Cruz (Dark and Dirty Sinners' MC #5) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,44

were true. Maybe, in the future, I’d ask her if she really had helped him hunt… today wasn’t that day, though.

“You coming to the clubhouse tonight to see Stone?” Giulia asked, evidently unaware that I was having a ‘come to Jesus’ moment.

“I was supposed to, but not anymore. I have some late appointments. You’ll need to get used to that too,” I said with a snort. “Crazy fucking hours.”

“I can deal with that. It’s not like I don’t live that now.”

The heavy throb of straight pipes made the windowpanes rattle, and if that wasn’t a large enough clue that Nyx was heading our way, or at least one of the Sinners, then I wasn’t as smart as I believed.

Giulia perked up at the noise which I thought was pretty fucking sweet, and a few minutes later when Nyx made an appearance, she leaped to her feet and launched herself at him. He laughed, then grabbed her by the ass and hauled her tighter into him. When he started groping her, I rolled my eyes and returned my attention to my designs.

After Giulia had been thoroughly kissed, a whisper of sensation had me looking up. I gulped when I saw Cruz was standing there, silent as ever. Licking my lips, like I could taste what we’d done last night, his soft smile was in no way soft—at least, not to someone else. He was a hard man, but I’d been raised with a hard man, had grown up surrounded by them. I knew how to sense someone’s tender side, even if I didn’t always want to see it.

Something about him had wormed its way into my defenses, and I’d admit that I was getting to the point where I was looking forward to seeing him.

Talk about a miracle.

Unbidden, I moved my legs restlessly, and his gaze dropped down, those enigmatic eyes of his tracing the slight motion that made me hyper aware of the area between my thighs.

He’d watched me slide into these shorts this morning. Knew I wasn’t wearing panties. He’d fastened my bra for me before he’d watched me put on my shirt.

I’d say he was a voyeur, but it went deeper than that. He didn’t just get a kick out of watching, he loved obliterating the walls I routinely constructed. Not just against him, but against all men.

Shit, most women too.

Only one person, aside from Cruz, knew about Kevin, and that was Stone, and she knew the palatable truth. I’d never told her the extent of Kevin’s abuse. Had given her a white-washed version, and she thought I was an insomniac because I had nightmares that revolved around Carly.

I didn’t.

My nightmares were—

My throat turned thick as the past invaded my present.

Like it usually fucking did.

“Indy.”

His voice was calm. Enough that it didn’t disturb Nyx and Giulia’s make-out session at the front of my fucking tattoo parlor, but firm enough that it jolted me from ancient history.

I blinked. “Cruz.”

I didn’t reach for him, he didn’t reach for me. So why did it feel like we were back in the bath? Him tending to me, grounding me?

“I’m going into the city with Nyx,” he informed me, his voice rumbly.

Our eyes communicated what neither of us were ready to say—not in front of Nyx. Because the second Cruz told me, in front of my brother, that he’d be coming straight to my apartment once the day was done, was when we were outed for real.

Though Cruz had told me last night was the first or the final time we’d be together, I saw that now wasn’t the moment to be admitting to anything.

He was antsy, bouncing a little on his toes, and I registered that he had something to do and didn’t like hovering around, waiting to get it done.

If I’d learned anything about him, it was that he liked to do things on his schedule. No one else’s. But with Nyx, as VP, it wasn’t like he had much of a choice. That had to screw with his Dommy head, enough that it made me hide a smile.

I highly doubted Nyx’d bend over for a spanking… not even for Giulia.

Even as I wondered what Cruz’s game plan was—not just for today, but for us—I recognized that in all my life, I’d never been with the same guy for the length of time I’d been with him. What that said about me, at my age, well, I didn’t like to think about. Knowing I was fucked up and admitting to it