Ginny quirked an eyebrow at him. “No. It’s time for me to be back on stage.”
It was his turn to be embarrassed. How had he lost track of time?
Nickel’s smug smile at having Ginny’s focus turned on him had Reaper considering several options for payback when they got back to Treepoint. The fucker wasn’t going to know what it was like to have a Saturday off.
Nickel started after Ginny as she headed toward the stage. “Cool. It’s my turn—”
A hard elbow shoved him back.
“Nothing’s wrong with your ears. You can listen here,” Reaper ground out, going after Ginny before Nickel could catch his breath.
Sparing the hunched-over brother a gloating glance, he bumped into Ginny.
“What happened to Nickel?”
He unrepentantly lied to a concerned Ginny who started to go back down the corridor. “He ate at Dirty Dan’s for lunch. The greasy fries are catching up with him.”
“Oh.” Blushing, Ginny quickly spun around, hurrying in the direction of the stage as if the hounds of hell were after her. Nothing embarrassed women more than men’s bluntness on having to take a shit.
He was two steps from the top of the metal stairway when he looked up to see Ginny standing above him.
“You’re very handsome when you smile.”
Mesmerized, he watched Ginny move closer to the edge of the step until a centimeter separated them, he then warily watched her hand reach out to rub her knuckles down his bearded jaw.
“I like your beard.”
Fighting the instinct to rub his jaw back against her hand, he snatched her wrist to jerk her hand away when the metal under his palm broke the spell she had placed over him.
“Who gave you the bracelet?”
So close to her, Reaper saw her pupils dilate. He knew before she answered that Ginny was going to lie.
“I bought it for myself.”
He narrowed his eyes up at her, letting her know without words that he didn’t believe her.
She trailed her hand away from his, leaving him standing alone on the steps, as she moved into position behind the curtain.
Coming up the remaining steps, he stopped at her back. “Who gave you the bracelet?”
When Ginny didn’t answer immediately, he thought she wasn’t going to answer at all or repeat the same lie.
“It was a Christmas gift.”
“From whom?”
“My sister.”
Chapter Eighteen
Ginny’s answer made sense. Wearing her dead sister’s gift would carry an intense sentimental value. What he couldn’t understand was why she lied to him in the first place, but he wouldn’t be able to harp on why she lied without coming across as the world’s biggest a-hole.
Before his talk with Nickel, it wouldn’t have bothered him to be cast in that role. Hell, he had been working on that role since getting on the plane to Nashville. However, something told him if he handled it the wrong way, he would get his wish, and he wasn’t sure he wanted it to come true any longer.
Catching Ginny’s stalker would save The Last Riders’ manpower to use elsewhere right now. Having to worry about Ginny removed from Viper’s shoulders was another plus, as well as making him feel as if he was pulling his own weight since returning to the club.
Each excuse could be good enough on its own merit, yet there was an excuse he didn’t want to acknowledge—the fear of Ginny cutting him out of her life like she had Moon and Doc. Refusing to admit the truth eliminated the fear of Ginny getting close to breaking through the barrier he placed around his heart.
After Taylor, he believed no other woman would be able to get past his defenses, yet Ginny was managing to twist him inside out in a matter of days.
When the spotlight hit the side of the curtain, Ginny stepped out onto the stage as the music switched from grating high notes to soft strands that floated over the heads of the cheering audience. The applause was cut off as the music dived low. The onlookers went silent, wanting to hear the new chords of a song they had never heard before.
Moving closer to the curtain so he could get a better view, Reaper saw Kaden and Ginny together behind the microphone. Seeing them in the spotlight, he understood why the crowd had gone silent. They were a perfect foil for each other. Kaden’s raw masculinity gave an illusion of a sexual chemistry to Ginny’s more feminine allure. Reaper was sure more than one onlooker was imagining Kaden and Ginny fucking. The image was so powerful