Jenkins scratched at the stubble on his chin, a sign I’d come to realize meant he was thinking about what he was about to say. “The reason it took so long to get you out was because Michaels and Campbell were trying to hike the charges up to statutory rape. They had the girl scared to death that they would be able to convict you and put you away. She’s vulnerable from the death of her mother, and she’s not thinking clearly. If I’d been able to talk to her, I could have convinced her that her father didn’t have shit for proof, but they wouldn’t let anyone near her.”
I had suspected rape was bound to be talked about in some shape or form considering the way Rory had been found in my bed. I still hadn’t been worried. Jenkins was the best defense attorney in the damn state. That was why he worked for the MC.
But that didn’t explain what the fuck he meant about Rory being gone.
“You said she’s gone,” I half growled even as my heart was turning to ice, slowing down, ready to stop at any second. “Where the fuck did she go?”
“Hell, I don’t know. All I know is that she agreed to go with her father if he agreed to drop all charges against you. A chartered plane left an hour ago, son. Michaels told Bates to hold you until the plane was gone.”
Chapter Two
Rory
Three Years Later
NERVOUSNESS CHURNED IN MY STOMACH as I stepped into the grocery store and glanced around.
He’s not here, I tried to assure myself. The likelihood of bumping into Matt at the grocery store was one in a million. He’d never gone shopping for food when we’d dated three years ago. Even as relief calmed some of the butterflies in my stomach, disappointment made my chest tighten.
I had only gotten back to Creswell Springs two days ago. While I’d been gone, I’d dreamed of coming back here a million times. At the time, I had thought I would never get the chance, that as long as my father was alive, it wasn’t possible. He had been holding Matt’s freedom over my head, telling me if I ever dared to contact anyone in the MC, he would have Royce Campbell issue an arrest warrant for Matt and anyone else I so much as exchanged a single word with.
The only reason I was back now was because soon I would turn twenty-one, and I would inherit everything my mother had left to me. When she told me she was going to make sure I would be taken care of, I’d only thought she meant she was going to leave me a trust fund that would let me have a comfortable life. But once the will had been read, via Skype by Mr. Jenkins, I had been blown away by how generous Mom had been.
Everything. It was all mine, or would be as soon as I turned the magic age of twenty-one. Stunned was too tame a word for how my father had taken the news. He had exploded, and for the first time in my life, I had been physically afraid of the man. He had thrown things, leaving the floor littered with broken glass. The walls of the house my mother’s grandparents had left her had been full of holes that had needed patching days later when my father had finally calmed down.
His rage had been unexpected at the time, and I’d been too afraid and shocked to question it. But when everything had settled down and he had returned to Creswell Springs, leaving me with only a housekeeper and a driver who were both my father’s spies, I realized exactly why my father was so upset.
Spending my mother’s money had been his favorite pastime. It had paid for his elections when he ran for mayor, it paid for his beloved expensive handcrafted suits, and, I suspected, his mistress’s lifestyle as well. Now, those funds were frozen except for the generous allowance my mother had stipulated for me to have each month. An allowance my father had said I didn’t need and he would be taking charge of.
Making me even more of a prisoner than ever.
“Excuse me,” someone who was trying to get a cart murmured, and I quickly stepped out of the woman’s way, picking up a wire basket in the process.
I only needed a few things, and I wanted to grab them and get out as quickly as possible. Matt might have never shopped when I had known him before, but that didn’t mean other people who were close to him wouldn’t see me and tell him.
Not that I expected him to care.
Three years was a long time to be away from someone without so much as a single phone call or letter being exchanged. Matt Reid had probably moved on a long time ago. I never crossed his mind. Whereas, he was never far from my thoughts.
I made quick work of getting my shampoo and other bathroom items, grabbing a box of chocolate chip cookies on my way to the register. There was a long line to check out, and my anxiety began to spike with each second that ticked by. The sliding doors opened so the woman who had just paid for her groceries could push her cart out, and a man and woman walked in.
It took me a moment to recognize Felicity Bolton, or Flick, as Matt had always called her. It wasn’t until she smiled brightly up at the man holding her hand that I realized who she was. She laughed softly as Jet Hannigan murmured something close to her ear and nodded. While Jet grabbed a cart, Flick glanced around, and I went still when her eyes landed on me and her brow puckered.
I lowered my head, pretending I didn’t see her until the couple had walked to the far side of the store where the produce was. I rushed through paying for my items, scribbled my name across the little screen when I used my credit card to pay, and didn’t even wait for the receipt before grabbing my two bags and practically racing to my car.
My fingers were shaking as I tried to press the push start on the car my father had given me the keys to the day before. I hated the damn thing, wouldn’t have even thought to buy myself such a girly little sports car. I would have rather been driving a Dodge Charger with a Hemi, something with real power. But as always, my father wanted me to look the part of the mayor’s daughter.
As soon as the car was on, I made quick work of getting out of the parking lot. On the way home, I kept checking my mirrors to make sure Flick hadn’t followed. Rationally, I knew she wouldn’t have dropped what she was doing to come after me, and really, why would she even want to? I had caused her friend nothing but trouble, and he had no doubt washed his hands of me years ago.
