Reign A Romance Anthology - Nina Levine Page 0,15

softball bat in mid-swing, and the both of us with our mouths hung open, breathing heavy.

“Blair, get out of here,” I screamed, catching Paul getting to his feet out of the corner of my eye, but my stubborn child shook her head and stumbled forward, placing her body in front of mine, her bat pulled back, ready to take another swing. “Blair!”

“I called Drake on your phone,” Blair announced, her eyes focused on Paul and his narrowed glare.

He was trying to decipher her. Figure out who she was. And for a moment in time, I thought my heart might stop when I realized that he just might guess right.

“Drake is a big bad biker! Him and the club will be here soon,” my baby girl announced confidently.

And as if summoned by her voice, the rumbling chorus of motorcycles filled the air.

My favorite part?

The way Paul’s eyes widened when he realized I was no longer that little girl with no one to protect her.

My second favorite part?

Watching him fucking run away.

8

Zoey

I knew the sound of his heavy boots before I even saw them. There was something so different about the way he walked.

With control.

With strength.

His nothing fucks with me presence filled the room well before he did.

His eyes searched the room as he stepped inside, and the second they fell on me, it felt like I was breaking through the surface of the water. I could breathe.

“The fuck happened?” he demanded, storming toward me. When he hooked his finger under my chin, lifting my teary gaze, he asked, “You good?”

“Yeah,” I croaked, the lie instantly followed by my daughter’s objections.

“She’s not okay,” Blair exploded from across the tiny club medical room. “The whole side of her leg is torn up from where he dragged her from the pool by her hair.”

“Blair!”

“Call Mouse,” Huntsman ordered in the direction of the silently stern-faced guy to his left. “Tell her it’s urgent.” He held out his hand to me, and I held his gaze for a long few seconds, my lips pursed in defiance.

“Woman,” he growled. The harsh growl sent a shudder through me. What surprised me was how he softened it a second later. “Zoey. Show me.”

“It’s fine.”

“I can see where you’d mistake that as a request,” he threw back, his brow raised. “It wasn’t.”

My first instinct was to tell him to take his ‘request’ and shove it somewhere there is no sunlight, but my body was giving in. My hand was twitching with a mind of its own, wanting to feel him support me.

It’d been a long time since I had ever not had to hold myself up—broken or not. Or to keep me from falling into the flames that seemed to be constantly burning around me. My eyes caught Blair’s across the table, my heart sinking to see the tears silently slipping down her cheeks. I had to do this for her. Put my secrets and ghosts from my past to the side.

Placing my hand in Huntsman’s, I tried to keep that instant rush to myself. But I knew between the way I was shaking and unable to catch my breath that he could see right through me. He pulled me to my feet, tugging me gently toward him.

It was like having a protective shield wrapped around me, and the need to lean in closer and wrap myself in his warmth was an almost impossible magnetism I didn’t want to fight.

The towel I had tied at my hip was instantly tugged loose, his intense deep blue pools holding me captured as the material fell to the floor. His gaze shifted, his eyes dropping to my lips, my neck, my chest. My heart shot up into my throat the lower he traveled.

“Turn.”

Pulling my lip in between my teeth, I slowly shifted, shuffling to the left and revealing what I knew was a hot fucking mess. The throbbing was painful and deep, making it feel as though my entire limb was pulsating. After years of swimming, I was intimately aware of just the kind of damage pools could do. The edges were often either rough concrete or tile, or with a lot of indoor pools, they were surrounded by grates, which caught the overflow from the movement of the water.

I’d been on the receiving end of both on the odd occasion and being dragged over them like hot coals was not my idea of fun.

Huntsman dropped to his haunches, his tattooed hand reaching for my hip.

I hadn’t looked yet, but I really didn’t