Ruined - Jackie Ashenden The Knights of Ruin

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don’t want to involve the club,’ she said quietly. ‘Please, Smoke. You know how I feel about that.’

      I did. But this wasn’t just about her. This was about Annie, as well.

      ‘Remember that the club hasn’t done anything to you. And if they can help Annie, isn’t that more important?’

      ‘It’s not... It’s not about Dad.’

      Sure it wasn’t. Her father had been a biker and a nasty bastard. Like mine. Except her dad hadn’t beaten her half to death every time he got drunk. No, he’d been more the absent type—away a lot on club business and not much interested in anything else. Especially not the poor little rich girl he’d got pregnant or the daughter he’d fathered.

      Anyway, I called it like I saw it.

      ‘That’s a piece of shit, Cat. And you know it.’

      Her body tensed and she looked up at me, her eyes sharp as green glass. ‘This is about Annie, not Dad.’

      ‘Yeah, it is.’ My hands were on her hips and I found myself tightening my hold on her, as if I could make her see that her fears were all the product of her past with nothing but the strength of my grip alone. ‘Which means if you want to make sure she’s safe, you need to let me handle this.’

      An expression I didn’t recognise moved in her eyes. Anger and something else, too. Something unfamiliar. Then her gaze dipped and—holy fucking shit—she was staring at my mouth.

      I went still. Completely and utterly still. She’d never done that before, and there was only one reason in the entire world she would.

      Obviously picking up on my shock, she pushed at me again. But I held on. No way was I going to let her go—not now. Not when I’d caught her looking at me the way I never in a million years thought she would.

      ‘Smoke.’ She pushed harder, her cheeks flushed, her thick black lashes veiling her gaze.

      ‘No.’ I tightened my grip, suddenly desperate to know what the hell was going on. ‘We need to talk, Cat.’

      ‘What? No, we don’t. Look, I’m tired and—’

      ‘We need to talk about what you saw in the hallway tonight.’

       CHAPTER THREE

      Cat

      I FROZE AS soon as he said the word hallway.

      What a stupid bitch I was. I should never have looked. I should never have allowed him to get close. But he’d given me plenty of hugs before and it shouldn’t have been a big deal.

      Yet it was. There was something about the feel of his hands on my hips, the quiet strength in them, that I’d never noticed before. I’d never noticed how hot he was either. My hands on his chest felt scorched, like they’d been pressed against a furnace. He smelled delicious, too, his familiar aftershave reminding me of a forest—all dark and woody and spicy—along with the faintest tinge of leather from under his cut.

      And when I looked up at him, angry and resistant to the idea of him going to the club for help with Annie, for some reason I couldn’t hold his gaze. The darkness of his eyes seemed to draw me in, suck me down, wrap me up in soft velvet and keep me there. It disturbed me, so I looked at his mouth instead.

      A big mistake. Because that wasn’t any better. I couldn’t help noticing how beautifully shaped it was, how full the curve of his bottom lip was, and how if anyone had a kissable mouth, then surely it had to be Smoke...

      Yeah, crazy. That’s what I was. Certifiable. He was my friend—my best friend—and I didn’t want to look at him that way. I didn’t have many people in my life who’d stuck around, but he was one of them and I did not want to screw that up.

      So I tried to dismiss my blush through sheer force of will, tried to ignore the heat that was stealing through me at the feel of his body against mine. Tried desperately not to notice that the chest beneath my palms was rock hard and so very, very hot...

      ‘What hallway?’ I said stupidly.

      ‘You know what I’m talking about.’

      ‘Oh, that.’

      I tried to pull away, but he was having none of it. His hands moved to the back pockets of my jeans, and before I could do anything to stop him, he slid them down inside them, his fingers curving over my butt.

      All the breath left my lungs in a wild rush and I looked up at him in shock.

      His eyes were so dark—black as tar—and they glittered, making something inside me draw in tight like a hand closing into a fist.

      ‘What are you doing?’ My voice sounded breathless and frightened, which was annoying since I’d never been afraid of Smoke.

      He ignored me. ‘You saw me getting sucked off by Hannah.’

      I blushed like a teenager but bluffed it out. ‘Yeah, so what? It was disgusting.’

      ‘Is that why you’re acting so weird?’

      I couldn’t think. All I was aware of was how hot his hands felt inside the pockets of my jeans, with his palms pressing lightly, the heat of them soaking through the denim. But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was the heat of him in front of me and how conscious I was of it. How conscious I was of him.

      Beneath my palms his chest felt incredibly hard—a wall of firm muscle that probably wouldn’t move no matter how hard I pushed. If I pushed. And his arms were around me strong and sure, like bands of iron.

      He’d held me in those arms before. When Dad had gone away for that final time and never come back. That final job he’d had to do for the stupid club he’d been a part of. Not that he’d ever paid much attention to Mom and me, but a death was a death and my mom wasn’t the hugging type. At least, she didn’t hug me. So all I had was Smoke.

      But back then I didn’t notice the firmness of his chest or the heat of his body. Or how good he smelled. Back then all I felt was grief and rage.

      Now, though, everything was different.

      ‘I’m not acting weird,’ I mumbled, staring at his chest.

      God, I so did not want to have this conversation with him. Not when all this awareness was careening around inside me, and most definitely not while he had his hands in my back pockets and his arms around me.

      ‘You are. Look at me.’

      I don’t know what it was in his voice. A note of something...hard. Like it was an order. Normally I hated people telling me what to do, but right then I found myself doing it. Lifting my head and meeting his eyes.

      They were black—like the extradark, extrastrong espresso I used to make him when he had a hangover. And they were just as hot, too. They made an electric shock go straight down my spine.

      I shoved at him then, entirely instinctively, trying to get away from all the weird feelings...trying to get away from him. He let me go straight away and I had the strangest sense of disappointment as he did so, as if I’d been enjoying his hold.

      You’re crazy.

      Yeah, I really was. I didn’t have feelings for Smoke. He was the best friend I had in the world—like a damn brother. End of story.

      He frowned. ‘What the fuck, Cat?’

      My cheeks were on fire and I really didn’t want to look at him. But I made myself do it, folding my arms defensively over my chest. ‘I need some space, okay?’

      His dark gaze scanned my face and, damn him, he probably knew exactly why I was blushing. Jesus, how embarrassing was that?

      Slowly he folded his arms, mirroring me, and I couldn’t stop noticing the flex of his biceps as he did so,

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