But even though it was stupid to think Matt would even care I was back, part of me wanted him to care. I wanted him to have missed me just half as much as I had missed him. I wanted him to have slowly lost his mind thinking of me, just as I had done him.
I wanted him to still love me.
Even if just a little, I wanted him to still love me. Because the love I had for him hadn’t changed. Time and distance had done nothing to dull how much he meant to me.
I pulled into my father’s driveway and parked my car in the garage. Once the thick door was lowered, hiding me from the outside world, I breathed a sigh of relief. Leaning my head back against the seat, I closed my eyes and willed my heart to calm down. If I were being honest, I would have admitted to myself what I was feeling wasn’t completely nervousness.
It was disappointment.
While part of me had dreaded running into Matt, I had been subconsciously willing him to appear. Just one look, that was all I had really wanted. One teeny, tiny look at what I had given up to keep him safely out of jail. A single glance would have given me something to live off for a little longer.
Tears blinded me, and as hard as I tried to hold them back, one still spilled over my lashes. I hastily swiped it away and sucked in a few deep breaths, hoping to calm myself before going inside. My father’s car was still gone, so I knew he was probably at the office—or with his mistress. Either-or, I didn’t care which, as long as he stayed away. We had never really been that close, but after what he had threatened Matt with, I hated him.
Upstairs in my room, I put away my things and then grabbed my books. I needed to get caught up on the reading list, and it seemed I had nothing but time. Like I had at my grandparents’ old house, I felt like a prisoner. I might have grown up in this house, but after my mother died, it had stopped being home to me.
The classes I was taking were boring as hell, so it was little
wonder that I fell asleep while trying to read the material for my class. I woke hours later to the ringing of the landline. One of the cordless phones sat beside my bed, and blindly, I reached for the noisy thing.
“’Lo?” I mumbled, still half asleep.
“Hey, girl!” A high, feminine voice that was only vaguely familiar nearly ruptured my eardrum, and I pulled the receiver away to glance at the caller ID.
Campbell, R.
Figured. Steph was a pain in the ass, and I had only ever tolerated her in the past because she was the only friend my father would allow. Her father was the DA, and my father’s best friend as far as I knew. I hated him just as much as I hated my own father, but it wasn’t completely because of what had happened with Matt that made me dislike him so much. Royce Campbell had always looked at me…that way. I had always felt uncomfortable around the man. Even when I was barely into my teens, he had been looking, and I had always felt dirty.
“Hey, Steph,” I muttered, trying to put a little enthusiasm into my voice but failing miserably.
Not that she actually noticed. “I just saw your dad, and he told me to call you. See if you want to go out with me and Casandra tonight.”
“Really?” I was only half surprised that my father would ask her to take me out with her and her bitchy friend. It was just one more way he could control me—with the offer of a night out, but with his lackey’s daughter to supervise my every move.
But even as I knew it was just a tool to keep me under his thumb, I was desperate enough for a night out of the house to accept. “Sure. Give me about an hour to get ready.”
“Perfect. Dress sexy. We’re going to a frat party just off campus.”
Great, I thought with a roll of my eyes. “Sounds fun. See you soon.”
“Later, girl!”
Chapter Three
MATT
IT’S NOT HER. FLICK GOT it wrong. It was just someone who looked like her. How many damn times had I thought the same thing? How many goddamn times had I seen her walking down Main Street, only to realize the next minute that it was someone else? Rory was gone, and she wasn’t ever coming back.
When Jet and Flick had stopped by the clubhouse, it had taken Flick telling me twice that she had seen Rory at the grocery store before my brain could comprehend what she was saying.
Rory. Back. No fucking way.
But even as I tried to tell myself that Flick was mistaken, hope flickered to life deep in my chest. She was here; I could feel in it my bones. Rory was back.
For the first time in my life, I was nervous as fuck over the possibility of seeing a girl. Three goddamn years was too long to go without the girl who owned my fucking soul. I had gone a little crazy when she left, had done some things I wasn’t exactly proud of, things I would never willingly tell her about. But the past didn’t matter.
She was back.
I sat down the street from the mayor’s house, watching the window that I knew was her bedroom. Her light had come on thirty minutes ago, and like the stalker I suddenly had turned into, I watched her silhouette as she walked past it every now and then. Each time I saw it, my heart would double in speed, and it would be hard to breathe for a few seconds. My palms would sweat, and my cock would press a little harder into the zipper of my jeans.
Easy. I had to take this easy. I couldn’t just run in there and take back what had been stolen from me, even if that was what I ached to do. I had to play this with a cool head. Three years was a long time away from each other. Rory might not even feel the same way about me as she once had. She had been more or less a kid back then, which was the major reason why I had wanted to wait for her eighteenth birthday before we had sex. I didn’t want her to suddenly realize she didn’t even like me, let alone love me. If that had happened, it would have destroyed me—even more so than her leaving had done.
Headlights coming up behind me had me sinking a little lower in my seat, but the driver didn’t even seem to notice me as she pulled into the mayor’s driveway. She honked the horn of her prissy sports car that I knew I remembered but couldn’t place. A minute later, Rory came outside. The floodlights around the house made it easy to see her perfectly.
