Splinters of You (Retired Sinners MC #1) - Anne Malcom Page 0,49

up and down. Skulls, dead trees, roses, angels, devils. One design in particular caught my attention, covering the inside of his arm, from elbow to wrist.

He noted where my gaze had stopped because he was staring at me much like I was staring at him.

I didn’t expect him to say anything, offer information about himself. Because I wouldn’t have. Wasn’t planning on it.

But yet again, he showed me I couldn’t predict a thing he was going to do.

“It’s for the—”

“Needful Nomads, I know,” I finished.

His eyes widened slightly. I’d caught him off guard. Here he was, building this perfect and neat little idea of me and I kept punching out his building blocks. It gave me satisfaction. I liked being smarter than people expected me to be. Darker than people expected me to be. Especially if those people were men who were used to women being simple.

There was a silent question in his steely gaze. Of course he wouldn’t do something as easy as ask me how I knew this. No, every move in our interaction was a game. It was a dangerous one, I knew that.

“I toyed with the idea of writing a book based on motorcycle clubs,” I said, after letting him sweat for a moment. “But not romanticizing them as much as they seem to be portrayed these days. Women swooning over murderers and drug dealers. Sure, you put a pretty face on the underworld and it doesn’t seem as bad.” I shrugged. “I get it. But I’m not really about putting a pretty face on things. So, I did some research. Some interviews. Hung out with a few clubs.”

His jaw clenched. “You hung out with a few clubs.”

I enjoyed the misplaced fury he had over something I had so obviously survived. “If I can interact with the subject of a book I’m writing, I’m gonna do it,” I replied. “Since it’s getting harder these days to summon the Devil—too many people calling him—I figured it would be more prudent to choose something more accessible.”

He was not amused.

“Which club?” he ground out.

“What do you care?”

He stepped forward, so his body brushed mine. It was not sexual. The goal behind this move was violent, warning, I wasn’t even sure he realized he’d done it.

“I fuckin’ care,” he hissed. “Which club?”

I shouldn’t answer this. Of course I shouldn’t answer this. He was acting like the answer was his. Like I was his.

“Texas,” I said.

His eyes glittered, glazed over, and the scent of the air turned bitter as more fury leeched into it. I knew it wasn’t meant to be doing anything but scaring me, but it was turning me on. Me. It wasn’t vanilla. Not even close. And I wanted it. I wanted his anger more than I wanted his tenderness.

Fuck his tenderness.

“You know how lucky you are, you didn’t get found out? You didn’t get fuckin’ raped, murdered, and tossed away without a thought?” The words were objects. He was throwing them at me. To wound. To cut open scabs he didn’t even know I had.

But he wanted me to bleed. Even if he didn’t know how deep that cut ran.

I stepped back. “I’m not lucky, Saint. I’m smart. I know how to handle myself around men who make no illusions about what kind of monsters they are. If you haven’t noticed, I can handle monsters. I’m sure as fuck not scared of them. So how about you prowl through the woods, find another woman on the brink of death, figure out a way to get her under your thumb. Or don’t. Just get the fuck off my property.”

He recognized my tone. I forced him to. He wasn’t the only one who could turn words into weapons. I was the expert. The artist.

So, he turned.

Picked up his sweater, shrugged on his jacket, and melted back into the woods.

He didn’t look back.

The banging on the door interrupted my third glass of whisky. The remains of a sad dinner of steamed chicken and broccoli was half eaten on the coffee table. I’d overcooked the chicken and undercooked the broccoli. I was trying to distract myself with the whisky and Emily’s last Stephen King book instead of walking to the pantry and opening up the packet of Cheetos Margot had put in there because she was a total monster. My famous control was crumbling here. Was it Saint? The quiet? The fact I couldn’t write?

Though I was still not a fan of visitors in my remote island of suffering and self-deprecation,