Was he serious? I had no doubt this guy would gladly rip me to shreds.
He roughed a hand through the longer pieces of his black hair, and for the first time, something genuine filled his tone. “Listen…this isn’t a good place, Eden.”
The air shifted, and I swore I saw the slightest edge of vulnerability slip into his features, and I found myself digging again. “And you’re not a good man?”
There was no missing the bare truth of the question.
Another of my sicknesses claimed by Tessa. I dug around to find the good bits in everyone. Believed it was there. That we all had something to offer, no matter what we’d done in our pasts.
And I felt desperate to find his.
His voice twisted into a threat, that moment of softness stiffening to steel. “What do you think, Miss Murphy?”
“I think we’ve all made mistakes, Mr. Lawson.”
His nostrils flared, and he was moving again, edging my direction, eclipsing me in his towering frame. He stopped right before he plastered his body against mine, and he angled in so close our noses almost touched.
That energy sizzled.
“Tell me, is it a mistake if you make the choice to do it, again and again? If the sins you’ve committed make up the foundation of your life? If they make you who you are?”
Involuntarily…instinctively…stupidly—I didn’t know—I reached out and let my fingertips flutter over the words imprinted on his chest.
“Are you…a biker?”
Like, a real biker? Was this bar a front? Doubt and fear thrashed and boomed, banging through my brain in a flashfire of warnings while I stood staring up at him as if the question had been a plea.
A shuddered breath left him.
A moment held.
Then he reached out and snatched me by the wrist as if it took him those stilled seconds to realize I was trying to dip my fingers inside and discover a little of who he was, the same way as I could feel him doing to me.
Fury filled his expression. “What do you think you’re doing?”
My head shook, and the words left me like confusion. “I honestly don’t know.”
Severity twisted his brow, and his fierce jaw ticked in restraint. In need. In dark desperation. “You should stay away from me,” he growled.
“Should I?” It was out before I could stop it. But I knew there was something there. Something unseen. Something I could feel pulsating in the atmosphere that I’d never felt before.
It stretched between us.
Keening and alive.
Something my spirit warned would ruin me in the end.
“I think you already know the answer to that.”
Gathering my courage, I asked, “Then why is it you have me pinned to the wall?”
“Ah…” A single fingertip trailed down the angle of my face, and he was watching me with those eyes, devouring the way a shiver raced across my skin.
Trent tipped his head to the side, raven hair pitching that way. “Now that is the question, isn’t it? Why I couldn’t look away from you from the start. Why once you were outta sight, I still went to bed thinking about you. Wondering just how soft your skin might be.” His mouth moved closer to my ear. “Wondering how you’d taste.”
He edged back again. “Guess it makes me the fool who woke up this morning still wondering the same.”
Attraction.
It flickered and flared.
A vapid dance in the heated air.
It was such a terrible idea. Giving in to whatever this was would be a crime. A choice I knew full well I shouldn’t make.
Black and white.
But I felt it.
Desire.
And for me, that was a miracle. My own impossibility.
“You’re a dad.” It came out softer than it should as Gage’s sweet face filled my mind.
With a child like that? I refused to believe this man was only carved of wickedness and greed.
Affection left him on a breath. “Yeah.”
“Gage…” His name heaved out of me like a stone. Like a prayer. I guessed that was exactly what it was. “He’s…”
I’d felt a connection to the child immediately. In an intrinsic way. In a way that I should ignore.
“Adorable? A handful? Sweetest fuckin’ thing you’ve ever seen?” Trent said each one like he was checking off the child’s list of As, the slightest smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Sweet. Sweet. Sweet.
My heart fluttered in an entirely different way.
God, I really was traversing dangerous ground.
“He is,” I murmured, a smile of my own threatening my lips. “Probably one of the sweetest, most adorable children I’ve ever met.”
“Only good part of me.” He said it like he’d heard me ask the question aloud. Saw it written all over me.
“It seems he sees many good things in you.”
Trent scoffed out a rough chuckle. “Kid’s always singing my praises.”
I glanced away before I brought my gaze back to his handsome face. “Are you…”—I gulped before I forced it out—“…married?”
I realized I was shaking. My breath locked in my throat, terrified of what he might tell me.
Trent grunted, angling back just a fraction so I could meet the brutal expression on his face. “Look married to you?”
My teeth clamped down on my bottom lip. Was I supposed to answer that?
He shook his head a little. “Only commitment I’ve got is to that kid. To this club. To my brothers. Ends there.”
Right.
Okay.
It was another warning.
It also felt a whole lot like a rejection.
I blinked, trying to process what I was feeling.
This tingling in my belly. This fullness in my chest.
Was that what this was? Did I…want him? Did I want him to touch me? Want to touch him? For the sake of what? Dipping my fingers into forbidden waters? To experience something unlike I’d ever experienced before?
To sate the feeling that suddenly washed through me?
Something that was hot and sticky and twisted my stomach into a thousand knots. A feeling I hadn’t felt in so long.
A flash of guilt clutched me. Admitting it to myself felt wrong, but if I were being honest, it was something I’d never experienced before. Never before had I felt something as powerful, as inescapable, as this.
I gasped a little under the pressure of it. With the shivers that raced down my spine and spread down to throb between my thighs as he edged an inch closer.
Nothing but man towering over me.
Trent chuckled. Dark and deep. As if he’d witnessed every thought that had played out in my mind.
He reached out and stroked the pad of his thumb down the length of my cheek. “Ah, playing with fire again.”
My jaw dropped open at his touch, and he went to brushing that thumb across my bottom lip.
Fire.
Flames.
“So fuckin’ sweet,” he whispered. Those ashen eyes sparked, black flames that searched me in the night. We got held there. Just…staring at each other.
Want.
Need.
Fear.
I saw it in the fraction of a second, gone when he ripped himself away and every line of his gorgeous face went rigid. Pure, unrelenting steel. “You should get to work.”
Cold ice slicked down my spine, and my knees nearly buckled with the sudden change in his demeanor.