to put that fear out of my mind. I couldn’t get sucked into the what-ifs. Not now. Finding Heath was the most important thing. But still—
“What the fuck happened to his security detail?” I snapped. “Why was he alone?”
“That’s Hell’s Ankhor business,” Gunnar fired back, but he seemed embarrassed and guilty and worried. “Besides, we had patrols running, there’s no way they should have been able to—”
“It’s my fucking business, too!” I slapped my hand on the kitchen island loud enough to crack through the air. “He’s my—” I snapped my mouth closed as all the eyes in the room landed on me.
“Your what?” Blade prompted, eyebrows raised.
Good question. What was he to me? We were supposed to be taking things slow, seeing what happened, but it had quickly grown into so much more than that for me. The more time I spent with him, the more connected to him I felt. It wasn’t just sex—never really was, if I was being honest with myself. It was his sharp sense of humor. His smart business sense. His shyness, with courage that cut through it.
His kind heart, and his sweet submission.
It was beginning to be impossible to imagine my life without him in it.
I remembered suddenly Dad asking me what would happen if everything went well. All at once, I had a flash of Heath shrugging on his Hell’s Ankhor jacket, and then smiling over his shoulder at me. But this time, the jacket had a small patch on the arm. A Liberty Crew patch—a property patch.
Property of Dante.
“My responsibility,” I said lamely, overwhelmed by the image and not ready to put my desire into words in front of all of Hell’s Ankhor, especially not before having that conversation with Heath first.
Blade sucked his teeth like he knew that wasn’t exactly the right word.
“Why the fuck are we still here?” I asked. “I’m going out to find him. I know the routes he likes, and waiting around to ping his location isn’t going to cut it.”
He’d showed me most of his favored idle rides over the last few weeks: winding narrow roads through the mountains. The pretty, scenic routes, not the straight, speed-only routes. I turned on my heel and stormed out the front door without waiting for confirmation from Blade or Gunnar. Heath might be a Hell’s Ankhor member, but he was more than that to me.
And I was going to find him with or without their help.
I threw my leg over my bike and revved the engine. Behind me, Jazz, Tex, and Maverick mounted their bikes as well.
“Coming with?” I asked.
“We’ll find him,” Jazz said. “Lead the way.”
We didn’t have to go far—I had a feeling that if Heath was riding just to ride, he was riding toward the Lake. I rode in the front of the group, fast enough to cover ground but slow enough that I could scan the road and the shoulders for any sign of him. We were barely ten miles north of the clubhouse when I rounded the corner and saw him.
Even from a distance I knew it was Heath from the slope of his shoulders and the way his blond hair glowed in the late afternoon sunlight. He was trudging along the highway shoulder, his leather jacket slung over his shoulder in the heat, his bike helmet dangling loosely from his fingers. And he was slightly uneven on his feet, like one foot was bothering him. At the sound of bike engines, he flinched, but then the tension in his posture bled away as he looked up and recognized us.
I slammed the brakes and parked my bike on the shoulder, hopping off so fast the bike nearly toppled over. I couldn’t care less, though. I heard the Hell’s Ankhor guys’ voices behind me, calling to me, and to Heath, but whatever they were saying couldn’t break through the sound of the blood rushing in my ears.
“Heath!” I covered the distance between us in a blink of an eye and immediately wrapped him in my arms, pulling his narrow body against mine.
Heath gasped a little, a small, soft sound, and then slumped against me. I took all his weight easily. It was only a biker’s instincts that kept him from dropping his helmet.
I pulled back just enough to gently cradle his face in one hand, tilting his head up to meet mine. “What happened? Are you okay?”
He was pale, and his mouth was set in a thin, tight line. “I’m all right,” he said,