Outlaw Road (A MC Romance) by Nora Flite, Adair Rymer Page A

to stay focused and keep my distance from her, everything else would work itself out.
    Just like it always had.
    The click of the knob turning drew a pained moan from sleeping beauty. Not my fucking problem, the words repeated in my head. I slowly pulled the door open. She moaned again. Two steps and I was gone.
    Or I would've been, if I hadn't taken a moment to look back at her.
    Distance. It was such a sound idea, such a solid, bullet-proof plan. Amazing how quickly it all crashed and burned.
    Clean and disheveled, she had a delicateness to her that was incredibly disarming. Despite the diagonal slits from the blinds that contoured her skin like zebra stripes, I couldn't help but trace her features with my eyes. Flashes of the way her skin felt against mine from the night before were tattooed into my brain.
    She first came off like an awkward, but hot, stepsister. By the end of our little dance, I surprised myself by calling her out on what she was trying to do. My cock swelled at the memory of her on the bed, waiting for me. What I wouldn't give to wrap myself in her curved, silky body...
    But that was too dangerous.
    Getting my club back was more important.
    For once, I kicked the fucking dust off my brain and let it actually think for me. What it told me was simple. Walk out of the room .
    Instead I headed into the bathroom again. I grabbed her pile of clothes almost violently. The least I could do was get them washed. Maybe if she looked more profitable when the Knights picked her up, they'd go a little easier on her.
    This is just a transaction , I reminded myself, Nothing more.
    That's when the photograph spilled to the floor. My curiosity had me bending down, retrieving her only possession. The faded, dog-eared picture slid between my fingers. I held it up, and even in the dim lighting, I could make it out clearly.
    “Dammit.” The word slipped out louder than I'd have liked. I stole a glance at her to see if she'd woken. Flora's brows bunched together in unconscious disapproval, then she rolled over, still very much asleep.
    Lies, deceit, ulterior motives, that was fine—part of the lifestyle—but this photo was something else entirely. Something I didn't like at all.
    Flora was telling the truth.
    Shit.
    Cold reality sifted through me, piecing things together until they made a new quilt of shame. She's probably not even a junkie, then, just got shot up against her will. Nagging doubts about my deal with Roach began to weigh down on me.
    Pacing closer to her side, I quickly placed the photo face down on the bed beside Flora, no longer wanting to look at it.
    A pesky line from Paradise Lost drunkenly stumbled into my head. Abashed the Devil stood and felt how awful goodness is.
    I needed a minute to think, to focus. In the bathroom, I splashed cold water on my face. When I looked in the mirror, I saw that the diffused glow of natural sunlight through the blinds had cast me in a stark contrast.
    Half dark. Half light.
    I slicked my hair back and picked up my vest. “This doesn't change anything. She was telling the truth, so what? Remember what's important,” I whispered to my reflection, watching him shrug on the thick leather and tug at the patches, specifically one that read 'Nomad.' “Remember who you are.”
    I didn't give her a second look as I fled into the hall and locked the door behind me.
    ****
    “L eave me alone.” Flora's drowsy voice greeted me from beneath the covers as I pushed open the door to our room.
    “So I take it an encore is out of the question?”
    “Go away,” she mumbled.
    “So you want me to donate these clean clothes to the local Salvation Army, then?”
    Flora pulled the blanket down enough to look at me skeptically. I put the folded stack on the bureau across the room. “You washed them?”
    “Turns out the maids only work weekends,” I said. “That's probably why we didn't get any mints on the pillows.” Not wanting her to read into the gesture, I quickly changed the