Grinch (Cerberus MC)

Now she’s in his bed, tan legs crooked up outside of the sheet, hair a wild mess, speaking of the things they did last night while I slept across the hall.

“Wanna join us?” he asks, rubbing sleep from his eyes with the back of his hand.

I pull my eyes from her and focus on him. I feel like I’m right in the middle of an episode of Snapped. I feel the adrenaline setting my blood on fire. I picture killing them both, but the logical part of my brain reminds me that I’m not that person.

Instead, I pull my fist back and punch him right in the face. He yells a few curses as he covers his injured eye with one hand.

“What the actual fuck, Grinch?”

The noise wakes Grace, who shifts on the bed, rolling over and brushing hair from her face.

Only it’s not Grace.

I blink in disbelief at the woman, who even lying there naked, now fully exposed as she frowns for having her sleep interrupted doesn’t appeal to me.

“I thought it was—”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Ugly interrupts. “I’d never fucking do that to you, man.”

“Where is she then?”

“I don’t have a clue,” he snaps, his face still screwed up in pain from the hit.

I have an urgency to check the bathroom of his hotel room, just to make sure she actually isn’t here.

“Are you coming back to bed?” the woman purrs. “You made promises last night I plan to make you keep.”

I back out of the room, my head shaking.

If she’s not in the room, then that only means one thing. Grace left me. Again.

I regret not talking to her last night while I was trying to evaluate all of my own emotions. Had I opened my fucking mouth, maybe she’d be smiling up at me like this woman is looking at Ugly.

Ugly’s eye is already turning purple as he grins at me.

“Have you figured it out yet?”

I shake my head. “Figured what out?”

“That you’re madly in love with her. I knew it last night. Why do you think I left that room? There’s no coming in between the two of you, and I wasn’t going to be the asshole who tried.”

I swallow, trying to force the lump in my throat to dislodge.

“Go find your woman and leave the wild fucking up to those who know better.”

The door shuts in my face, and I’m frozen to the spot. It isn’t until the woman in the room with Ugly screams in delight that I move.

I’m in panic mode, half wondering if she left on her own or if she was taken again. My head wants to argue that there’s no logical reason for her taking off, meaning that she must’ve left against her own will.

My heart knows better. Her choice to leave is clear in the fact that she gathered all of her things and took them with her. Her phone isn’t in the hotel room. Her overnight bag is gone as well.

She doesn’t answer when I call, and I hang up instead of leaving a message. There are just some things that you can’t say in voicemail, and I’m pretty sure that professing my love is one of them.

I finish getting dressed, pulling on a t-shirt and my shoes from last night. I feel unprepared for battle in a pair of slacks and loafers, knowing I’d be better qualified to look for her in jeans and my boots, but I didn’t bring those things with me to Denver.

I sit on the bed, wondering what I should do first. She left the keys to the SUV which means she left in a taxi or walked. Just the thought of her roaming the streets alone makes my skin crawl.

I hit Max’s contact on my phone and wait for him to answer.

“What’s up?” he says the second he answers.

“I need you to track Grace’s phone.”

Silence fills the line, and I growl at him wasting time.

“Is she in danger?”

I want to say yes because I have the urge to spank her ass when I find her, but I don’t want to send up any alarms, abusing the trust I have with the man.

“She left.”

“And she didn’t tell you where she was going?”

“No.”

“Then she doesn’t want to be found,” he says with a yawn.

“We’re in Denver. I just need to get a location on her.”

“I understand what you want. I also know why you went to Denver. If she changed her mind, it’s not up to you to try to persuade her.”

“I didn’t… we… She left after we got back from there.”

I can’t even say the damn name of the club, and that makes me regret taking her there more than ever.

“Can’t you just find her?”

“I can tell you that she’s active on her phone. She’s using it with the same patterns she always does. I can tell you she doesn’t appear to be in trouble.”