Page 16 of Saber's Claim
He’s looking at me and seeing damage. He’s looking at me and deciding I don’t know what I’m choosing.
And if he kisses me now, he’ll be another man who took something from a woman who wasn’t ready to give it. He’d rather starve than be that man.
He’s wrong. But I don’t know how to tell him that without proving him right. Everything I wanted to say would sound like the desperate girl who latches onto the first man who shows her kindness, because she doesn’t know the difference between safety and love.
But I do know the difference. And I know what I want.
That night. Eleven o’clock. The knock.
I open the door. He’s in a clean t-shirt and jeans, boots still on, cut still on. He always comes to my door in his cut. Like he’s reminding both of us what he is.
“Need anything?”
“Tell me something,” I say.
He leans against the doorframe. Crosses his arms. “What?”
“Something about you. Not the club. You.”
He’s quiet long enough that I think he’s going to walk away. His eyes move over my face, and then he looks at the wall past my shoulder.
“I own a ranch. Thirty acres, east of town. Inherited it from my grandfather. I’ve got two horses, a barn that needs a new roof, and a little sister at college in California who calls me once a week to make sure I haven’t burned the place down. Nothing but desert in every direction.”
“That’s where you live? When you’re not here?”
“That’s where I live.”
“Why aren’t you there now?” I ask.
His blue eyes come back to mine, and that tells me everything. He’s staying at the clubhouse because of me.
“Tell me something about you,” he says. “Not the ex. Not the running. You.”
I lean against my side of the doorframe. We’re mirroring each other—arms crossed, shoulders against the wood, barely any space between us.
“I can draw. Charcoal, mostly. Portraits. I used to fill sketchbooks when I was a kid in foster care. I’d draw every family, every house, and every kid I shared a room with. I drew so I wouldn’t forget them when I had to move.”
Something shifts behind his eyes, and it’s not pity. Pity would make me close the door. This is closer to recognition. Like he understands what it means to hold onto people in the only way you can.
“You still draw?”
“I don’t have supplies.”
He nods. Once. “Get some sleep, Shelby.”
“Goodnight, Saber.”
He pushes off the doorframe and walks down the hall. I watch him go.
He stops. Doesn’t turn. “The stool is in the dumpster.”
Then he’s gone.
I close the door. Turn the lock. Press my back against the wood and slide down to the floor, same as every night.
But tonight my fingers go to my jaw, where his thumb traced the bone, and I hold them there until the warmth fades.
I’m not afraid of the Crimson Warriors.
