I don’t deserve sweetness like that.
Rake frowns. “You can’t stay a bit?” He steps closer to me so only I can hear. “I want Anna to feel welcome.”
He doesn’t want her to run scared, I can see it in his eyes. He’s afraid she won’t want anything to do with us, him, or this lifestyle.
A valid concern.
I lick my bottom lip, not wanting to hurt Rake but needing to get away right now.
He saves me. “Don’t worry, you go on ahead.”
“Thanks, brother,” I tell him, flashing him a grateful look. I can’t help myself—my eyes dart to the woman before me, to see her already watching me, a thoughtful expression on her face.
Yeah, that’s not good.
“See you around, Anna,” I manage to get out.
She arches a delicate brow. “You can count on it.”
I leave the clubhouse feeling like something just changed, even though I know it is impossible.
Mary is six feet under, where I should be.
It should have been me. I lead this life. She was just a veterinarian who hooked up with the wrong man. A man who couldn’t offer her anything other than a good fuck. Not even monogamy.
I don’t need to drag anyone else down with me; what I need to do is to stay away from Anna, the first woman who’s stirred any interest in me in a long time.
I get on my bike and ride away, pushing thoughts of a perky little blonde out of my head.
ONE
ANNA
DO you have any plans now?” Damien asks as we walk out of the lecture.
I turn to him. “My ride will be here soon. I’m just going home. I have a lot to do.”
“Oh, okay. How about this weekend?”
Damien’s a nice guy, but I don’t feel anything when I look at him. He is just a friend; not even that, more of an acquaintance.
“I’m going out with my best friend, Lana, this weekend,” I reply, forcing a smile. I don’t want to lead him on, but I don’t want to hurt him either. I am horrible in these kinds of situations.
“Maybe I could take you—”
I roll my eyes as I hear the rumble of a motorcycle, stopping Damien midsentence. Sliding my phone into my bag for safekeeping, I say, “Gotta go, Damien. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
“’Bye, Anna.”
Right on time—like clockwork.
I glance around the courtyard, then walk toward the parking lot. You would think at my age I could catch a bus home to my apartment without any drama, but that isn’t the case. I don’t have a car, but I’m saving up for one. However, my brother makes sure I have a lift home after class, especially if I finish in the late afternoon. I’m still not sure how I feel about it. It does feel good to have someone, my brother in particular, looking out for me, but at the same time, after doing my own thing for so long, I feel a little claustrophobic.
My brother is one of my favorite people in the world, and after not having seen him for some time, I am happy to be getting to know him again. I just moved back to the city, and am finding the move easier than I had anticipated, mainly because my best friend, Lana, is here. We’d stayed in touch ever since I moved away, so I’m psyched to be so close to her now. My brother has changed, but I know that he still loves and cares about me. I’m the only family he has, after all. His overprotectiveness, however, needs to change. I know he means well and is trying to make up for lost time, but the constant escorts are beginning to drive me batshit crazy. He keeps an eye on my every move and sometimes tries to dictate them. I feel like I’m in a damn prison. I love my brother and I’m trying to make this work for the both of us, but we’re both still on shaky ground, not 100 percent comfortable with each other yet. We’re feeling each other out, seeing how we’ve both changed and how we’ve stayed the same.
I don’t miss the curious stares from the other students on campus, but I ignore them. I can just imagine how it looks, my getting picked up every day by a different man on a motorcycle, each one of them sporting a Wind Dragons Motorcycle Club cut. Luckily for me, I’m not a young, insecure girl anymore and there’s only a handful of people in the world whose opinion I actually care about. Likely they think I’m a biker groupie, or something along those lines. In reality, I’m just a twenty-five-year-old PhD student and a girl who happens to be the younger sister of a Wind Dragons MC member. If people want to judge me, that’s their prerogative, and I couldn’t care less.
I’m proud of my brother. He is who he is. He means well and I know he loves me. Yes, he’s a biker, belonging to a motorcycle club that is well-known in these parts, but he’s also a good man.
Adam’s always been a good man.
He also happens to be a huge pain in my ass, a total man-whore, and overprotective to the point of stupidity. Ever since I was a little girl, he’d taken his role of big brother very seriously. It probably had to do with the fact that we didn’t know who our father was, and our mother was . . . absent. That was putting it nicely—in fact, our mother was a junkie who left us to fend for ourselves ever since I could remember.
My brother also made it his business to scare off any potential dates, and that hasn’t changed. If anything, it’s gotten worse. It seems when most men around here find out who my brother is, they decide I’m not worth the ass kicking they’ll get—but in a way it’s almost like a screening test. I don’t want a man who’s a pussy and afraid of my brother. I want a strong man who’ll tell my brother to fuck off and smile while he’s doing it. The thought makes me grin to myself.