hadn’t flipped out on her. Or taken advantage of her vulnerability.

How sad was she that his decency made him noteworthy?

From there, her thoughts quickly spiraled. How long would she and Cora be welcome there? How would they get the resources they needed to start a new life, one where her father couldn’t find her? What would that new life even look like? God, she was almost twenty-three years old with no skills, no money, and not even a high school diploma, since her father hadn’t thought it important to officially withdraw her from public school or do anything to create an actual home school experience for her.

Between the storm and her troubling thoughts, Haven knew she had absolutely no chance of falling back to sleep. Her brain was wide awake and going a mile a minute. And there was only one thing that helped when middle-of-the-night anxiety settled in. Baking.

She loved cooking and was good at it, but baking was the thing that made her feel the best. That calmed her. That took her away from all the crap. Growing up without a mother, Haven had become responsible for cooking as soon as she’d been old enough to do it. In her father’s quest to look respectable, they had a big, beautiful kitchen in their big, beautiful house, which he’d stuffed it full of his collections—of guns and knives, of World War II collectibles, of Atlanta Falcons memorabilia, of rare books he never read. She thought of him that way—as a collector. And she was just one more thing he owned. For her, the new plantation-style house, complete with pretentious white columns along the front, had been nothing more than a gilded cage.

Poking around in the pantry, Haven gathered ingredients until she decided what she’d make—cinnamon rolls. Bunny had told Haven to make herself at home in the clubhouse’s kitchen, so she didn’t feel like she’d upset anyone by baking away her troubles. Made from scratch, the rolls took a while because the dough had to rise, but that was one of Haven’s favorite things about them. Besides how rich and decadent they were.