Chaos Bound (Sinner's Tribe Motorcycle Club #4)(27)
“Not giving up yet.” He shook off Shaggy’s hand and shouted at Shooter who had lost his battle with gravity and dropped the bike on its side. “Jesus Christ. I don’t know why Jagger gave you that patch if you can’t even push a bike up a ramp without dropping it. Take it back inside and ask the mechanics to touch it up. Then I want you to detail it like your f*cking life depends on it. Make sure there isn’t a speck of dust on T-Rex’s bike. I want it to shine like the goddamn sun, so when I bring it to him he’s blinded by the f*cking light.”
“Hold up, brother.” Shaggy’s hazel eyes shifted from green to brown, unnerving Tank who always looked to a man’s eyes to take his measure. “Much as I hate to defend Shooter, he was trying his best. The ramp isn’t even.”
“Then he shouldn’t have pushed the bike on it,” Tank spat out, grateful to have a focus for his grief and anger.
Shaggy shook his head. “This won’t bring him back.”
Tank clenched his fist so tight his nails dug into his palm. “I’m not doing it to bring him back,” he bit out. “I’m doing it because he’s coming back, and when he does he’ll need his bike. If it’s clean, he’ll know I never gave up on him, that I had faith, that I knew he’d be back.”
Shaggy held up his hands palms forward. “Hey, man. Whatever makes you happy.”
“T-Rex’s bike. Clean. Waiting for him to ride. That makes me f*cking happy.” He turned away quickly so they didn’t see his damn eyes water.
EIGHT
What the f*ck?
Holt stumbled along the wood-paneled corridor, his brain still hazy from sleep. Last thing he remembered was Naiya shoving a damned needle in his arm. Anger. Swearing. Frustration. And a curious fear that he wouldn’t be able to protect her. Then f*cking nothing.
A wall of windows greeted him as he emerged into a spacious living room overlooking a thick forest with the glimpse of a lake beyond. Even without the log furniture, antler lighting, and rustic decor he would have guessed they were in a cabin. The mixed scents of cedar and pine filled the air, and something else … something delicious.
His stomach rumbled as he followed the smell to a cozy kitchen. The donuts Ally had brought to the motel room had barely made a dent in the hunger pangs that had been his constant companion for the last three months.
He jerked to a stop in the doorway, trying to get a grip on his anger. After what he’d been through in the dungeon, he wasn’t emotionally equipped to deal with the loss of agency her little trick had engendered, or the vulnerability. He never wanted to be helpless again, and back at the motel … when he felt the drug pulling him down … only anger had saved him from the grip of fear.
Hand tight on the doorframe, he shouted her name. At least that’s what he thought he did. Instead, his mouth dropped open and he just stared at Naiya stirring a pot on the stove, her back to him, her body bathed in the warm orange light of the setting sun as she sang Led Zeppelin’s “Ramble On.”
Jesus f*cking Christ. He loved that song. The greatest f*cking geektastic song by the best band of all time. He remembered the first time Tank played it for him. They’d been trunking with Cade one night and the drug dealer they’d stuffed in the trunk was making a helluva lot of noise. While Cade called the dealer’s buds and arranged a payout for his freedom, Tank turned up the radio just in time for the first few beats of “Ramble On.” Holt had always thought it was about a girl and wandering around, but Tank made him pay attention to the lyrics. Mordor. Gollum. The whole song took place in Middle Earth. Holt never forgot the grin that split Tank’s face. After that, every f*cking time they drove around together, Tank pulled the song up on his phone and blasted it through the speakers. And he always had the same grin. Ear to f*cking geektastic ear.
Holt had never made the connection, but as he listened to Naiya’s soft voice, watched the sway of her hips, and the sun play over her hair, he realized she had a lot in common with Tank—from her love of comic books, to the music she enjoyed, to the way she stayed calm under pressure and did what she thought was right despite Holt’s views on the matter.
His gaze drifted down to her perfect, heart-shaped ass outlined in dark denim, the flare of her hips, and then back up to the curve of her waist, hugged by a tight red T-shirt. Maybe not exactly like Tank.
He liked that her feet were bare, and that she sang as she cooked when she thought no one could hear her. After the hell he’d been through, the entire scene was surreal, peaceful. Domestic. Sweet. Not something that had ever been on his radar. He almost didn’t want to have words with her about what she had done.
“Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to sit down and eat?” She looked back over her shoulder, cheeks flushed, the light dancing in her eyes. “I’ve made lasagna, garlic bread, and salad. I like red wine with dinner, but Doug thought you were more of a beer or whiskey man, so I bought both. I’ve also made soup in case real food is too much for you.”
Holt’s mouth watered, not just at the prospect of eating a meal, but also at the fact it was home cooked. Before his capture, he lived at the Sinner clubhouse with a few of the other unattached brothers who hadn’t saved up enough money to buy their own place. Food was grabbed on the go unless one of the brothers with an old lady invited him home for dinner, or one of the sweet butts did some cooking instead of doing what they were supposed to do—what they often did for him, what he was thinking about doing now that Naiya had bent down to pull something from the oven.