Out in public, she kept to herself. Blowing out a breath, she stared at her food. She wanted that feeling again. The freedom of living, of basking in the glow of the slight danger from doing something that was completely naughty.
Pulling out her cell phone, she typed the Soldiers clubhouse into an Internet search and waited. Although she assumed she wouldn’t find anything, Constance was surprised when a number came up in the search results. Maybe she should have, but she didn’t even hesitate as she called it.
“Yeah?”
A moment of silence stretched on. Had she called the right number? Was this an actual direct line to a biker group? Surely they had to be kind of legitimate, right?
“Um, is this the Soldiers of Wrath Clubhouse?”
“Yeah. This is Weasel. Who the hell is this?”
Her heart thundered hard. “Can I speak to Vengeance?”
“Who is this?” His voice was hard, cold.
“Tell him it’s Constance.”
There was silence, and then in the distance she heard a shout. Glancing around the café, she couldn’t help but smile. Julie, everyone around her, they all expected something specific from her. A routine. Her mother had told her she had to uphold the family name, and with that, it meant not doing anything stupid or rebellious. She had to think about more than herself.
They were gone. She could think of herself now. She could be alive and free, trying to live for herself, and not the idea of what someone else wanted.
“Hello, sweetness,” Vengeance said. “What can I do for you?”
Hearing his voice had her body tightening, her heart racing. She glanced down, still smiling. “Does your offer for a ride still stand?” she asked.
“You want to go for another ride?”
“Yeah, I really do.”
6
“So tomorrow then?” Constance said, her voice soft, sweet, and doing all kinds of things to him.
“Yeah, I’ll pick you up from work.”
“Sounds great.”
He disconnected the call, stared at the wall, and wondered if this was how Demon and all the other brothers felt when they’d found the females they wanted in their lives.
She’d found out where he was, , although that probably wouldn’t have been that hard, but hell, he felt pretty fucking good.
Truth was he already knew her details—her full name, her address, phone number. Fuck, she’d probably think he was a stalker if she knew all the digging he’d done on her. But it wasn’t like that. He felt this connection with her, and he didn’t want to pass it up as this one time he met a girl in a graveyard.
He hung the phone up, thinking about their plans for tomorrow.
“What was that about?” Weasel asked, amusement in his voice.
“It was about none of your fucking business.”
Weasel flipped him off, and Vengeance chuckled. The brothers in the club were nosy fuckers, always wanting to know what the fuck was going on with everyone else. This was a family, after all, but still, he wanted to keep what he had felt with Constance to himself. He wanted her, that was undeniable, but opening up about any of it, especially with a fellow Patch, was not what he wanted right now.
He headed down the hall, opened the door that led to the basement, and once at the landing he turned the light on. They stored a lot of shit down here, but there was a punching bag, some old as fuck weights, and privacy.
The latter was why Vengeance worked out down here instead of in the main workout room they had set up.
He took his cut and shirt off, started warming up by bouncing on the balls of his feet and cracking his neck, and went to town on the bag. He kept at it until he was sweaty, the hours seemed to pass, and his knuckles were bruised, the skin starting to open up.
The entire time he thought of Constance, what he wanted with her, and how he wanted to keep her close. How in the fuck was he going to keep his cool when what he wanted, what he felt like he needed in his heart, was her in his life?
She stared at the rose, the yellow color meaning friendship. The bud was perfect, the stem long. The thorns on it were deadly, but the intent and message clear.
Beauty can be dangerous and painful.
Constance ran her finger over the stem, her thoughts on Vengeance, on their plans for tomorrow. He’d been happy to hear from her, and she’d felt this flutter of excitement at that, at the fact his voice had lit up when she’d spoken.
That gentleness, that feeling like when he looked at her he really saw who she was, seemed to go against the whole biker persona she had in her head. Sure, he was dangerous, and could be violent to those who crossed him, but then he showed her a different side.
Vengeance showed her that with that darkness there was light. She had her own demons, her own misgivings about the world, herself, and of course life. But when she was with Vengeance, even if it had just been for that one night, she felt like none of that mattered.