Her hair was a little longer and bounced when she walked. She was wearing a short-ass dress that showed off way too much skin and a pair of heels that made her a few inches taller. As I watched her walk, the air got trapped in my lungs. I sat there in a daze, drinking in the sight of her for the first time in too goddamn long.
Rory gave the driver a halfhearted smile and waved as she walked around the front of the car and climbed into the front passenger seat. As the door closed behind her, my stupor lifted and I started my truck. My cast—a present I had gotten from a fight at the bar—made it impossible to drive my motorcycle, so I was stuck in this damn cage. Not that I could complain too much. The bike would have given me away too easily, and knowing the fucking prick mayor, he would have found a reason to arrest me for just being on his street.
I kept a few cars between me and the one Rory was in, but I kept them in sight at all times. It didn’t take long to guess they were headed toward campus, and I figured they were on their way to one of the frat houses. Jealousy began to eat at me, and my casted hand balled into a fist, making the plaster bite into my knuckles.
Maybe she had moved on.
Maybe I’m going to kill a motherfucker tonight.
The stupid sports car stopped outside a row of houses. The driver and Rory got out, and then another girl climbed out of the back. I left my truck on for a few minutes as I watched them go into a house where every light was on and rap music was playing so loudly, it was making the houses around it shake.
I counted down from one hundred in my head, my eyes following Rory as she followed the other two girls into the house. I backed up and found a place to park before heading inside after her.
There were people outside smoking, and I gave them a chin nod as I passed, pretending like I belonged with this crowd. I’d left my cut back at the clubhouse, so I was dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and a hoodie with the hood pulled up over my head. No one questioned me as I climbed the front steps and walked into the frat house.
The music was pure shit, and the volume made it impossible for anyone to hear themselves talk unless they were right in each other’s ears. There were more dudes than females, so it was easy to spot the three who had just come in. Rory’s glossy hair shone in the overhead lighting, and I eased my way through the crowd, keeping a few feet between us at all times.
For the next hour, I watched her, stalked her. Her friend gave her a red Solo cup of keg beer, and she sipped at it, making faces every time she swallowed. Her friends stayed close for a little while, but when a couple guys came up to their group, the other two females left with them, leaving Rory all alone.
But not for long. Some frat boy came over and tried to talk to her, but she kept her eyes on her drink and only nodded at whatever he was saying, giving him tight smiles that never seemed to reach her beautiful eyes. My jealousy doubled, and I clenched my hands into fists at my sides as I watched him touch her cheek.
Rory jerked back from the contact, stepping away from the guy with a glare and a shake of her head. “Go away, asshole!” I saw her lips move rather than actually heard her, but that was all I needed to know she wasn’t happy.
I moved like lightning and stepped between her and the frat boy, wanting to tear him apart for even breathing the same air as she was. I didn’t because I didn’t want her to be scared of me. I had never given her a reason to fear me in the past, and I sure as fuck wasn’t about to give her one now.
I grasped her wrist with my undamaged hand and pulled her body up against my own. Her eyes widened in surprise, fear, and pure happiness. Goddamn it! Had I scared her, after all? I didn’t like the sight of the fear, but seeing the happiness in her eyes eased something tight in my chest.
“Hey, I was talking to her, dickhead!” The frat boy tried to step between me and Rory.
/> He put a hand on my shoulder, and I shrugged it off, too lost in my girl’s eyes to look away from her. “Fuck off,” I growled, but he didn’t hear me.
“I said, she’s with me,” the other guy said, trying to jerk me around to face him.
The fear darkened Rory’s green eyes and only enraged me. Turning, I smashed my casted fist into his face, knocking him on his ass. Everyone was either too drunk or high to worry about the idiot, and other than a few people laughing at him, no one else seemed to care. Tightening my hold on Rory’s wrist, I pulled her through the house and out through the exit in the kitchen.
The air was chilly, and I felt Rory shiver as I turned us in the direction of my truck. I stopped and released her wrist to pull my hoodie over my head and tuck her into it. As I smoothed it down over her, I saw her chin tremble.
“Baby,” I groaned. “No tears. Please, I’m close enough to killing someone as it is.”
Her arms went around my waist as she buried her face in my chest. “I missed you,” she sobbed. “Oh God, Matt. I missed you so damn much.”
The hand with the cast went to her back, the other to the back of her head, holding her against me as I kissed the top of her sweet-smelling hair. As I inhaled deeply, everything felt right in that moment. She was back, she was in my arms, and she was telling me she missed me. That was all that mattered. Everything else in the world could go to hell for all I cared right then.
“Don’t cry,” I pleaded, my voice choked from the euphoria of having her in my arms again.
She stiffened and pulled away from me. Stepping back, she put several feet between us, her beautiful face paling. “You can’t be here,” she whispered, shaking her head frantically as she glanced around like she expected some fucking SWAT team to ambush us suddenly. “You have to go. I can’t be near you.”
“Girl, you’re out of your mind if you think I’m going to walk away from you now. I just got you back. I’m not about to give you up willingly.” I caught her hand and tried to tug her back against me, but she resisted.