The room erupted in chaos as he made his announcement. None of us wanted a truce; we wanted to bury the motherfuckers.

“Enough!” King roared, slamming his hand down on the table in front of him. “Let me fucking finish!” When he had everyone’s attention again, his eyes glittered with the crazy he was known for and he continued, “The truce won’t be forever. And we’ll use the time to make plans. No one kills a Storm member and gets away with it. I fucking promise you that.”

With that, he stood and ended the meeting before leaving the room. I knew he was heading back to see the doctor about Kick. I also knew he wouldn’t sleep until he knew Kick was going to pull through. That was King—loyal to his men until the very end.

* * *

Tatum’s eyes met mine as soon as I entered the bar after I left the meeting. She looked away almost as fast as she looked at me.

I pulled up a stool next to her at the bar a moment later and jerked my chin at the woman Kick had found to replace Brittany. Kree Stone. From what I’d heard, she’d kept the bar running with no problems the last couple of days.

“What can I get you?” she asked as she drew close. I didn’t miss the frown she sent Tatum’s way before giving her attention to me.

I ordered a beer and once she left us, I said to Tatum, “Something bothering you, Vegas?”

She’d left me without a word earlier. That was after she made it clear she wanted to clean up my face. Fucking confusing. I had no clue what was on her mind and I had no interest in dealing with female issues that night, but I also didn’t need shit interfering with club business. If there was a problem, I wanted to know about it for that reason only.

She faced me. “I’m just trying to get through this, Nitro, and right now I don’t feel like talking.”

I swallowed some beer. “That makes two of us, but I need to know if you’ve changed your mind about staying here.”

The confusion she looked at me with matched my own. “Why would I have done that?”

“Because there’s a lot of shit happening around here. And you seemed to be taking it okay until you walked out on me this afternoon. You’ve gone from wanting to clean my face to not wanting to look at me or talk to me. I don’t know what the fuck happened, and I don’t really care except if whatever it was causes you to call Billy and screw up the shit we’ve got going on.”

She pushed off her stool and picked up her phone. “I’m not going to screw anything up. And fuck you. Just when I start thinking you’ve got something here”—she jabbed at my chest—“you prove me wrong.” With one last filthy glare, she stalked away from me. If I thought I was confused before, I was at a fucking loss after that outburst.

I threw back some more beer. “Fucking women,” I muttered as I raked my fingers through my hair.

“I see you fucked that up.”

Jerking my head up, I found Kree watching me. “Fucked what up?” I demanded.

“You were an asshole to her just now.”

I gripped the beer bottle tighter. “Most women would tell you that’s my specialty, but I don’t see how I fucked anything up because there was nothing to fuck up.”

Her mouth spread out into a small smile as she shook her head. “Clueless too, I see.” She rested her elbows on the bar. “I’ll give you a tip—when you want to sleep with a woman, you should never tell them you don’t care about something that’s on their mind. It makes their vagina snap closed.”

My shoulders tensed. “Let me give you a tip, Kree. Stay the fuck out of my business if you want to keep this job. And for the record, I might have wanted to fuck Tatum, but pussy is easy to come by. And when it comes without fucking baggage it’s even better.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. Sure, travelling without baggage seems easier, but when all is said and done, it’s what’s in the baggage that makes the trip sweeter.”

I drank the rest of my beer and shoved the empty bottle her way before sliding off the stool. Without another word, I stalked out of the bar. I didn’t need another woman getting in my face that night. Tatum was enough of a fucking handful to be dealing with.

* * *

The next morning, I woke before sunrise after only a few hours sleep. Renee was fast asleep but Tatum was nowhere to be seen. I dressed and went in search of her.

She sat outside, wrapped in a blanket, on the wooden bench I often sat at myself when I was seeking solitude. The first rays of light cracked through the sky as I stepped through the front door of the clubhouse, illuminating her face as she stared out into nothing. She turned to me as I approached, the hard set of her jaw from last night gone.

“It’s cold. You should get something warmer on,” she said, surprising me. Always surprising me. I’d expected another tongue-lashing, not more care from her.

She was right, it was cold, but my jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt were enough for me. I didn’t tend to feel the cold too much.

I sat next to her. “You sleep okay?”

She stared at me for a long moment before sighing. “Do you really care?”

I scrubbed my hand over my face. “Fuck, Tatum, I’m not a complete bastard. I know you think I am, but—”

Her hand moved over my arm and her fingers curled around my wrist. “I don’t think you are, but you sure make it hard for people to think otherwise.”

My gaze was glued to her hand wrapped around my wrist. Her touch heated my skin like no other woman’s ever had before. The desire to fuck her took hostage of my mind. And on top of that, there was something else. Something I’d never experienced before. A desire to take her into my arms and just be with her. The idea of simply holding her, even if I wasn’t inside her, took hold like a needy fucking child.

Jesus, I was losing my shit. Even my breathing was under siege. Breaths forced their way from me in choppy waves. I stood, forcing her to let me go. “I’m hoping to get you home today or tomorrow. We should have things settled soon so it’ll be safe for you to be home.” I said, leaving the rest of our conversation unspoken.

She blinked. It was her only reaction to my swift change of direction. Thankfully, she moved right along with me. “How’s Kick?”

I gripped the back of my neck, massaging the kinks out. “I’m about to check on him. Doc was hopeful he’d pull through the night, but it was touch and go for a bit there.”