Page 40 of Beyond the Cut
“I’m not yours.” Dawn folded her arms. “But since we’re laying it on the line, and if you’re wanting me to stick around, I have terms, too. You don’t go to strip clubs, even for a drink. Nor do you let sweet butts wriggle in your lap. You don’t flirt with women or bring them back to the clubhouse. You’re a one-woman man unless you want a woman who isn’t me, and then I walk out this door.”
Tension coiled in the room between them. He stared at her for so long she was afraid she’d crossed some hidden line and nothing would ever be the same again.
“I guess now that we have that straight, I’ll take care of those cuts and bruises,” she said to fill the silence. “You got a first-aid kit in here?” Her gaze swept over the room, bare of any decoration save for the detritus, a gritty contrast with the huge four-poster king-sized bed and heavy dark wood furniture, remnants from the days before the country house had become the Sinner clubhouse.
Cade scowled. “I’m not finished saying my piece.”
Dawn wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the rest of his “piece” if it involved any more one-sided rules and restrictions. She studied the room again for any sign of first-aid equipment, trying not to look at all the empty condom boxes or the shiny wrappers strewn across the floor or think about what they meant.
“I got something else to say.” Cade’s voice held an uncharacteristically sharp edge. “What are you looking at?”
Her cheeks heated and she scrambled for words. “Lots of… pizza boxes. What kind of pizza do you like?”
“Pizza?”
“I don’t know that much about you. What kind of pizza do you like?”
“Meat.”
She let out an exasperated sigh. “Can you be more specific? Pepperoni, sausage, ham, bacon—?”
“Just meat. Lots of it.” His brow creased. “You?”
“I’m kinda into veggies. Not that I don’t occasionally indulge in a Slim Fred’s Meat Feast when I’m hanging with Banks at his place watching the fights, but usually I like to keep it healthy.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “What else you want to know?”
Hmmm. A rare insight into Cade and what made him tick. She wanted to know everything, but from the way he was looking at her—focused, intent, like a predator sizing up its prey—she would have to be judicious with her questions. “Music.”
“Mostly ’seventies legends like Bob Seger, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and the Allman Brothers and hard-rock bands like W.A.S.P. and Great White.”
“Typical of a biker and not very revealing.” Dawn sighed. “I don’t suppose you harbor a secret love for Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift?”
Cade’s nose wrinkled. “Girl crap. Don’t listen to it.”
“I like ‘girl crap,’ as you call it. I also like jazz.”
“That’s ’cause you’re a girl.”
“I’m a woman.” She lifted an eyebrow in censure and he gave her a smoldering, sensual look that made her instantly wet.
“That I fucking know. And ’cause of that, there’s no hanging out with Banks, ’cause he knows that, too.” He crossed the floor toward her, eating up the distance between them with easy strides of his long legs. “You want to listen to girl crap and hang out and eat pizza, you do it with me. And forget the veg. How are you gonna keep those curves if you’re just eating green shit?”
He was so close now she could feel the heat radiating off his body, breathe in his scent of leather, crisp spring air, and the sharp odor of blood. “You like my curves?”
“Love your curves, babe. Couldn’t have made it through that fucking ambush if I didn’t have these curves to think about.”
Dawn took a step back, and then another. She hit the door and he slammed into her, momentum melding their bodies together, sparking a firestorm in her blood so hot she thought she might combust.
“Did you…” She shouldn’t ask, but she couldn’t help herself. “Kill anyone?”
Cade’s face softened. “Club business, sweetheart. But I know this is something that bothers you so I’ll let you know it’s never easy taking a life. We do what we gotta do to protect the club. Rusty had a gun on Shaggy, so Shaggy lived and Rusty died. It wasn’t meant to be that way, but that’s the life we’ve chosen to live.”
“It’s a violent life.”
“It’s a life where I protect the people closest to me the best way I know how. Being part of the MC means I don’t worry about rules or laws or orders when my brothers are at risk. It means I can do what needs to be done to protect what’s mine. It means I can live a life without guilt or regret.”
Cade wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his chest. For a long time they stood in silence, hearts beating together, and then he brushed his lips over her forehead and pulled away.
