my skin crawl with anxiety. And a relationship felt impossible, with how busy I was with school, working at the shop, and my club duties.
“How’s your hand healing?” Jazz asked.
“Looks worse than it is,” I said, holding it up for inspection.
Tex sucked his teeth. “You’re gonna have a hell of a scar.”
“I think it’ll look cool,” I said with a shrug.
We were distracted as Ballast’s front door swung open. Blade waved at the patron from behind the bar and started to inform them we were closed for a private event—until he realized who it was.
Mal walked in with Dante at his heels. My heart slammed into my throat as soon as I saw him. Even just walking behind Mal, Dante’s presence was commanding: tall and muscular, but he moved gracefully, and was flashing his handsome smile again. I simultaneously wanted to move closer, and further away. It made my head spin.
Blade walked around the bar and shook Mal’s hand firmly. “Hey, Mal, good timing. We’re taking a break here. Can I get you a beer?”
“No, no,” Mal said. He pulled an envelope from the inner pocket of his jacket. “We can’t stick around, but we’re here to square up. Got the reparations for the damage my former guys did.”
He spat the word former pointedly.
Blade nodded in satisfaction. “Glad to hear it.”
At Mal’s side, Dante was holding a white box. He was huge, taller than Blade, nearly taller than Maverick even, and just as broad. He was corded with muscle and dark tattoos wound from his neck to his wrists, making his bare face even more striking by comparison, with his unblemished brown skin and sharp blue eyes set over high cheekbones. His gaze caught mine and lingered, and I felt pinned by it, unable to move. A small, almost teasing smile played on his lips.
I usually avoided guys like him—guys that big made me a little nervous. Jazz had taught me how to defend myself, sure, but if a guy as big as Dante decided he wanted to teach me a lesson, I’d be overpowered, no doubt.
But the memory of his smile in Junee—the sight of it now—complicated things. Gave me the crazy urge to move closer, see if his body gave off as much heat as I suspected it might…
Didn’t matter, though. Dante was way out of my league. I was just a skinny, quiet nobody compared to him.
So… why was he suddenly walking toward me?
“Brought this for the man of the hour,” he said, half to me, half to Blade and Mal behind him.
Seeing him walk directly toward me, his blue eyes intensely focused on me as the Hell’s Ankhor members parted out of his way, sent a sudden spike of anxiety through me—and without thinking, I sidestepped backward and knocked into a chair, sending it clattering to the floor.
Jazz shot me a concerned look as he righted the chair, but said nothing. I knew he was thinking of that day in Custom Ankhs, when I’d nearly shit myself when that biker started threatening Jonah. I couldn’t help but cringe at my own weakness. Dante hadn’t done anything to threaten me. So why was I having such an intense reaction? I was acting like a kid—and not a cool, badass one like my moniker was intended to suggest.
Dante frowned, and slowly set the white box on the table closest to me, moving slow and careful like he didn’t want to spook me. His expression was strange: somewhere between sad and curious.
“Congratulations,” he said softly. “Hope you enjoy it.”
Before I could say anything back, he turned on his heel and walked back to the front door, where Mal was waiting.
I stared at his broad shoulders as he walked out. The faded logo of the Liberty Crew was barely visible on the sun-lightened leather of his club jacket.
God, I was an asshole—here they were trying to make reparations, and Dante had gone out of his way to give me something, and I’d literally fallen over myself to put space between us. But I didn’t know what to say, especially now, as Dante and Mal were walking out the door. Instead, I opened the box.
It was a cake. It was shaped like a cowboy hat, decorated meticulously with the Hell’s Ankhor logo and THE KID piped on it in silver icing.
“Oh, that’s cute,” Jazz said from over my shoulder. “That’s their whole thing, down in Junee. Dante runs the bakery.”
“He made this?”
“Definitely,” Tex said. “He’s the best decorator on their staff. He’d never let anyone else take over a cake he was gifting.”
He’d made this. For me.
But he didn’t even know me. It must’ve been a favor Blade called in.
It had to be. Right? Why else would he have gone out of his way like this just to give me something sweet?
I glanced at the front door, suddenly wanting to say something, to explain myself or apologize, but Dante was already gone.
Get ready for Book 6 of my the Hell’s Ankhor Series, Dante.
Available Now!
Dante
Get ready for Book 6 of my the Hell’s Ankhor Series, Dante.
Available Now!
Free Bonus Chapters!
Get your free Bonus Content for the Hell’s Ankhor Series Sent straight to your email inbox. Just Click here!
Join my author page!
Join Aiden Bates; newsletter for exclusive bonus content ➜ http://aidenbates.com/author-central-signup/
Tex
Hell’s Ankhor: Book 5
Aiden Bates & Ali Lyda
© 2020
Disclaimer
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are all fictitious for the reader’s pleasure. Any similarities to real people, places, events, living or dead are all coincidental.
This book contains sexually explicit content that is intended for ADULTS ONLY (+18).